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DNA Tests Confirm Recovery of Czar Nicholas II's Two Missing Children
by findingDulcinea Staff
Almost 90 years since Czar Nicolas II, his wife and their children were killed, the final mystery surrounding their death appears solved.
30-Second Summary
Early in the morning of July 17, 1918, the former Czar Nicolas II and his family were woken by their Bolshevik captors and told to descend to the basement.
Once the 11 Romanovs were assembled beneath the house, in Yekaterinburg, Russia, they were shot by firing squad.
By gruesome misfortune, the suffering of the girls and their mother was prolonged by the many jewels hidden in their corsets, which deflected the bullets and protracted their death.
The family’s final resting place was unknown, until investigators discovered 9 of the 11 bodies in 1979. Under Soviet rule, this was sensitive information, and it was not until 1991 that the graves were opened and DNA analysis identified the remains as the Romanovs.
This summer, two more bodies, thought to be Crown Prince Alexei and one daughter—possibly the much mythologized Anastasia, impersonated by no fewer than 10 pretenders since her death—were recovered nearby the first grave. DNA tests completed in the United States confirmed April 30 that the fragments belong to Alexei and his sister Maria, not Anastasia.
By hiding the family's bodies, the Bolsheviks sought to prevent the remains being revered by counterrevolutionaries. In that they have finally failed. In 2000, the Russian Orthodox Church canonized Czar Nicolas and his family, who became “passion bearers,” the lowest rank of saint. And, in 2003, a church dedicated to their memory was consecrated on the ground where they were murdered.
Coinciding with the discovery of the second grave in November 2007, the importance of the Romanovs’ fate was stressed before the Russian Supreme Court in a legal action that tried, and failed, to win judicial exoneration for the hapless royals.
To some Russians, that ruling is emblematic of their modern government’s reluctance to distance itself from the Communist past.
Once the 11 Romanovs were assembled beneath the house, in Yekaterinburg, Russia, they were shot by firing squad.
By gruesome misfortune, the suffering of the girls and their mother was prolonged by the many jewels hidden in their corsets, which deflected the bullets and protracted their death.
The family’s final resting place was unknown, until investigators discovered 9 of the 11 bodies in 1979. Under Soviet rule, this was sensitive information, and it was not until 1991 that the graves were opened and DNA analysis identified the remains as the Romanovs.
This summer, two more bodies, thought to be Crown Prince Alexei and one daughter—possibly the much mythologized Anastasia, impersonated by no fewer than 10 pretenders since her death—were recovered nearby the first grave. DNA tests completed in the United States confirmed April 30 that the fragments belong to Alexei and his sister Maria, not Anastasia.
By hiding the family's bodies, the Bolsheviks sought to prevent the remains being revered by counterrevolutionaries. In that they have finally failed. In 2000, the Russian Orthodox Church canonized Czar Nicolas and his family, who became “passion bearers,” the lowest rank of saint. And, in 2003, a church dedicated to their memory was consecrated on the ground where they were murdered.
Coinciding with the discovery of the second grave in November 2007, the importance of the Romanovs’ fate was stressed before the Russian Supreme Court in a legal action that tried, and failed, to win judicial exoneration for the hapless royals.
To some Russians, that ruling is emblematic of their modern government’s reluctance to distance itself from the Communist past.
Headline Links: The Romanov grave and the Supreme Court
The International Herald Tribune reported April 30 that DNA tests have positively identified the fragments found in the Yekaterinburg region in December 2007 as belonging to the Crown Prince Alexei Nikolayevich and his sister, Grand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna. Completed in the United States, the tests were confirmed by Sverdlovsk regional Governor Eduard Rossel. "So we have found the whole family," Rossel told Russian's NTV news station. The tests rule out the possibility that any members of the family survived the mass execution, or that the remains belonged to Princess Anastasia.
Source: International Herald Tribune
The discovery of the second royal grave was covered by the International Herald Tribune, which looks in some depth at the way the burial site was found. An American, Peter Sarandinaki, who started an organization to find the Romanov remains, summarized the find’s political importance: “It is because their murder symbolized the start of a diabolic era in world history. And now that has all come to an end.”
Source: International Herald Tribune
According to English-language channel Russia Today, on November 8, 2007, the Russian Supreme Court ruled that it could not exonerate the Romanovs, as requested to do so by a surviving relative, Grand Duchess Maria Romanova. The court’s investigators said that they found no evidence that orders had been issued for the royal family’s execution. They therefore concluded that Czar Nicolas II and his family were not the victims of political oppression but of a crime.
Source: RussiaToday
Two prominent Russian figures—Arseny Reginsky, a human rights activist, and Edvard Radzinsky, a playwright and historian—argued in September 2007 that the Romanovs should be exonerated by the Russian courts. At the time, the Prosecutor General’s Office had ruled that the Russian judiciary did not have the power to perform that act. Radzinsky told the Russian Interface agency, “It’s not the Romanovs who need this—it doesn’t matter to them. It’s those who are alive.”
Source: Johnson’s Russia List
Background: The Romanovs’ posthumous history and their execution
The History Channel produced a short video charting the demise of the Romanovs and the recovery of the remains of nine of the family. The last resting place of the royals in Yekaterinburg, in the heart of Russia, was first discovered in 1979. But under Soviet rule, the investigators thought it best to keep the find a secret. It was not until 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union, that the site could be properly excavated and nine of the family were disinterred.
Source: The History Channel
In July 2003, the Russian Orthodox Church consecrated a church that stands on the location where Czar Nicolas, his wife and children were executed. The patriarch of the Russian church said that it was important “that at the place where the blood of the holy regal martyrs was spilled, where an attempt to destroy Russia was undertaken, should bring a revival of the glorious traditions under which both the authorities of ordinary citizens try to coordinate their affairs with God’s precepts.”
