The Last of the Tsars the First World War, where he served in the Russian Army. When Tsar Nicholas abdicated in March 1917, he did so in favour of Grand Duke Michael, who himself abdicated some 48 hours later. So Michael was in fact 'the last of the Tsars.' The play was commissioned by the Stratford Festival, Stratford, Ontario, Canada, in the spring of 1966, after another play on the same subject, "Nicholas Romanov" by William Kinsolving, had been tried out by the Stratford Festival Company at the Manitoba Theatre Centre in February, 1966, and found insufficiently dramatic. In spite of the shared general theme,
Union of the Russian People organisation into several smaller entities, which were in constant conflict with each other: Union of Archangel Michael (), Union of the Russian People (), Dubrovin’s All-Russian Union of the Russian People in Petersburg (), etc. After the February Revolution of 1917, all of the Black-Hundredist organisations were forcefully dissolved and banned. Soon after the February Revolution of 1917, the URP was suspended and its leader Alexander Dubrovin was arrested. The supreme body of URP was called the Main Council (). Its chairman Alexander Dubrovin had two deputies: noble landowner and future Duma Deputy Vladimir Purishkevich and engineer A. I. Trishatny.