Sovereign: The Life and Reign of Emperor Nicholas II
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SOVEREIGN was launched in 2015, by Paul Gilbert, a British-born historian and writer, who has dedicated more than 35 years to researching and writing about Emperor Nicholas II, his family, the Romanov Dynasty and Imperial Russia. Now retired, he focuses his work on clearing the name of Russia’s much slandered Tsar.
He is able to achieve this through his blog, social media, conferences and SOVEREIGN. It is through these venues that he challenges the negative myths and lies about Nicholas II, which have existed for more than a century. He is the author of more than a dozen books, which explore the life and reign of Nicholas II, based on research from Russian archival and media sources.
From 1986 to 2018, he travelled to Russia 29 times, visiting St. Petersburg, Moscow, Ekaterinburg and Crimea. In the 1990s, shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, Gilbert organized annual Romanov Tours, which offered visits to the Imperial Palaces, palaces of the grand dukes and grand duchesses in and around St. Petersburg, museums, among others.
PHOTO: SOVEREIGN publisher and editor Paul Gilbert. Ekaterinburg. July 2018
These tours featured lectures by leading authors and Romanov historians and museum curators. Several tours included visits to the State Archives of the Russian Federation (GARF) in Moscow, to view photo albums, letters, diaries and personal items of Nicholas II and his family.
Some of the highlights of these tours included the Alexander Palace in 1996 – one of the first groups from the West to explore the interiors of Nicholas and Alexandra’s private apartments; the Grand Kremlin Museum in Moscow; Livadia Palace in Crimea, among others.
One of the highlights of his career, was organizing and hosting the 1st International Nicholas II Conference, held on 27th October 2018, in Colchester, England. It was a memorable event, which brought together more than 100 people from almost a dozen countries. A second conference is in the works.
About SOVEREIGN
There are few monarchs in history about whom opinion has been more divided than the last Emperor and Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II (1868-1918).
Myths and lies about the “weak-willed”, “incompetent”, “bloody” tsar, were created on the basis of gossip, slanderous fabrications and Bolshevik propaganda in the early 20th century. For more than 70 years, the Bolsheviks and the Soviets were perfectly content to allow these myths and lies to stand. Sadly, they remain deeply rooted in the minds of both Westerners and the Russian people to this day.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Nicholas II has undergone nothing short of a renaissance in modern-day Russia. Much of this is thanks to the efforts of the Russian Orthodox Church and monarchist groups. He has been the subject of hundreds of new biographies and historical studies, documentaries, exhibitions, discussion forums, etc. In 2002, Tsar’s Days was revived in Ekaterinburg, an annual event which draws tens of thousands from across Russia and abroad to honour the memory of Nicholas II and his family.
Sadly, many of today’s academically lazy, British and American historians and biographers, prefer to rehash the popular negative myths and lies of Nicholas II’s early 20th century detractors. Few – if any of these “experts” – have traveled to Russia to utilize the vast archival sources now available to researchers. Instead they focus on Nicholas II’s failures, and seldom reflect on the many accomplishments he made during his 22+ year reign.
It was these very myths and lies, which compelled Gilbert to launch SOVEREIGN in 2015.
In 2024, SOVEREIGN was relaunched with a new format, which now features articles researched and written by Paul Gilbert and published on this blog. Gilbert has researched these works from Russian archival and media sources. Beginning with the No. 12 Winter 2024 issue of SOVEREIGN, these articles are now available in a printed format for the first time!
In addition, are a number of First English language works by Russian historians and experts, based on new archival documents discovered since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Thanks to this new generation of post-Soviet historian, we can now review the life and reign of Russia’s last Emperor and Tsar through Russian eyes, instead of Soviet ones! They challenge and put to rest many of the lies and myths presented over the past century by their Western counterparts. Their works are based on facts and information from reliable Russian sources.
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SOVEREIGN was launched in 2015, and has published a total of 15 issues. Please note, that issues No. 1 through 11 are now out of print, although used and second-hand copies are available on eBay and Amazon.
Issues No. 12 to 16 are available exclusively from Amazon – please refer to the links below. The No. 17 Sunner 2026 issue will be published in June 2026.
Current issues of SOVEREIGN
– CLICK on the LINK below for more details, including a full list of the articles found in each issue + links to ORDER copies of the issues which interest you most:
© Paul Gilbert. 7 January 2026
Nicholas II 
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