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Romanovs' Fate Revealed
Wall Street Journal ^ | July 10, 2012 | Jonathan Earle

Posted on 07/11/2012 7:01:18 AM PDT by C19fan

Nicholas Romanov, the deposed czar of Russia, and his family were awakened in the middle of the night on July 16-17, 1918, and told to get dressed. They were being moved to a safe location, their Bolshevik captors said, away from the White army that was closing in on Yekaterinburg, in the southern Ural Mountains.

The soldiers shepherded the family and four servants—a cook, valet, doctor and maid—into the basement of the house where they were being held. Nicholas carried his ailing son, Alexei, in his arms. Once all were assembled, a death sentence was read aloud, twice, and the eight executioners raised their guns.

Precisely what happened next took Soviet and Russian investigators nearly a century to piece together.

Now the results of those investigations, the last of which was closed last year, are the subject of an ambitious exhibition at the Russian State Archives in Moscow. "The Death of Tsar Nicholas II's Family: A One-Hundred Year Investigation," through July 29, aims to clear away seven decades of misinformation and silence under the Soviet regime.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: genealogy; godsgravesglyphs; helixmakemineadouble; romanov; russia
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I found this quote interesting:

many Russians see the Bolshevik Revolution as the start of a 70-year detour from their nation's path to becoming a developed, Western European-style state—"a normal country," as they like to say

The last hope of Russia avoiding the fate of falling to Marxist hands was probably when Tsar Alexander II was assassinated. His successor Alexander III was a autocrat reactionary and his son Nicholas II was the same except he did not have the force of personality to pull it off. As one historian described Russia during Nicholas II reign, "'autocracy without an autocrat".

1 posted on 07/11/2012 7:01:22 AM PDT by C19fan
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To: C19fan
Once all were assembled, a death sentence was read aloud, twice, and the eight executioners raised their guns.

Precisely what happened next took Soviet and Russian investigators nearly a century to piece together.

Seriously, almost 100 years to determine folks pulled the trigger?

2 posted on 07/11/2012 7:14:15 AM PDT by JRios1968 (I'm guttery and trashy, with a hint of lemon. - Laz)
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To: C19fan

An interesting read. I wonder why the Russian Orthodox Church is not buying it. More reading required on my part.


3 posted on 07/11/2012 7:16:39 AM PDT by SueRae (See it? Hell, I can TASTE November from my house!)
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To: C19fan
Nicholas II was the same except he did not have the force of personality to pull it off. As one historian described Russia during Nicholas II reign, "'autocracy without an autocrat".

I've always thought that Nicholas II would have been a very good constitutional monarch (as his cousin George V was); however, the Russian nobility was completely opposed to it.

In the 19th century western Europe was embracing democracy and had an ever-expanding middle class while Russia was still clinging to medieval feudalism. Russia effectively skipped the Industrial Revolution and eventually they had to pay the price for it.

4 posted on 07/11/2012 7:42:18 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: SueRae
Jacob Schiff of Kuhn Loeb financed the Russian Revoltion

Wonder what they got out of it?

5 posted on 07/11/2012 7:42:35 AM PDT by scooby321 (h tones)
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To: wagglebee

Russia was rapidly expanding in the decade or two leading to Great War. But the fundamentally flawed autocratic state could not handle the pressure from the Great War.


6 posted on 07/11/2012 7:45:02 AM PDT by C19fan
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To: wagglebee

That’s the irony, according to Marx, the Communist revolution was to take place in the Industrial countries, a country could not become socialist until it had a significant proletarian population in an industrialized country. Russia was nowhere near that point in 1917.


7 posted on 07/11/2012 7:46:19 AM PDT by dfwgator (FUJR (not you, Jim))
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To: C19fan

This was a tragedy, but millions of other families died in similar ways, murdered by the commies.

And Nicholas and Alexandra arguably deserved their fates, though their children and servants of course did not.

Most of the other millions who died did absolutely nothing to deserve it.

It is an oddity of history that the generally most decent and well-meaning monarchs in their respective dynasties were often the ones who got it in the neck during revolutions. Charles I (somewhat of an outlier in the decency criteria, though), Louis XVI and Nicholas II.


8 posted on 07/11/2012 7:58:40 AM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: Sherman Logan
And Nicholas and Alexandra arguably deserved their fates

Why?

9 posted on 07/11/2012 7:59:41 AM PDT by dfwgator (FUJR (not you, Jim))
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To: C19fan
You're right, Russia did start to expand in the late 19th century, but the reality is that their industrial infrastructure probably a century or more behind the UK, France or Germany at the start of WWI.
10 posted on 07/11/2012 8:03:19 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: scooby321
Jacob Schiff of Kuhn Loeb financed the Russian Revoltion Wonder what they got out of it?

