I wasn’t sure whether to post this under pre or post 1900 but opted for the later, as we will be discussing the effects of my premise as concerning the post 1900 era.
Nicholas II was IMO a very tragic figure; by all accounts a very nice man who loved his family and wanted badly to do good for his country and its people. One of his biggest problems was his wife, a neurotic German princess who kept trying to force her husband into behaving like an autocrat, something he was not suited for. I wonder if things would have been different if for some reason he’d married someone else. Perhaps a princess from a country with a constitutional monarchy, like Sweden or Denmark. Such a wife might have influenced him toward loosening up, permitting more authority for the Duma etc. The whole thing with Rasputin would not have happened if his heir had not had hemophilia. Nicholas would have made a fine constitutional monarch. Given all Russia’s problems the monarchy may not have survived WWI anyway, but things might have turned out for the better. Ideas?