The imperial family in happier times. From left to right: Olga, Maria, Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra, Anastasia, Alexei and Tatiana
GETTY
On 20 May 1887, in a medieval fortress just outside of the city of St Petersburg, five young revolutionaries were put to death for attempting to assassinate Tsar Alexander III. News of their executions would hardly have come as a surprise to the people of Russia. Acts of insurrection were spreading, and those behind them were being captured, tortured and killed with almost equal rapidity.
But there was something different about this particular incident, and that was the identity of one of the men dragged to the gallows.The name Aleksandr Ilyich Ulyanov will mean little to most people today. But the alias of his younger brother Vladimir – better known as Lenin – certainly will. And, little more than 30 years later, Lenin would exact his revenge on Alexander III’s hapless successor in a brutal bout of bloodletting, sounding the death knell for one of the mightiest dynasties in world history.