Source: The BBC
In August 2000, the Russian Orthodox Church elected to canonize the czar and his family, making them “passion bearers,” the lowest rank of saint.
Source: The BBC
On July 17, 1998, the remains of the czar and nine of his family were interred at the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg, 80 years after they were murdered by Bolshevik revolutionaries.
Source: PBS
On the night of July 17, 1918, the czar’s family were taken down to the basement of Ipatiev House, in Yekaterinburg, where the Bolsheviks had been holding the royals prisoner. They were shot by a firing squad. The men died quickly, but the women’s agony was prolonged by the jewels hidden in their corsets, which acted as makeshift bullet-proof vests. The Ipatiev House Web site provides an account of the murder, albeit a roughly translated one.
Source: Ipatiev House
Historical Context: Russia
PBS has produced an interactive timeline that charts Russia’s history from 850 B.C. and the invention of the Cyrillic alphabet (which is used in the modern Russian language) to 1999 A.D., the year that Putin replaced Boris Yeltsin as Russian president.
Source: PBS
The Alexander Palace Time Machine offers a wealth of research materials and historical documents related to the Romanov line, the last Russian royal family, and their home in St. Petersburg.
Source: The Alexander Palace Time Machine
The house where the Romanovs were murdered was destroyed, but had it survived the creators of the Ipatiev House Web site are convinced that it would be a museum to the royal family. They have a virtual memorial to the Romanovs, an interactive and graphically attractive site filled with information, although the command of English leaves something to be desired.
Source: Ipatiev House
Key Players: Nicolas, Anastasia and Rasputin
Czar Nicolas II (1868–1918)
Nicolas took the throne in 1894 in an era of great political unrest in Russia. The growing crisis took manifest form in 1904, the year that Russia was defeated in its war with Japan and 110,000 workers went on strike in St. Petersburg, forcing the czar to institute political reforms. In 1915, during World War I, the czar took control of his foundering army. The military failure continued, and now reflected very badly on the czar. Revolution was brewing, and on March 15, 1917, the Russian Army High Command persuaded the king to abdicate. He and his family were eventually executed by the Bolsheviks on the night of July 16–17, 1918.
Source: FirstWorldWar.com
The chief of the British Military Mission in Russia during World War I, Sir John Hanbury-William, wrote an account of his experiences with the last czar. The British soldier claimed that he saw Nicolas “oftener and knew him more intimately than most others, outside his immediate ‘entourage,’ during the period of his command in the field.” He describes the Romanovs as “an apparently happy and certainly devoted family.”
Source: The Alexander Palace Association
Nicolas became head of the army in 1915, during World War I. The Tsar at Stavka is a site that reproduces photos of his time serving as head of the army.
Source: The Tsar at Stavka
Grand Duchess Anastasia (1901–1918)
Of all the czar’s family, none has exercised such a hold on the popular imagination as his 17-year-old daughter Anastasia, who has been impersonated more times than any of her relatives. No fewer than 10 claimants have declared themselves to be Anastasia since her family were murdered in 1918.
Of all the czar’s family, none has exercised such a hold on the popular imagination as his 17-year-old daughter Anastasia, who has been impersonated more times than any of her relatives. No fewer than 10 claimants have declared themselves to be Anastasia since her family were murdered in 1918.
The ease with which people identify with this young woman is reflected in the first-person narrative account of her life as presented on the interactive and elegant site “My Name Is Anastasia.”
Source: The Alexander Palace Time Machine
The most famous woman to claim to be Anastasia was Anna Anderson, who was fished out of a Berlin canal in 1920. A number of facts cast doubt on this claimant’s assertion: she couldn’t speak Russian; she couldn’t recognize photographs of members of the royal household; and DNA tests showed that she was not a blood relative of the Romanovs. Nonetheless, until her death in Virginia in 1984, she continued to attract advocates, some of whom had even met Anastasia as a girl in Russia.
Source: The Daily Telegraph
In 2002, under the headline “The Last ‘Real’ Anastasia Is Showing her Age at 101,” The Daily Telegraph of London reported on a centenarian woman in Georgia who purported to be the lost grand duchess. Commenting on the case, historian Eduard Radzinsky said, “Whenever I finish a lecture in the West, there is always some pathetic man or woman hanging around at the end claiming to have heard of, know, or actually be a Romanov. It’s sad really.”
Source: The Daily Telegraph
The biography of Anna Anderson reviewed above, “A Romanov Fantasy,” is available from the findingDulcinea store created in collaboration with Amazon.
Source: Amazon
The Pretenders
The online memorial Ipatiev House (the location in Yekaterinburg where the Romanovs were murdered) carries an interactive chart of the claimants who have declared themselves members of Czar Nicolas’s family.
Source: Ipatiev House
Grigory Rasputin (1872–1916)
Grigory Rasputin, the “Mad Monk,” the spiritual advisor to the Romanovs during World War I, is often attributed with causing the downfall of the Russian royal family. At a precocious age, Grigory Yefimovich Novykh earned a reputation for indulgent living, winning the name “Rasputin,” which in Russian means “the debauched one.” After extensive travels, he returned to Russia as a putative holy man, gaining an entrée to the court where his ministrations relieved dangerous symptoms in Crown Prince Alexis, who suffered from hemophilia. When Nicolas took charge of the Russian army and left St. Petersburg for the front, his wife was effectively in charge of domestic policy. Swayed by the advice of Rasputin, who, rumor had it, was in the pay of the Germans, the results were disastrous for the royals. A group of nobles eventually assassinated Rasputin to free Alexandra from his influence, but killing the monk was a drawn-out and bloody process, as explained by FirstWorldWar.com.
Source: FirstWorldWar.com
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