House of Romanov

House of Romanov Романовы
Argent, a griffin gules, holding in its right paw a sword, in the left an oval buckler or, on it an eagle displayed sable; the whole within a bordure of the last charged with eight lion's heads erased, alternately of the first and the third.[1]
Parent house	Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp (since the mid-18th century)[a]
Country	List Russian Empire Tsardom of Russia Congress Kingdom of Poland Grand Duchy of Lithuania Grand Duchy of Finland Grand Duchy of Oldenburg Duchy of Courland and Semigallia Duchy of Holstein Order of Malta
Founded	21 February 1613 (1613-02-21)
Founder	Michael I
Current head	Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna of Russia (great-great-granddaughter of Alexander II of Russia, disputed[2] Prince Alexis Romanoff, (great-great-grandson of Alexander III of Russia), disputed [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] Prince Karl Emich of Leiningen, under the regnal name Nicholas III (great-great-great-grandson of Alexander II of Russia), disputed[8]
Final ruler	Elizabeth I (agnatic line) Nicholas II (cognatic line)
Titles	Tsar of all Russia (1613–1721) Emperor of all Russia (1721–1917) Other titles...
Connected families	Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, House of Windsor, Saltykov family, Rakhmanov
Deposition	15 March 1917 (Russian Revolution)
Cadet branches	Several minor branches

The House of Romanov^[b] (also transliterated as Romanoff; Russian: Рома́новы, romanized: Romanovy, IPA: [rɐˈmanəvɨ]) was the reigning imperial house of Russia from 1613 to 1917. They achieved prominence after Anastasia Romanovna married Ivan the Terrible, the first crowned tsar of all Russia. Nicholas II, the last Emperor of Russia, and his immediate family were executed in 1918, but there are still living descendants of other members of the imperial house.

The house consisted of boyars in Russia (the highest rank in the Russian nobility at the time) under the reigning Rurik dynasty, which became extinct upon the death of Feodor I in 1598. The Time of Troubles, caused by the resulting succession crisis, saw several pretenders and imposters lay claim to the Russian throne during the Polish-Lithuanian occupation. On 21 February 1613, the Zemsky Sobor elected Michael Romanov as tsar, establishing the Romanovs as Russia's second reigning dynasty.

Michael's grandson, Peter I, who took the title of emperor and proclaimed the Russian Empire in 1721, transformed the country into a great power through a series of wars and reforms. The direct male line of the Romanovs ended when Elizabeth died childless in 1762. As a result, her nephew Peter III, an agnatic member of the House of Holstein-Gottorp (a cadet branch of the German House of Oldenburg that reigned in Denmark), ascended to the throne and adopted his Romanov mother's house name.^[9] Officially known as members of the House of Romanov, descendants after Elizabeth are sometimes referred to as Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov.^[10]

Paul I became the first heir to the throne, having the title tsesarevich, which was subsequently used for all main heirs.^[11]

The abdication of Nicholas II on 15 March [O.S. 2 March] 1917 as a result of the February Revolution ended 304 years of Romanov rule and led to the establishment of the Russian Republic under the Russian Provisional Government in the lead-up to the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922. In 1918, the Bolsheviks executed Nicholas II and his family. Of the House of Romanov's 65 members, 47 survivors went into exile abroad.^[12] In 1924, Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, the senior surviving male-line descendant of Alexander II of Russia by primogeniture, claimed the headship of the defunct Imperial House of Russia.

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