The last tsar and his family’s 1918 murders are to be re-examined
St. Petersburg: The Romanov imperial family was assassinated by a communist revolutionary named Bolsheviks on the 17th of July in 1918. Now buried at Peter and Paul Orthodox Church in St. Petersburg, the royal couple’s remains have been dug up once more for DNA samples in connection with the discovery of the remains of two of their children at another burial site. Samples from Tsar Alexander II’s—Tsar Nicolas’ grandfather, who was murdered in 1881— blood-stained uniform has also been taken.
Although the long-term case was closed in 1998, when the royal couple’s DNA was confirmed and their remains buried, only three of their five children’s remains had been found. Their daughter Grand Duchess Maria and their son Tsarevich Alexei’s bones were only discovered in 2007 in a mass grave t Urals, at a spot apart from the one where the rest of the family was found. The Russian Orthodox Church requested scientific confirmation that they were from the royal family, so that the two children could also be buried by their family, but were not convinced by the DNA tests because of the differences in the locations of discovery. Hence, the Investigative Committee, a government body, decided to derive samples from the royal couple’s remains.
The investigation will also involve samples from Tsarina Alexandra’s sister’s remains, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna,, who is buried in Jerusalem. Authorities have only now allowed access Documents from the original ‘White Guards Investigation’ will also be studied thoroughly, which have emerged after 2010. .
According to witnesses in the initial investigation, the family—Tsar Nicolas, Tsarina Alexandra, their four daughters, grand duchesses Anastasia, Maria, Olga and Tatiana, their son, Tsarevich Alexei—and four royal staff members met with death in a cellar in a house in Yekaterinburg. They were, as per the account, lined up and a Bolshevik firing squad released a volley of bullets at them. Those who didn’t succumb immediately were stabbed unto death. Tsar Alexander II was murdered by a bomb, thrown at him by a ‘People’s Will’ revolutionary.
Not long before their death, the Romanov family had lost power and was forced into exile in 1917, right before their murderers, the Bolsheviks overthrew the temporary government.
A descendant of the Romanov family, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, has shown support for the investigation, according to her lawyer, who stated, ” Not all aspects of the imperial family’s murder were explained in the case, and not all the Russian Orthodox Church’s questions were answered fully and clearly. The grand duchess hopes that the examination of the Yekaterinburg remains will be scientific. The truth must be established in this case, with an answer to the main question: whose are these remains?”
On the eightieth anniversary of this assassination, the family was buried. Two years later, in 2000, the Orthodox Church canonised the royal couple. The investigation is already underway and the remaining royal children are likely to be canonised as well, before the hundredth murder anniversary in 2018. However, their remains are currently being preserved in the Russian State archives.
Source: BBC
Tags: Russia Tsar Nicolas Tsar Nicolas family
