Intuitive fred888: I remembered being a male 20 something member of the Russian Royal family killed in 1918

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

I remembered being a male 20 something member of the Russian Royal family killed in 1918

So, I decided to try to figure out which one I was by age, and gender and what I now remember. And it also explains more my hatred of the communists in this lifetime as well because they not only killed me but also my wife and children. Also, I remember that Rasputin was an acquaintance of mine then too.

Remains of the Tsar

Tombstones marking the burial of Tsar Nicholas II and his family in St. Catherine's Chapel at Peter and Paul Cathedral

In July 1991, the crushed bodies of Nicholas II and his wife, along with three of their five children and four of their servants, were exhumed (although some questioned the authenticity of these bones despite DNA testing). Because two bodies were not present, many people believed that two Romanov children escaped the killings. There was much debate as to which two children's bodies were missing. A Russian scientist made photographic superimpositions and determined that Maria and Alexei were not accounted for. Later, an American scientist concluded from dental, vertebral, and other remnants that it was Anastasia and Alexei who were missing. Much mystery surrounded Anastasia's fate. Several films have been produced suggesting that she lived on. This has since been completely disproved with the discovery of the final Romanov children's remains and extensive DNA testing that connected these remains with those of Nicholas II, his wife and three children.
After the bodies were exhumed in June 1991, they sat in laboratories until 1998, while there was a debate as to whether they should be reburied in Yekaterinburg or St. Petersburg. A commission eventually chose St. Petersburg. The remains were transferred with full military honor guard and accompanied by members of the Romanov family from Yekaterinburg to St. Petersburg. In St. Petersburg the remains of the imperial family were moved by a formal military honor guard cortege from the airport to the Sts. Peter and Paul Fortress where they (along with several loyal servants who were killed with them) were interred in a special chapel in the Peter and Paul Cathedral near the tombs of their ancestors. President Boris Yeltsin attended the interment service on behalf of the Russian people.

Alexei

Late summer of 2007, a Russian archaeologist announced a discovery by one of his workers. The excavation uncovered the following items in the two pits which formed a "T":

remains of 46 human bone fragments;
bullet jackets from short barrel guns/pistols;
wooden boxes which had deteriorated into fragments:
pieces of ceramic which appear to be amphoras which were used as containers for acid;
iron nails;
iron angles;
seven fragments of teeth;
fragment of fabric of a garment.

The area where the remains were found was near the old Koptyaki Road, under what appeared to be double bonfire sites about 70 m from the mass grave in Pigs Meadow near Yekaterinburg. The general directions were described in Yurovsky's memoirs, owned by his son, although no one is sure who wrote the notes on the page. The archaeologists said the bones are from a boy who was roughly between the ages of ten and thirteen years at the time of his death and of a young woman who was roughly between the ages of eighteen and twenty-three years old. Anastasia was seventeen years and one month old at the time of the murder, while Maria was nineteen years and one month old. Alexei would have been fourteen in two weeks' time. Alexei's elder sisters Olga and Tatiana were twenty-two and twenty-one years old at the time of the murder respectively. The bones were found using metal detectors and metal rods as probes. Also, striped material was found that appeared to have been from a blue-and-white striped cloth; Alexei commonly wore a blue-and-white striped undershirt.

DNA proof

On April 30, 2008, Russian forensic scientists announced that DNA testing proves that the remains belong to the Tsarevich Alexei and his sister Anastasia. DNA information, made public in July 2008, that has been obtained from Yekaterinburg and repeatedly subject to independent testing by laboratories such as the University of Massachusetts Medical School, USA, and reveals that the final two missing Romanov remains are indeed authentic and that the entire Romanov family housed in the Ipatiev House, Yekaterinburg were executed in the early hours of 17 July 1918. In March 2009, results of the DNA testing were published, confirming that the two bodies discovered in 2007 were those of Tsarevich Alexei and Anastasia.
Research on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) was conducted in the American AFDIL and in European GMI laboratories. In comparison with the previous analyses mtDNA in the area of Aleksandra Fyodorovna, positions 16519C, 524.1A and 524.2C were added. The DNA of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, a great-nephew of the last Tsarina, was used by forensic scientists to identify her body and those of her children.^[8]
Verification of identification via a repeat analysis of Prince Philip's mtDNA, to resolve apparent discrepancies between his genotype and those of the remains of the empress and her children, has not been conducted. Thus writer Michael Kirk (Great Britain) in 1998 put forward the version that Prince Philip wasn't the son of his putative mother (Princess Andrew of Greece), so mtDNA couldn't be used in the comparative analysis for identification of the remains of Aleksandra Fiodorovna and her children. Some experts suggest analysis of other relatives in the female line, in particular of the Spanish Queen Sofia or her brother, the deposed King Constantine II of Greece.^[9] As the repeated analysis of blood from Prince Philip wasn't carried out, there is a difference, and, so while repeated or other analysis on Prince Philip won't be carried out, legal identification of the remains of the Tsarina and her children will not be complete.

