Russia's Last Tsar

Witness the wrenching story of the collapse of the Romanov dynasty. Nicholas II had absolute power over his vast realm, yet he was helpless in the face of his son's hemophilia. Enter Rasputin, a wild-living Siberian "holy man" whose apparent ability to heal the heir won him the loyalty of Empress Alexandra to the dismay of almost everyone else. The backdrop for this family melodrama was a nation under stress: military disasters, poverty, political unrest, and the spread of Bolshevism. Russia erupted in 1917, and the fierce revolution cost the lives of many-including Nicholas and his family. For decades no one knew where the royal family lay buried. A few determined souls searched doggedly and discreetly. Only after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s could they reveal the resting place of Russia's Last Tsar.

• documentary
• nonfiction