Nicholas II: Last of the Tsars

A character study that views Nicholas II through his governance, this plodding tome offers a familiar history of events leading to the 1917 Russian Revolution. The only news here is French historian Ferro's suggestion, based on the contradictory accounts of the execution of the imperial family at Ekaterinburg in 1918, that Tsaritsa Alexandra and the Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia may not have been killed. Readers who are titillated by that possibility will be annoyed, however, by the author's failure to explain whether he dates happenings according to the Gregorian calendar or the Julian calendar used in Russia until 1918. The confusion caused is not insignificant, as for example in Ferro's recreation of ``Bloody Sunday'' in 1905, a pivotal event in which thousands of peasants marched in St. Petersburg to petition the Tsar for reforms, and were fired upon by soldiers. Ferro dates the massacre January 9, other historians, January 22. Photos. (May)