The family tragedies of the representatives of the House of Romanov are worthy of the pen of Shakespeare. The personal biography of each of the Russian emperors who reigned in the 18th century hid its own drama. All emperors from Peter I to Paul I were forced to pay a high price for the imperial triumph of the state. They sacrificed their own family, love and friendships for the sake of the empire and the throne. Peter I, who ordered the death of his son to clear the way for children from his second marriage; the unfortunate infant sovereign Ivan Antonovich, who ended up in a prison dungeon right in diapers when he was overthrown by his second cousin Elizaveta Petrovna; Peter Fedorovich, who was deprived of power and life by his own wife Catherine II and her favorites; Paul I, in a conspiracy against which his own son, the future Emperor Alexander I, took part, is not a complete list of the family upheavals of the Romanov dynasty. As a result of a whole century of palace intrigues, coups, and changes in the ruling branches of the dynasty, the family itself has changed very much. But despite small and large tragedies, it did not fall apart and looked with hope into the next century.