Who was the last czar of Russia?
Some people might say Nicholas II. However, he abdicated in favor of his younger brother Michael (deliberately bypassing his son, the hemophiliac Tsarevich Alexis), and Michael abdicated shortly thereafter. The line of succession then supposedly passed to a collateral branch, descended from Prince Vladimir Romanov — that is, to Vladimir’s son Cyril, and then to Cyril’s son Vladimir, his daughter Maria, and her son George (b. 1981). However, there have been many arguments about whether that branch is entitled to the throne under the rules of succession in place in 1918. If those rules are followed, then no one alive today is a valid pretender to the throne of Russia. A clear-cut discussion of this problem may be found in Robert Massie’s “The Romanovs: the Final Chapter” (New York, 1995), pp. 255ff.
