On 1 October 2008, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation ruled that Nicholas II and his family were victims of political repression and rehabilitated them. [169], Over the years, a number of people claimed to be survivors of the ill-fated family. What did this mean? [152] However, in a final letter that was written to his children shortly before his death in 1938, he only reminisced about his revolutionary career and how "the storm of October" had "turned its brightest side" towards him, making him "the happiest of mortals";[153] there was no expression of regret or remorse over the murders. However, as of 2011[update], there has been no conclusive evidence that either Lenin or Sverdlov gave the order. [28], To maintain a sense of normality, the Bolsheviks lied to the Romanovs on 13 July 1918 that two of their loyal servants, Klementy Nagorny[ru] (Alexei's sailor nanny)[53] and Ivan Dmitrievich Sednev (OTMA's footman; Leonid Sednev's uncle),[54] "had been sent out of this government" (i.e. His research provided the basis for the book "The Murder of the Imperial Family. The two missing children had been buried about 70 meters from the mass grave. . In the words of author Joshua Hammer "the murder of Czar Nicholas Romanov and his family has resonated through Soviet and Russian history, inspiring not only immeasurable government cover-ups and public speculation but also a great many books, television series, movies, novels and rumors." (Hammer, 1) The murder of the Romanovs [181], In late 2015, at the insistence by the Russian Orthodox Church,[182] Russian investigators exhumed the bodies of Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra, for additional DNA testing,[183] which confirmed that the bones were of the couple. [33] In early June, the family no longer received their daily newspapers. One woman, who called herself Anna Anderson, surfaced in Berlin a few years after the execution and said she survived with the help of a kind Bolshevik soldier. (Credit: Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons), Sign up for our email newsletter for the latest science news, Want More? [14] The identity of the remains was later confirmed by forensic and DNA analysis and investigation, with the assistance of British experts. [79] This claim was consistent with that of a former Kremlin guard, Aleksey Akimov, who in the late 1960s stated that Sverdlov instructed him to send a telegram confirming the CEC's approval of the 'trial' (code for execution) but required that both the written form and ticker tape be returned to him immediately after the message was sent. That meant the Empress and three of her daughters were indeed buried in the mass grave. As the civil war developed, the whole family was sent to Tolbolsk in Siberia and from here to Ekaterinburg in the Urals. [178][179] The rehabilitation was denounced by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, vowing the decision will "sooner or later be corrected". [139][122] Three skulls were removed from the grave, but after failing to find any scientist and laboratory to help examine them, and worried about the consequences of finding the grave, Avdonin and Ryabov reburied them in the summer of 1980. Around midnight on 17 July, Yurovsky ordered the Romanovs' physician, Eugene Botkin, to awaken the sleeping family and ask them to put on their clothes, under the pretext that the family would be moved to a safe location due to impending chaos in Yekaterinburg. [56] The following morning, four housemaids were hired to wash the floors of the Popov House and Ipatiev House; they were the last civilians to see the family alive. In 1998, eighty years after the executions, the remains of the Romanovs were reinterred in a state funeral in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in Saint Petersburg. Though DNA confirmed the bones were Alexei and Marias, the Russian Orthodox church didnt acknowledge the discovery, and historians worried the dispute was political, not historical. It was the missing children. For starters, two of the Romanov children were missing. And perhaps even more pressingly, could scientists be sure the grave truly belonged to the Romanovs and not some other unfortunate family? The Russian Imperial Romanov family (Nicholas II of Russia, his wife Alexandra Feodorovna, and their five children: Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei) were shot and bayoneted to death[2][3] by Bolshevik revolutionaries under Yakov Yurovsky on the orders of the Ural Regional Soviet in Yekaterinburg on the night of 1617 July 1918. [143], On 15 August 2000, the Russian Orthodox Church announced the canonization of the family for their "humbleness, patience and meekness". "What about it?" The Romanov Family Died a Century Ago. The Bolsheviks initially announced only Nicholas's death;[6][7] for the next eight years,[8] the Soviet leadership maintained a systematic web of misinformation relating to the fate of the family,[9] from claiming in September 1919 that they were murdered by left-wing revolutionaries,[10] to denying outright in April 1922 that they were dead. On 5 June a second palisade was erected, higher and longer than the first, which completely enclosed the property. This rebellion was violently suppressed by a detachment of Red Guards