The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1894-11-10
SKETCH OF HIS CAREER.
Incidents in tho Life of Alexander Ill,
The House of Romanoa.

1nClQenIS IN the Lie OF Alexander Ill
The House of Romanoff.
Alexander III, emperor of all the
Russias, who succeeded to the throne
on the murder of his father by a nihil-
list conspirator on March ID. 1881, was
born March 10, 1s45. His coronation
He married, in 1856, Mary Feodorovna,
formerly Mary Sophia Frederick Dag
mar, daughter of Christian ~, king of
Denmark, and sister of the princess
Of Wales and the king of Greece.
The principal concern of the car was
to put down nihilism, to develop the
military power of Russia, to organize
her Asiatic and Caucasian provinces,
and to keep Il steady eye upon Con-
stantinople. From the beginning of
his reign periodical attempts upon his
life We're made by the nihilists.
Twice officers in his W army
tried to shoot him. In 1883 lie
and his family narrowly escaped
death in n railway accident near Borki.
The train was thrown from the track
and many passengers We're killed, but
the imperial party were hardly injured.
Last spring a plot was formed in Fin
land to blow up the castle which the
car was expected to occupy during the
fall around Smolensk.
The car was deeply religious. He
vas under the influence of
such bigots rs Pobodonoszetf, pro-
curator of the holy synod aud his
group, and prosecuted the Jews, Catho-
lies and German Lutherans in Russia
without cessation or mercy. The car
left five children, the Crown Prince
Nicholas, 81 years old; the Grand Duke
George, now i'll in the south of Russia;
the Grand Duchesses Xenia and Olga
and the Grand Duke Michael, a boy in
his teens.
Alexander Alexandrovitch, car aud
autocrat Of nll the Russians, was of the
imperial house of Romanotf.
The dynasty is n web woven of the
greatest lines of ancestry in northern
Europe and the east, and it's origin il
lost III the labyrinth OF antiquity. Rus
sian history properly begins with Rurils
Of Sweden, who settled at Novgorod in
e62 and conquered Russia, and the
Rolnanoffs claim him as an ancestor.
But they are also descended from the
Emperor Constantine, Monomachus
and the Paleologi, from Zingis Khan,
from the earliest princes of Novgorod,
and from the last of the Anglo-Saxon
kings.
In the thirte enth century this house
were chiefs and hereditary high priests
at the affairs dedicated to the sun in
Li,huanin. The religious zeal of the
where they embraced Christianity and
were enrolled among the mobiles for
their services in the wars with the Mon
gols, who oppressed Russia for 800
years. For centuries they shared the
vicissitudes of the empire and at times
were almost exterminated by-pefsecu-
ton, torture. and exile. On the other
hand they were lonored by numerous
alliances with the imperial family.
Their lenders frequently married the
daughters of the emperors, and finally
in 1854 Anastasia Romnnova, the flower
of the flock, became the wife of Ivan
~, the first Of the line to adopt the
title of cZar, or cesar.
Ivan Nv left children, but their place
was usurped by Boris GodonoH VINO
lived and reigncd until 1905, and who,
to maintain himself in power, followed
the Romanoffs with relentless persccu-
ton.
But at his death, when the empire
was d~isorganizcd and in ruins, his son
was pushed aside and the boyars
elected i'll 1913 as emperor of Russia u
Romanoff. This was Michael Roman
off, a youth of II, whose mother was a
daughter of Ivan ", and Anastasia
and Romanova, who was in exile and
obscurity, and whose father, though
patriarch OF Moscow, was lingering in
a Polish dungeon. into which Godonotf
had thrust him. This was the origin
CT the Romnnotf emperors.
Alcxander's Predecessors.
From this period the Romanoffs have
been as much German as Russian.
Michael Romanoff died in 1915, and his
successors, mostly his lineal descend
ants, in order, were Alexis, died 1879;
Feodore, died 1852; Peter |, called the
great, died 1852; Potter ii, another son
of Alexis, died 1890, at the age of J2,
and Peter III, who was the grandson
OF Peter the great, his mother being
Anna Teodoroyich, the daughter OF
Peter the great. and the duke of Hol-
stein. Peter III married Sophia Au-
gusta, princess of Anhait-Zerbst, in
upper Saxony, who took the name Of
Catherine, and who, having de-
throned. her husband, reigncd from
1859 to 1875.
Catherine was succeeded by Paul
P%etrovich, her son, but of doubtful pa
ternity, who married Dorothea sophin,
princess OF Wurtcmberg, and was as
sassinated in 1901. On his death he
was succeeded by his son, Alexander
P%aulovich, or Alexander /. who mar
ried Louise Charlotte, daughter OF EN-
pcror Frederick William Ill of Prussia,
and died In 1925. II was during his