"Putin becomes, in the words of one monk I interviewed, an 'echo' of the last czar," Riccardi-Swartz notes. "Folks like this monk see Putin's Russia as the last bulwark against the modern West ...

In the view of many historians, the czar’s decision to mobilize Russia’s troops in July 1914, and to enter World War I in alliance with France and Britain, was the last straw, a fatal move ...

The painting shows the last minutes of one of the aristocratic ... attached to him until much later. Ivan ruled as Russia’s first-ever czar for nearly four decades. He transformed Russia ...