led by Peter Ermakov, which opened fire on the protesters, all within earshot of the tsar and tsarina's bedroom window. "We decided it here. Speculation arose as to whether she and her brother, Alexei. She has been a regular contributor to History.com since 2017. [59][168] However, only the final resting places of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna and her faithful companion Sister Varvara Yakovleva are known today, buried alongside each other in the Church of Mary Magdalene in Jerusalem. Rumors about their possible survival swirled until 2007, when Sergei Plotnikov, a builder who was part of a club that looked for the missing Romanovs on the weekends came across bone fragments. Get unlimited access for as low as $1.99/month, This story is the first in a two-part series about the Romanovs. [95] Ermakov shot and stabbed him, and when that failed, Yurovsky shoved him aside and killed the boy with a gunshot to the head. The files show how much the murder of the Tsar and. I asked, apparently with a touch of surprise. Meanwhile, Bolsheviks went on amurder spree, killing every Romanov family member and associate they could get their hands on. The lifeless bodies of Russias last monarch, his wife Alexandra, and their five children, Alexei, Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia, were about to go on a journey that would stretch over years, stoke controversy and stump historians. The states investigative team found thousands of bones and other relics from the imperial family, and DNA analysis soon confirmed they were in fact the Romanovs. 134, : , 1926. Syndicated talk-show host Jerry Springer died Thursday of pancreatic cancer, according his longtime friend and family spokesman. Transaction Publishers. [133] The box is stored in the Russian Orthodox Church of Saint Job in Uccle, Brussels. [73] Goloshchyokin reported back to Yekaterinburg on 12 July with a summary of his discussion about the Romanovs with Moscow,[64] along with instructions that nothing relating to their deaths should be directly communicated to Lenin. [57] Yurovsky always kept watch during the liturgy and while the housemaids were cleaning the bedrooms with the family. What? [132] He died in France in 1924 of a heart attack before he could complete his investigation. Historians long suspected that four servants had been buried along with the royal family. [88] Very well then, let him have one. Three days after the murders, Yurovsky personally reported to Lenin on the events of that night and was rewarded with an appointment to the Moscow City Cheka. On the night of July 16,. , II (Repentance. Forensic genealogists constructed a family tree to determine which relatives of the royal family were still living, and if they would be willing to give a blood sample. It would seem that the discovery of the missing Romanovs would put the rumors and mysteries to rest, but that didnt happen. [32] Their Brownie cameras and photographic equipment were confiscated. As Russia became the Soviet Union, the monarchy became a scapegoat, and those who supported the Romanovs went underground with their opinions as the political climate became more and more oppressive. Save up to 40% off the cover price when you subscribe to Discover magazine. [113], The truck was bogged down in an area of marshy ground near the Gorno-Uralsk railway line, during which all the bodies were unloaded onto carts and taken to the disposal site. "And who made the decision?" Members of the Presidium of the Ural Executive Council: number of people claimed to be survivors of the ill-fated family, Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine (18641918), "A Playwright Applies His Craft To Czar Nicholas II's Last Days", "From the archive, 22 July 1918: Ex-tsar Nicholas II executed", "Sleuths say they've found the last Romanovs", "Russia reopens criminal case on 1918 Romanov royal family murders", : , 1926. [187] On the centenary of the murders, over 100,000 pilgrims took part in a procession led by Patriarch Kirill in Yekaterinburg, marching from the city center where the Romanovs were murdered to a monastery in Ganina Yama. Their four daughters were named Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia, and their son was named Alexei. He held a succession of key economic and party posts, dying in the Kremlin Hospital in 1938 aged 60. Investigators turned to the remains of the Tsars brother, George, and extracted a DNA sample. The two missing children had been buried about 70 meters from the mass grave. Males also inherit the maternal mtDNA but do not pass it on to their offspring. He declared: According to the presumption of innocence, no one can be held criminally liable without guilt being proven. [3][5], Following the February Revolution in 1917, the Romanovs and their servants had been imprisoned in the Alexander Palace before being moved to Tobolsk, Siberia, in the aftermath of the October Revolution. [1] Having previously seized some jewelry, he suspected more was hidden in their clothes;[35] the bodies were stripped naked in order to obtain the rest (this, along with the mutilations were aimed at preventing investigators from identifying them). [138] Yurovsky and his assistant, Nikulin, who died in 1964, are buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. The Speckled Domes (1925). [154] His son, Alexander Yurovsky, voluntarily handed over his father's memoirs to amateur investigators Avdonin and Ryabov in 1978.