The story itself, broadly familiar from popular treatments over the years, is well told by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa in “The Last Tsar ... Nicholas II having survived Russia’s 1905 revolution ...

The Romanov family ruled Russia from 1613 to 1917 ... known as the Time of Troubles (1589 Ü 1613). The last tsar of the previous dynasty, a weak son of Ivan the Terrible, died in 1589.