Killing of extended family

On July 18, 1918, the day after the killing at Yekaterinburg of the tsar and his family, members of the extended Russian imperial family met a brutal death by being killed near Alapayevsk by Bolsheviks. They included: Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich of Russia, Prince Ioann Konstantinovich of Russia, Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich of Russia, Prince Igor Konstantinovich of Russia and Prince Vladimir Pavlovich Paley, Grand Duke Sergei's secretary Varvara Yakovleva, and Grand Duchess Yelizaveta Fyodorovna, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria and elder sister of Tsarina Alexandra. Grand Duchess Yelizaveta had departed her family following the 1905 assassination of her husband, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, had donated all her wealth to the poor and became a nun, but was nonetheless killed.^[10] In January 1919 revolutionary authorities killed Grand Duke Dmitry Konstantinovich, Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich, Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich, and Grand Duke Georgy Mikhailovich who had been held in the prison of the Saint Peter and Paul Fortress in Petrograd.^[11]
The bodies were recovered from the mine by the White Army in 1918, who arrived too late to rescue them. The bodies were placed in coffins and were moved around Russia during struggles between the White and the opposing Red Army. By 1920 the coffins were interred in a former Russian Mission in Beijing, now beneath a parking area. In 1981 Princess Yelizaveta was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, and in 1992 by the Moscow Patriarchate. In 2006 representatives of the Romanov family were making plans to reinter the remains elsewhere.^[12] The town is a place of pilgrimage to the memory of Yelizaveta Romanova.

Exiles

Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna

In 1919, Maria Fyodorovna, widow of Alexander III, and mother of Nicholas II, managed to escape Russia aboard the HMS Marlborough, which her nephew, King George V of the United Kingdom, had sent, at the urging of his own mother, Queen Alexandra, Maria's elder sister, to rescue her. After a stay in England with Queen Alexandra, she returned to her native Denmark, first living at Amalienborg Palace, with her nephew, King Christian X, and later, at Villa Hvidøre. Upon her death in 1928 her coffin was placed in the crypt of Roskilde Cathedral, the burial site of members of the Danish Royal Family.
In 2006, the coffin with her remains was moved to the Sts. Peter and Paul Fortress, in order to be buried alongside her husband. The transfer of her remains was accompanied by elaborate ceremonies, including at St. Isaac's officiated by the Patriarch Alexis II. Princes Dmitri and Prince Nicholas Romanov were present at the ceremony, along with Princess Catherine Ioannovna of Russia, daughter of Prince Ioann Konstantinovich of Russia. Other members of the Imperial Family present included the descendants of the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna including Prince Michael Andreevich of Russia the senior direct male descendant. Princess Catherine who was 90 years old at the time, and died in Montevideo Uruguay the following year, was the last member of the Imperial Family to be born before the fall of the dynasty, and was ultimately to become the last surviving uncontested dynast of the Imperial House of Russia. ^[13]

Other exiles

Among the other exiles who managed to leave Russia, were Maria Fyodorovna's two daughters, the Grand Duchesses Xenia, and Olga Alexandrovna, with their husbands, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich and Nikolai Kulikovsky, respectively, and their children. Xenia remained in England, following her mother's return to Denmark, although Olga remained with her mother until her death, with both sisters dying in 1960. Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, widow of Nicholas II's uncle, Grand Duke Vladimir, and her children Kiril, Boris, Andrei, and Elena, also managed to flee Russia. Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, a cousin of Nicholas II, had been exiled to the Caucusus in 1916, for his part in the murder of Grigori Rasputin, and managed to escape Russia, as did his sister, Maria. Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaievich, who had commanded Russian troops in World War I, prior to Nicholas II taking command, and his brother, Grand Duke Peter, and their wives, Grand Duchesses Anastasia and Militza Nikolaevna of Russia, whom were sisters, also fled.

Romanov family jewelry

The collection of jewels and jewelry collected by the Romanov family during their reign are commonly referred to as the "Russian Crown Jewels" and they include official state regalia as well as personal pieces of jewelry worn by Romanov rulers and their family. After the Czar was deposed and his family murdered, their jewels and jewelry became the property of the new Soviet government.^[14] A select number of pieces from the collection were sold at auction by Christie's in London in March 1927.^[15] The remaining collection is on view today in the Armory at the Moscow Kremlin^[16]
On August 28, 2009, a Swedish public news outlet reported that a collection of over 60 jewel-covered cigarette cases and cufflinks owned by the Romanov family, had been found in the archives of the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and was returned. The jewelry was allegedly turned over to the Swedish embassy in St. Petersburg in November 1918 by Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin to keep it safe. The jewelry's worth was estimated to 20 million Swedish krona (about 2.6 million US dollars).^[17]

Contemporary Romanovs

Grand Duke Cyril (Kirill) with his wife Grand Duchess Victoria and children Kira and Vladimir Kirillovich.