[155]. A few minutes later, an execution squad of secret police was brought in and Yurovsky read aloud the order given to him by the Ural Executive Committee: Nikolai Alexandrovich, in view of the fact that your relatives are continuing their attack on Soviet Russia, the Ural Executive Committee has decided to execute you.[89]. Males also inherit the maternal mtDNA but do not pass it on to their offspring. [4] The bodies were taken to the Koptyaki forest, where they were stripped, buried, and mutilated with grenades to prevent identification. Updated: March 29, 2019 | Original: October 18, 2018. And in 2018, as the country was preparing to commemorate the 100th anniversary of their deaths, Russian investigators announced that further DNA testing confirmed that the remains were indeed authentic Now they knew for certain all the Romanovs died during the shocking execution. [32] They also listened to the Romanovs' records on the confiscated phonograph. Suddenly, armed thugs rushed in. A coded telegram seeking final approval was sent by Goloshchyokin and Georgy Safarov at around 6 pm to Lenin in Moscow. The Legions arrived less than a week later and on 25 July captured the city. [109] On 19 July, the Bolsheviks nationalized all confiscated Romanov properties,[55] the same day Sverdlov announced the tsar's execution to the Council of People's Commissars. It was found by White investigator Nikolai Sokolov and reads:[106], Inform Sverdlov the whole family have shared the same fate as the head. Ilyich [Lenin] believed that we shouldn't leave the Whites a live banner to rally around, especially under the present difficult circumstances."[24]. Talking to Sverdlov I asked in passing, "Oh yes and where is the Tsar?" In "The Crown," the remains of the Romanovs are shown to have been discovered, excavated, and identified only after Russian president Boris Yeltsin's visit to London in 1994. [27], On 22 March 1917, Tsar Nicholas II, deposed as a monarch and addressed by the sentries as "Nicholas Romanov", was reunited with his family at the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo. In December 1918, a photographic team of the U.S. Signal Corps led by Captain Howard Kingsmore arrived in Yekaterinburg, Russia, where they filmed inside the house where Tsar Nicholas II and his family was brutally murdered. [177] However, reflecting the intense debate preceding the issue, the bishops did not proclaim the Romanovs as martyrs, but passion bearers instead (see Romanov sainthood).[177]. The wall had been torn apart in search of bullets and other evidence by investigators in 1919. A second truck carried a detachment of Cheka agents to help move the bodies. On the night of 17/18 July 1918, Nicholas, his wife Alexandra and their children Alexei, Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia as well as several of their staff were executed in the basement of Ipatiev House. . 137, Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe, "No proof Lenin ordered last Tsar's murder", " . But Alexei and Marias remains are still being held in a Russian state archivenot buried along with the rest of their family. Over the course of 84 days after the Yekaterinburg murders, 27 more friends and relatives (14 Romanovs and 13 members of the imperial entourage and household)[166] were murdered by the Bolsheviks: at Alapayevsk on 18 July,[167] Perm on 4 September,[59] and the Peter and Paul Fortress on 24 January 1919. In testing the mtDNA, researchers compared the base pairs between the Tsar, Duke and great-niece. . [15] The funeral was not attended by key members of the Russian Orthodox Church, who disputed the authenticity of the remains. The mtDNA test proved Anderson was a fraud. He also had the same distinction, which confirmed the skeleton in the mass grave was indeed the last Tsar of Russia. Filipp Goloshchyokin, a close associate of Yakov Sverdlov, being a military commissar of the Uralispolkom in Yekaterinburg, however did not actually participate, and two or three guards refused to take part. [87] Yurovsky's assistant Grigory Nikulin remarked to him that the "heir wanted to die in a chair. [116] Yurovsky left three men to guard the site while he returned to Yekaterinburg with a bag filled with 8.2 kilograms (18lb) of looted diamonds, to report back to Beloborodov and Goloshchyokin. [68], The Ural Regional Soviet agreed in a meeting on 29 June that the Romanov family should be executed. "He has been shot." 29, 2023 at 7:53 AM PDT. For decades, two women each claimed they were Anastasia, the youngest Romanov daughter. "[82] At least two of the Letts, an Austro-Hungarian prisoner of war named Andras Verhas and Adolf Lepa, himself in charge of the Lett contingent, refused to shoot the women. [45] Ten guard posts were located in and around the Ipatiev House, and the exterior was patrolled twice hourly day and night. Alexei, who had severe haemophilia, was too ill to accompany his parents and remained with his sisters Olga, Tatiana, and Anastasia, not leaving Tobolsk until May. [122] The impending return of Bolshevik forces in July 1919 forced him to evacuate, and he brought the box containing the relics he