The formal rehabilitation of Russia's last tsar, Nicholas II, might seem a curious turn of events under the watch of Vladimir Putin, the man who mourned the collapse of the Soviet Union as the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century. But might it be just the latest move by Mr Putin to harness the power of the monarchy and the Orthodox Church to a post-Soviet nationalism?

Russia's supreme court yesterday recognised that the Tsar was the victim of political repression and was unlawfully killed. By doing so it absolved the Romanovs of culpability in crimes that the Bolsheviks used to justify both the Russian Revolution in 1917 and the killing by firing squad of the Tsar and his family the following year in a cellar in Yekaterinburg.

The ruling marks yet another shift in official attitudes to the Royal Family. In 1998 their remains were ceremonially reburied in St Petersburg. In 2000 the Romanovs were canonised as martyrs by the Russian Orthodox Church.

The court's ruling, says the Church, “restores historical continuity and 1,000 years of state tradition”. It also fulfils the human need for a reckoning. By confronting its past, Russia is better able to face its future. But could there be another factor at the back of Mr Putin's mind now that he is no longer President, but Prime Minister?

A century ago Pyotr Stolypin served as Prime Minister under Tsar Nicholas II, creating a precedent in the Kremlin for a strong, reform-minded and ruthlessly ambitious prime minister serving under a weak and biddable head of state.

Mr Putin should note: it did not end well. Stolypin was assassinated in 1911, possibly by conservative monarchists who feared his hold on the tsar.