The opportunity for his descendant to marry into the prestigious Gore family (Karenna)?

Of course they are divorced now.

11 posted on 07/11/2012 8:05:42 AM PDT by what's up
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To: dfwgator
I think the main catalyst is that the great majority of the Russian people were close to starving at any given point while the nobility had wealth that equaled or even surpassed that the of the British and German nobility.

The average Russian didn't give a damn about the Balkans and didn't understand why the Tsar was willing to go to war over it.

12 posted on 07/11/2012 8:09:06 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: dfwgator

Alxendra was Nicholas’ innocent consort, so I don’t see why she should get any blame. However, Nicholas II did preside over a bloody and arbitrary regime that ruled through tyranny and brute force.
You could argue that Nicholas II was in some ways a victim of circumstances, having been born into a situation where he would one day inherit the position of an autocrat in charge of a backwards Empire, but you cannot say his hands were entirely free of blood.

That said, judging from the history of Russia and the cultural mindset of the Russians, I tend to lean towards the conclusion that the Russians are fundamentally incapable of living under anything less than an authoritarian government. As Stalin once said ‘The Russian People need a tsar’...


13 posted on 07/11/2012 8:15:03 AM PDT by sinsofsolarempirefan
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To: SueRae

Same here, why did they allow the first burial if they do not think it was the Tzar, his wife and daughters?


14 posted on 07/11/2012 8:16:06 AM PDT by kalee (The offenses we give, we write in the dust; Those we take, we engrave in marble. J Huett 1658)
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To: dfwgator

Absolute monarchs, by definition, have absolute responsibility for all decisions made by their government.

Nick made the decision to take Russia into a war for which it was woefully unprepared, resulting in the deaths of millions.

He also bears at least some moral responsibility for repressive policies in the years before the war, including support of pogroms against the Jews, repression of democratic movements that might have led towards a constitutional monarchy, etc.

Alexandra shares this responsibility because it was well known that he was heavily influenced by her.

BTW, I didn’t say I necessarily believed their fates deserved. I said it is possible to make such an argument, which it is.


15 posted on 07/11/2012 8:25:59 AM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: wagglebee
I don't agree. The average Russian knew that those in the Balkans were fellow Slavs. Pan-Slavic ideals did have a hold on the minds of a significant number of Russians. Also remember the Balkans had become newly freed from the Ottoman Turks, some this was done with Russian help. In the minds of Russians, Moscow had inherited from the fall of Constantinople the mantle of the protector of Eastern Crhistainity. The Ottomans’ were allies of the Germans and the Germans were not particularly liked anyway. Also their was a notion they were the Third Rome.
16 posted on 07/11/2012 8:29:09 AM PDT by Reily
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To: Reily
You are right about the Pan-Slavic sentiment, but they weren't willing to go to war with Austria and Germany for it.

World War I was hell on the Russian people. As long as the army remained loyal everything was fine, but the Tsar's fate was sealed when officers started embracing the Bolsheviks.

17 posted on 07/11/2012 8:37:01 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: kalee; SueRae
It was Prince Philip's DNA that was used to confirm the remains of Alexandra and the children, the remains of Nicholas were confirmed with DNA from living Romanovs and blood on a shirt he was known to be wearing when he was attacked in Japan as a young man. I have no idea why the Orthodox Church would suggest otherwise.
18 posted on 07/11/2012 8:44:42 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: SueRae

Because the Church is supported by the KGB communist Putin. Don’t want to create anti-communist sentiment, right?


19 posted on 07/11/2012 9:25:02 AM PDT by autumnraine (America how long will you be so deaf and dumb to the tumbril wheels carrying you to the guillotine?)
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To: wagglebee
If you look at the pictures of the crowds in August 1914 in Saint Petersburg and elsewhere they seem pretty willing. (As do the crowds in every other European belligerent capital!) What doomed Russian was it's backwardness and its military incompetence. War had moved past where all you needed to win was feed numbers to the battlefield. Technology was at a point where it could kill and maim faster then you could feed the beast. The Russo-Japanese War did send the message that battlefield technology was the deciding factor, but obviously it fell on deaf ears.
As far as Czar Nicholas II goes, he was a good and decent man, and I think cared for the Russian people. However he wasn't very bright, his father poorly prepared him for the throne, he was way too mild mannered to be the Czar of Russia. I think he did care for the Russian people but didn't know how to be effective, whatever levers he had to pull or push were corrupt, obsolete and made things worse. None of this he understood it was beyond him and outside his world view.
20 posted on 07/11/2012 9:38:00 AM PDT by Reily
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