recovered. The burial of the Romanov family is as gruesome as their execution The murder of the imperial family was no simple affair. Tsarina Alexandra and Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana of Russia, 1914. But two of the childrens remains were missing: Maria and Alexei. The guards would play the piano, while singing Russian revolutionary songs and drinking and smoking. Published: Apr. In the late 1970s, however, Anderson had surgery on her lower bowel and the hospital kept a tissue sample. The mtDNA in the remains matched Prince Philip. [74], On 14 July, Yurovsky was finalizing the disposal site and how to destroy as much evidence as possible at the same time. Czar Nicholas and his family waited patiently in the basement. [188] There is a widespread legend that the remains of the Romanovs were completely destroyed at the Ganina Yama during the ritual murder and a profitable pilgrimage business developed there. The official party line was that the czars wife and family were being cared for in an undisclosed location, but rumors started to swirl about what had happened to Alexandra and her children. [41] After the Romanovs made repeated requests, one of the two windows in the tsar and tsarina's corner bedroom was unsealed on 23 June 1918. The attempted looting, coupled with Ermakov's incompetence and drunken state, convinced Yurovsky to oversee the disposal of the bodies himself. Also murdered that night were members of the imperial entourage who had accompanied them: court physician Eugene Botkin; lady-in-waiting Anna Demidova; footman Alexei Trupp; and head cook Ivan Kharitonov. They must have been, and Maria could not have such bras, as they were made in Tobolsk when she was gone, to think that these bras were worn by someone else It would be ridiculous. As soon as the Czechoslovaks seized Yekaterinburg, his apartment was pillaged. The Holy Synod opposed the government's decision in February 1998 to bury the remains in the Peter and Paul Fortress, preferring a "symbolic" grave until their authenticity had been resolved. Lenin was, however, aware of Vasily Yakovlev's decision to take Nicholas, Alexandra and Maria further on to Omsk instead of Yekaterinburg in April 1918, having become worried about the extremely threatening behavior of the Ural Soviets in Tobolsk and along the Trans-Siberian Railway. Forensic investigation into the authenticity of the remains of Russia's Royal family members. 86 (Sverdlov) as well as the archives of the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Executive Committee reveal that a host of party 'errand boys' were regularly designated to relay his instructions, either by confidential notes or anonymous directives made in the collective name of the Council of People's Commissars. [28] The servants were ordered to address the Romanovs only by their names and patronymics. [64] They agreed that the presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet should organize the practical details for the family's execution and decide the precise day on which it would take place when the military situation dictated it, contacting Moscow for final approval. For starters, two of the Romanov children were missing. The Tsar, Empress Alexandria, their four daughters and one son were all believed to have perished. [148] Pyotr Voykov was given the specific task of arranging for the disposal of their remains, obtaining 570 litres (130impgal; 150USgal) of gasoline and 180 kilograms (400lb) of sulphuric acid, the latter from the Yekaterinburg pharmacy. The bodies had been dumped together, and they decomposed over time, leaving behind disorganized bone fragments. [107], Aleksandr Lisitsyn of the Cheka, an essential witness on behalf of Moscow, was designated to promptly dispatch to Sverdlov soon after the executions of Nicholas and Alexandra's politically valuable diaries and letters, which would be published in Russia as soon as possible. Now they knew for certain all the Romanovs died during the shocking execution. Children of Czar Nicholas II of Russia: Grand Duchesses Olga (1895-1918) Tatiana (1897-1918), Anastasia (1901-1918) and Maria (1899-1918) and the Tsarevich Alexei (1904-1918). [117] Yurovsky, worried that he might not have enough time to take the bodies to the deeper mine, ordered his men to dig another burial pit then and there, but the ground was too hard. A Colt M1911, similar to the ones used by Yurovsky and Kudrin. The intoxicated Peter Ermakov, the military commissar for Verkh-Isetsk, shot and killed Alexandra with a bullet wound to the head. [16] The Russian president Boris Yeltsin described the murder of the royal family as one of the most shameful chapters in Russian history. [51] In mid-June, nuns from the Novo-Tikhvinsky Monastery also brought the family food on a daily basis, most of which the captors took when it arrived. Newspapers and party communications played up Nicholas perceived weakness and denounced his monarchy as evil. For the investigation to move forward, forensic genealogists had to step in. [60], When Yurovsky replaced Aleksandr Avdeev on 4 July,[61] he moved the old internal guard members to the Popov House. . [43] An iron grille was installed on 11 July, after Alexandra had ignored repeated warnings from the commandant, Yakov Yurovsky, not to stand too