Despite the Russian Empire’s rapid entry onto the world stage after Peter the Great’s program of westernization in the early 18th century, it began to lag far behind countries like the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States during the industrial boom that would come one hundred years later.

To the left, in a photograph from the Prokudin-Gorskii collection of the Library of Congress, can be seen a number of laborers working on tea plantation during the later years of imperial rule. Despite a large push to industrialize, Russia still remained largely agricultural at the time.

Remarkably, it wasn’t until 1861 that serfdom was abolished by Tsar Alexander II. How is it that an institution usually associated with feudal kingdoms of the Middle Ages persisted in a European power of the late-modern era? The reason: Russia’s attachment to absolute monarchy.

While Alexander II was certainly not a democrat, he recognized that times were changing and pushed ahead with small agrarian reforms. Alexander was assassinated in 1881, and his son, Alexander III was convinced that his father’s death was the result of his being too lenient when it came to granting freedoms to the general public. Progress slowed down even more during his thirteen year reign, as a result. Some argue that by the time his successor, Nicholas II came to power, a breakdown of the current order was inevitable.

Nicholas II, students of history will notice, bore much similarity to Louis XVI of France. Having little interest in ruling, Nicholas burst into tears prior to his coronation, complaining that he was not ready to be Tsar. At this point, changes were necessary in Russia, and, particularly after the assassination of Pyotr Stolypin, Nicholas was unwilling to take on the role of leader, instead taking ideas out of his father’s playbook.

Little did the head of the Romanov dynasty, which had been in power for more than three hundred years, know that his inaction would help bring on the end of an empire.