Monarchist Nostalgia Remains Powerful.

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The recent reburial of the remains of Maria Fyodorovna, the Danish princess who married the future Aleksandr III of Russia in 1866, is the latest episode in a long-standing effort to cultivate the idea of restoring the monarchy in Russia. The idea gained currency under President Boris Yeltsin in 1997, when his close circle, alarmed by the Russian president's ailing health, started to think about a possible successor. Some of them turned their attention to the living descendents of the Romanov dynasty. That same year, renovation work began at the Kremlin to restore the coronation hall and the tsar's throne. In 1998, Yeltsin attended a state ceremony to bury the remains of the last Russian emperor, Nicholas II, and his family, who were killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918.