Russian President Vladimir Putin from 2022 suddenly dies and wakes up as the future Russian Tsar Nicholas II in 1892, with all of his memories and knowledge from his past life as Vladimir Putin and with him becoing capable of spelling and writing the old Russian alphabet fluently. Anyway, what happens afterwards?
Personally, I think that Putin will refrain from marrying Alexandra due to her hemophilia and instead aim to marry someone like Princess Helene of Orleans, immediately seek a detente with Japan in the Far East, being willing to make great compromises in order to achieve this goal (perhaps a partition of Korea or even Japanese control over all of Korea in exchange for a Russian Manchuria), strongly discourage the 1903 Serbian coup d'etat and regicide from ever occurring, be MUCH more repressive in his police state apparatus than our TL's Tsar Nicholas II ever was, with Putin-Nicholas creating a proto-NKVD or something like that and making sure to assassinate any Russian dissidents (even those who currently live abroad) who could potentially cause trouble later on, such as Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, et cetera. This would, of course, make Russia an internal pariah, but Putin-Nicholas is unlikely to care. Preserving his own rule is much more important, after all.
The anti-Semitic Pale of Settlement will get abolished as soon as reasonably possible, though Putin might keep the Jewish quotas in order to avoid giving anti-Semitic Russian gentiles the impression that he's a Jew-lover and also because he wouldn't want to risk having Russian Jews spread leftism throughout Russia as a result of their disproportionate representation at Russia's universities. If the 1903 Serbian coup d'etat (hopefully without an actual regicide) actually does occur, then Putin-Nicholas is likely to be very sympathetic to the new, pro-Russian Serbian government considering that Putin-Nicholas will still have angry memories of NATO bombing Yugoslavia back in 1999 from his past life. So, in any existential crisis with Austria-Hungary, Putin-Nicholas could still back Serbia to the hilt, only with Russia very possibly surviving World War I (or an alt-World War I) intact and free from revolution due to the fact that, again, his police state will be much more repressive than our TL Nicky II's was. Putin-Nicholas would essentially be a non-anti-Semitic continuation of Russian Tsar Alexander III's reign but under a different Russian Tsar, more-or-less.
I also expect Putin-Nicholas to give both Poland and Finland much more autonomy but also to brutally crack down on any hint of Ukrainian and Belarusian nationalism that has an anti-Russian character to it. Pro-Russian Ukrainian and Belarusian nationalism would, of course, not only be tolerated but would also be highly encouraged by the Putin-Nicholas regime. Putin-Nicholas is also likely to seek detente with Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Britain since he certainly isn't going to want any wars. And he's going to be happy as a clam considering that he's already going to have his Eurasian Union right there and without Russia's extremely massive 20th century demographic devastation, to boot!
Anyway, any thoughts on this?
Personally, I think that Putin will refrain from marrying Alexandra due to her hemophilia and instead aim to marry someone like Princess Helene of Orleans, immediately seek a detente with Japan in the Far East, being willing to make great compromises in order to achieve this goal (perhaps a partition of Korea or even Japanese control over all of Korea in exchange for a Russian Manchuria), strongly discourage the 1903 Serbian coup d'etat and regicide from ever occurring, be MUCH more repressive in his police state apparatus than our TL's Tsar Nicholas II ever was, with Putin-Nicholas creating a proto-NKVD or something like that and making sure to assassinate any Russian dissidents (even those who currently live abroad) who could potentially cause trouble later on, such as Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, et cetera. This would, of course, make Russia an internal pariah, but Putin-Nicholas is unlikely to care. Preserving his own rule is much more important, after all.
The anti-Semitic Pale of Settlement will get abolished as soon as reasonably possible, though Putin might keep the Jewish quotas in order to avoid giving anti-Semitic Russian gentiles the impression that he's a Jew-lover and also because he wouldn't want to risk having Russian Jews spread leftism throughout Russia as a result of their disproportionate representation at Russia's universities. If the 1903 Serbian coup d'etat (hopefully without an actual regicide) actually does occur, then Putin-Nicholas is likely to be very sympathetic to the new, pro-Russian Serbian government considering that Putin-Nicholas will still have angry memories of NATO bombing Yugoslavia back in 1999 from his past life. So, in any existential crisis with Austria-Hungary, Putin-Nicholas could still back Serbia to the hilt, only with Russia very possibly surviving World War I (or an alt-World War I) intact and free from revolution due to the fact that, again, his police state will be much more repressive than our TL Nicky II's was. Putin-Nicholas would essentially be a non-anti-Semitic continuation of Russian Tsar Alexander III's reign but under a different Russian Tsar, more-or-less.
I also expect Putin-Nicholas to give both Poland and Finland much more autonomy but also to brutally crack down on any hint of Ukrainian and Belarusian nationalism that has an anti-Russian character to it. Pro-Russian Ukrainian and Belarusian nationalism would, of course, not only be tolerated but would also be highly encouraged by the Putin-Nicholas regime. Putin-Nicholas is also likely to seek detente with Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Britain since he certainly isn't going to want any wars. And he's going to be happy as a clam considering that he's already going to have his Eurasian Union right there and without Russia's extremely massive 20th century demographic devastation, to boot!
Anyway, any thoughts on this?
