T. Efremova's Explanatory Dictionary explains the phrase as a waiver of one's rights to the throne (action) or an official document about it (legal confirmation).
Sometimes historians use the legal term "abdication" (from Latin abdicatio - "refusal"), implying a decision to abdicate; refusal of a leadership position, rights to anything.
Voluntary renunciations
History knows voluntary and forced examples of abdication.
Among the voluntary relinquishments of power is the act of the 56-year-old Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Charles V, who was tired of the restless rule, passed the throne to his son in several stages, and in 1556 retired to the monastery. The depressed Spanish king Philip V also abdicated in favor of his son in 1724, but was forced to return in the same year due to the death of the young ruler.
One of the most famous renunciations of the throne was the act of King Edward VIII of Great Britain. The reason was an affair with a twice-divorced American WallisThe Simpson. As a British monarch, he was also the head of the Anglican Church and could not marry a divorced woman. Edward, who ascended the throne on January 20, 1936 after the death of George V, already on December 11 addressed the nation with an appeal in which he informed about the decision and the motives for his act. Researchers note the general inconsistency of Edward's character with the performance of royal functions and the pressure of British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. The act of the king led to a constitutional crisis in the UK.
Forced failures
The rulers did not always renounce their rights to the throne of their own free will. The emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, who lost the war, was forced to sign an abdication in 1814 under the yoke of circumstances, when not only the Senate, but also the army refused it. According to the Treaty of Fontainebleau, he received possession of the small island of Elba in the Mediterranean Sea, where he died in 1821
Austrian Emperor Ferdinand I abdicated as a result of the revolution of 1848. After signing the act, he went to live in his own estate, where he was engaged in agriculture.
In the history of Russia
The renunciation of the rights to the throne of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II, which became the result of the February Revolution of 1917, is a topic of ongoing discussions and disputes. March 2, 1917 (date of abdication) is the day of the death of the Russian monarchy.
Mild in character, indecisive Nicholas II by 1917 was left without the support of the people, the bourgeoisie andeven the army. Under pressure from the chairman of the State Duma, Mikhail Rodzianko, the emperor himself wrote the text of the abdication, in which he renounced the rights to the throne on his own behalf and on behalf of his son Alexei in favor of his brother, Grand Duke Mikhail. The latter, in turn, signed the same document immediately after Nicholas.
All commanders of the army and navy, with the exception of Admiral Kolchak, sent telegrams approving the decision of the monarch. After 16 months, the royal family was shot.
To summarize. Abdication is a voluntary or forced act of renunciation of the rights to the throne due to the impossibility of the monarch to continue to exercise the functions of governing the state.
