Posted on 02/21/2006 9:10:33 AM PST by GarySpFc
Moscow, February 21, Interfax - The Russian Prosecutor's Office has refused to recognize last Russian tsar Nicholas II and his family, killed by a Bolshevik firing squad in 1918, as victims of political repression, citing a lack of evidence. It also refused to rehabilitate the royal family.
Late in 2005, Grand Duchess Maria, who claims to head what is known as the Romanov imperial house of Russia, asked the Prosecutor General's Office to recognize Nicholas and his family as victims of political repression and to restore the family.
"There is no authentic evidence of the existence of any official decisions by judiciary or non-judiciary authorities that politically motivated repression was exercised against [Nicholas and his family], evidence that is required by current rehabilitation legislation. This prevents us from recognizing [the royal family] as victims of political repression and from issuing a decision on their rehabilitation," the Prosecutor General's Office said in a letter.
"The circumstances of the death of former Russian Emperor Nicholas II, the members of his family and persons from their entourage were carefully studied in the course of an investigation carried out by the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation," the letter said.
Nicholas was a murderer a thousand times over - a vicious brutal dictator who deserved to be overthrown. His children, however, are another matter - that was clearly a political killing.
Even so, he is a Martyr.
"a vicious brutal dictator who deserved to be overthrown As vicious as Lenin and Stalin? I think not...buut I could be wrong. Please cite evidence for this.
Even so, he is a Martyr."
I can't cite such evidence.
But you don't need to be as bad as Stalin to deserve to be overthrown and in any case the people get to choose thier leaders and leaders who won't leave when the people want them out have to be removed. We were lucky in the American revolution that King George didn't live here but with an entrenched Czar unwilling to go into exile they had fewer choices.
That doesn't make the man or his wife a martyr any more than Tookie is a martyr.
The martyrs are the Russian people - the ones who clung to Bolchevism as a way out of tyranny only to find there were far worse dictators yet to come.
Your point about Nicholas' autocracy is well taken. He wasn't actually executed for his crimes, however. He was assassinated because he was politically inconvenient to the Bolsheviks.
"Your point about Nicholas' autocracy is well taken. He wasn't actually executed for his crimes, however. He was assassinated because he was politically inconvenient to the Bolsheviks."
I would agree with yout there - young revolutions are often hard pressed to hold fair trials of deposed dictators who might be rallying points. I doubt Iraq qould be trying Saddam so carefully if the U.S. were not still there in force.
I have a hard time believing that four teenage girls (aged 14 to 22) and a young boy (aged 13) with hemophilia were justifiable targets for assassination, whatever their father had done (which was very mild compared to the crimes of the communists that killed 20 million Russians and created world havoc). The Bolsheviks were trash, pure and simple, from the murderous dictator Lenin to the mass murderer Leon Trotsky, period.
"I have a hard time believing that four teenage girls (aged 14 to 22) and a young boy (aged 13) with hemophilia were justifiable targets for assassination, whatever their father had done (which was very mild compared to the crimes of the communists that killed 20 million Russians and created world havoc). The Bolsheviks were trash, pure and simple, from the murderous dictator Lenin to the mass murderer Leon Trotsky, period."
Don't forget Stalin.... who would have thought it would get worse after Lenin?
Logically (obviously not morally) I could see the reasoning behind killing the young tsarevitch (the prince); he could conceivably (if he lived to grow up; the kid was renowned for pulling incredibly stupid stunts that left him virtually crippled) succeed to his father's throne. However, none of the daughters could technically have succeeded (yes, I suppose they could have if there was no one else but I believe the throne went to the next available male) and none of their children (male or female) could have succeeded either. Nicholas was not a very nice person, but that is no excuse for killing him and his children. As you say, the Bolsheviks were trash.
I'm pretty sure there was a precedent for the royal line passing through females making any child a threat...
Checking further it looks like PeterII was the last male line Romanaov and it passed through two aunts next.
the young prince would likely never have grown up to live a full life. he was a hemophiliac. it's conceivable he probably wouldn't have made it past his teens as he was a sickly child.
Like said--"if he lived." He was quite ill, as there were no coagulant drugs in Russia at the time that would have helped him. Also, as I said, he was fairly strongwilled (read: spoiled) and tended to injure himself by doing stupid things for a person with his condition (ie, sledding on an ice-covered hill, sliding down stairs on tea trays, etc).
I stand corrected; thanks.
My ancestors lived in Russia at the time. They were supporters of the Tsar and saw the inherent evil that was the Bolsheveiks. There homes were taken over by the Bolsheviks and they were forced to live in one room of the house. Some of them starved during the blockade. My ancestors fought with the White Army and my Great Grandfather (on my Dad's side) was martyred when he was murdered by the Red army for being an Orthodox preist.
My relatives that were killed or starved to death under the Bolshevieks are the Russian people you write of...and they were in full support of Tsar Nicholas II.
Cosying up to the Communists again. Not to say that the Tsars were good either.
That's not true. His cousin, who was on the throne in England, refused him and his family sanctuary. Nicholas asked. England refused.
It makes me sick to see the extent to which leftist revolutionary thinking has penetrated a so-called "conservative" forum. Tsar Nicholas II was a patriot, a devout Christian, and a devoted husband and father who while perhaps unsuited to the role he inherited did his best for his country and did not deserve what happened to him.
Read Robert K. Massie's Nicholas and Alexandra. The picture of the last Tsar that emerges from this moving book is one of a kind-hearted and honorable man.
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