close to the open window. The Red Army was secretive about the executions, and the ruling Communist party didnt permit inquiries into the historic event. [29], In August 1917, after a failed attempt to send the Romanovs to the United Kingdom, where the ruling monarch was Nicholas and his wife Alexandra's mutual first cousin, King George V, Alexander Kerensky's provisional government evacuated the Romanovs to Tobolsk, Siberia, allegedly to protect them from the rising tide of revolution. According to historian David Bullock, the Bolsheviks, falsely believing that the Czechoslovaks were on a mission to rescue the family, panicked and executed their wards. Mr Nichols died . Their bodies were removed, mutilated and burned before being buried in a forest. Trotsky wrote: My next visit to Moscow took place after the fall of Yekaterinburg. At about 1 a.m. on July 17, 1918, in a fortified mansion in the town of Ekaterinburg, in the Ural Mountains, the Romanovsex-tsar Nicholas II, ex-tsarina Alexandra, their five children, and their. Autocrats ruled Russia for 300 years. The other skeletons were not related. No excursions to Divine Liturgy at the nearby church were permitted. The execution lasted about 20 minutes, Yurovsky later admitting to Nikulin's "poor mastery of his weapon and inevitable nerves". [86] The Romanovs were then ordered into a 6m 5m (20ft 16ft) semi-basement room. [9] The Soviets finally acknowledged the murders in 1926 following the publication in France of a 1919 investigation by a White migr but said that the bodies were destroyed and that Lenin's Cabinet was not responsible. For much of 1918, the Romanov family had been the captives of the Bolsheviks who overthrew Nicholas II in the bloody Russian Revolution, and they were used to moving from place to place. 1939. As they did so, they covered them in acid and buried them. These men were all intoxicated and they were outraged that the prisoners were not brought to them alive. In 2008, after considerable and protracted legal wrangling, the Russian Prosecutor General's office rehabilitated the Romanov family as "victims of political repressions". Yurovsky was furious when he discovered that the drunken Ermakov had brought only one shovel for the burial. [25] In all such decisions Lenin regularly insisted that no written evidence be preserved. Pavel Medvedev, head of the Ipatiev House guard and one of the key figures in the murders,[58] was captured by the White Army in Perm in February 1919. The authorities exploited the incident as a monarchist-led rebellion that threatened the security of the captives at the Ipatiev House. He interviewed several members of the Romanov entourage in February 1919, notably Pierre Gilliard, Alexandra Tegleva and Sydney Gibbes. Remnick, Reporting: Writings from the New Yorker, p. 222. This page was last edited on 30 April 2023, at 15:38. Genealogists were able to identify two distant relatives. of thousands of pilgrims from all over the world at the city's Church on the Blood marks the 100th anniversary of the murder of Russia's last . HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. Yurovsky returned to the forest at 10 pm on 18 July. [40] Their only source of ventilation was a fortochka in the grand duchesses' bedroom, but peeking out of it was strictly forbidden; in May a sentry fired a shot at Anastasia when she looked out. "While the family knew the diagnosis . The 55 volumes of Lenin's Collected Works as well as the memoirs of those who directly took part in the murders were scrupulously censored, emphasizing the roles of Sverdlov and Goloshchyokin. [37] The initial fence enclosed the garden along Voznesensky Lane. 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. Among them were burned bone fragments, congealed fat,[128] Dr Botkin's upper dentures and glasses, corset stays, insignias and belt buckles, shoes, keys, pearls and diamonds,[9] a few spent bullets, and part of a severed female finger. In 2015, Nicholas remains were exhumed for further testing, and in 2018, new DNA testscorroborated the original DNA findings. Tsar Nicholas II and his family in 1913. Their ten servants were dismissed, and they had to give up butter and coffee.[30]. So when the geologist found a mass grave, he kept his discovery secret until after the Communist regime collapsed in 1991. "[90] Yurovsky quickly repeated the order and the weapons were raised. Nicholas was forbidden to wear epaulettes, and the sentries scrawled lewd drawings on the fence to offend his daughters. For women, that means they have the same mtDNA as their mother, grandmother and so-forth. [90][94], The noise of the guns had been heard by households all around, awakening many people. Nicholas, facing his family, turned and said "What? The senior aides were retained but were designated to guard the hallway area and no longer had access to the Romanovs' rooms; only Yurovsky's men had it. Nicholas noted in his diary on 8 July that "new Latvians are standing guard", describing them as Letts a term commonly used in Russia to classify someone as of European, non-Russian origin. [38] The second palisade was constructed after it was learned that passersby could see Nicholas's legs when he used the double swing in the garden. "All of them?" Twenty-seven others were killed in the next 84 days.