Ten years ago, Russia’s Investigative Committee reopened the investigation into the 1918 murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his family at the insistence of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). Federal investigators exhumed the bodies of the Romanovs, the Russian Empire’s last ruling family, and carried out additional DNA testing to confirm the authenticity of their remains. And while the investigation concluded that they were genuine, the Orthodox Church leadership has yet to recognize the results. In an article for Meduza, historian Alexey Uvarov recounts the circumstances surrounding the Romanov family’s execution and the recovery of their remains, and explains how radical “Tsar-worshippers” have kept the authenticity dispute alive to this day.
The execuation of the Romanovs
After Tsar Nicholas II was deposed in March 1917, the fate of the imperial Romanov family rested with the Provisional Government. Amid the revolutionary chaos in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) and calls for the emperor’s head, the new authorities placed the family — Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna, and their five children — under house arrest. They were held at a royal residence in the nearby town of Tsarskoye Selo, purportedly for their own safety.
However, the Provisional Government also feared a monarchist counterrevolution and sought to isolate the Romanovs from their supporters. A plan to send the royal family to the United Kingdom fell through. Nicholas II’s first cousin, King George V, backtracked on offering them asylum, fearing a scandal that would strengthen revolutionary sentiments domestically. The Provisional Government then moved the Romanovs further away from the capital, to the Siberian town of Tobolsk.
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