There have been numerous unsubstantiated reports of Romanov impostors claiming to be of members of the deposed Tsar Nicholas II's family, the best known Anna Anderson. Proven research however makes clear that all of the Romanovs held prisoners inside the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg were brutally killed.^[18]^[19] The descendants of Xenia and Olga, Nicholas II's two sisters, survive to this day.
Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, the direct male-line patrilineal descendant of Alexander II of Russia, claimed the headship of the defunct Imperial House of Russia, and assumed the pretender title "Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russians" in 1924 when evidence that all earlier claimants had been killed was final. He was followed by his only son Vladimir Kirillovich. Vladimir's only child, Maria Vladimirovna, is the current pretender; her only son from her marriage with Prince Franz Wilhelm of Prussia, George Mikhailovich, is her heir apparent, dynastically about to found a new branch Hohenzollern-Romanov, while other descendants of junior side branches of the Holstein-Gottorp-Romanovs are still living. The Romanov Family Association, a private association of most of the remaining descendants of Emperor Paul I of Russia, makes no claim to the defunct throne, and disputes the current headship of the house. These two groups continue to have differences of opinion.

Heraldry

Lesser Coat of Arms of Russian Empire.svg

The Imperial Arms of the House of Romanov, with and without background shield, which were restricted in use to the Emperor and certain members of the Imperial Family.

For a detailed armorial, see here: Armorial of House of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp-Russie, surnamed Romanov.
There is a detailed article here on the arms of the Russian Empire.

Family tree

Main article: Rulers of Russia family tree

A summary family tree is:

Summary Family Tree of the Romanov dynasty

In popular culture

In the real time strategy game Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2, the leader of the Soviet Union is Premier Alexander Romanov (voiced by Nicholas Worth). In one part of the game, he claims to be "upholding the Romanov legacy". He is also shown to be a distant relative of Nicholas II.^{[citation needed]}

References

Article 59, Fundamental State Law of the Russian Empire, 1906 edition

"Mystery Solved: The Identification of the Two Missing Romanov Children Using DNA Analysis". March 11, 2009.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to House of Romanov.

Historical reconstruction series "Romanovs" - First Channel, Star Media, Babich Design (2013).
The Russian Imperial Collection at the Library of Congress has books from the Romanov family.

— Royal house — House of Romanov Founding year: 15th century
Preceded by House of Vasa	Tsardom of Russia 1613–1721	Tsardom Elevated Became Russian Empire
New title	Russian Empire 1721–1917	Empire abolished
Preceded by House of Poniatowski (elect)	Kingdom of Poland 1815–1917	Kingdom abolished
Preceded by House of Poniatowski (elect)	Grand Principality of Lithuania 1795–1917	Grand Principality abolished
Preceded by House of Holstein-Gottorp	Duchy of Holstein-Gottorp 1739–1773	Succeeded by House of Oldenburg
Preceded by House of Oldenburg	Duchy of Oldenburg 1773-1774	Succeeded by House of Holstein-Gottorp
Preceded by Grand Masters	Sovereign Military Order of Malta 1798-1803	Succeeded by Grand Masters
Preceded by House of Holstein-Gottorp (Swedish line)	Grand Principality of Finland 1809-1917	Grand Principality abolished

[show] v t e House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov

[show] v t e Royal houses of Europe

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http://dlib.rsl.ru/viewer/01004169063#page13?page=13 «Родословная книга Всероссiйскаго дворянства» составилъ В. Дурасов Часть I. градъ Св. Петра 1906 г. // "Genealogy Book of Russian nobility" V. Durasov V. Part I. Sank-Peterburg 1906

http://rbth.com/multimedia/2015/03/25/romanov

Almanach de Gotha. Gotha, Germany: Justus Perthes. 1944. pp. 103–106.

Origins of Romanov surneme. Russian royalists site

Romanovs lectures. The history of the Russian state and the Romanov dynasty: current problems in the study. Kostroma. May 29-30, 2008.

James Cracraft, The Revolution of Peter the Great (Harvard University Press, 2003) online edition

Encyclopedia of Genetics by Eric C. R. Reeve, Isobel Black, page 829

http://www.searchfoundationinc.org/Romanov_Children_Final_Report_26_Feb_09__AFDIL_Russian.pdf

"Books: Death at Ekaterinburg - TIME". TIME magazine. 1935-04-22. Retrieved 2012-04-11.

Nicholas and Alexandra, The Last Imperial Family of Tsarist Russia, 1998, Booth-Clibborn, London

"The Representative of Romanov family in the Russian Federation does not exclude the possibility of transferring from China to Russia the remains of Alapayevsk martyrs.". Orthodox News China. 2005-06-23. Retrieved 2012-04-11.

http://www.uruguay.mid.ru/press/07_12_e.html

"Russian Crown Jewels shown Goodrich Party". Washington Post. 3 Jul 1922. p. 4.