Death of the Romanov royal family. Execution of the Romanov royal family

The royal family spent 78 days in their last home.

Commissar A.D. Avdeev was appointed the first commandant of the “House of Special Purpose”.

Preparations for execution

According to the official Soviet version, the decision to execute was made only by the Urals Council; Moscow was notified of this only after the death of the family.

At the beginning of July 1918, the Ural military commissar Filipp Goloshchekin left for Moscow to resolve the issue of the future fate of royal family.

The Urals Council, at its meeting on July 12, adopted a resolution on the execution, as well as on the methods of destroying the corpses, and on July 16, it transmitted a message (if the telegram is genuine) about this via direct wire to Petrograd - G. E. Zinoviev. At the end of the conversation with Yekaterinburg, Zinoviev sent a telegram to Moscow:

There is no archived source for the telegram.

Thus, the telegram was received in Moscow on July 16 at 21:22. The phrase “court agreed upon with Filippov” is an encrypted decision to execute the Romanovs, which Goloshchekin agreed upon during his stay in the capital. However, the Urals Council asked once again to confirm this in writing earlier decision, citing “military circumstances”, since the fall of Yekaterinburg was expected under the blows of the Czechoslovak Corps and the White Siberian Army.

Execution

On the night of July 16-17, the Romanovs and the servants went to bed, as usual, at 10:30 p.m. At 23:30 two special representatives from the Urals Council appeared at the mansion. They presented the decision of the executive committee to the commander of the security detachment P.Z. Ermakov and the new commandant of the house, Commissioner of the Extraordinary Investigative Commission Yakov Yurovsky, who replaced Avdeev in this position on July 4, and proposed to immediately begin the execution of the sentence.

The awakened family members and staff were told that due to the advance of the white troops, the mansion might be under fire, and therefore, for safety reasons, they needed to move to the basement.

There is a version that in order to carry out the execution, Yurovsky drew up the following document: Revolutionary Committee under the Yekaterinburg Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies REVOLUTIONARY HEADQUARTERS OF THE URAL DISTRICT Extraordinary Commission List of Special Forces Teams to the Ipatiev House / 1st Kamishl.Rifle Regiment / Commandant: Gorvat Laons Fischer Anselm Zdelshtein Izidor Fekete Emil Nad Imre Grinfeld Victor Vergazi Andreas Regional Com. Vaganov Serge Medvedev Pav Nikulin Yekaterinburg July 18, 1918 Head of the Cheka Yurovsky However, according to V.P. Kozlov, I.F. Plotnikov, this document, at one time provided to the press by former Austrian prisoner of war I.P. Meyer, first published in Germany in 1956 and, most likely, fabricated, does not reflect the real hit list. According to their version, the execution team consisted of: member of the board of the Ural Central Committee - M. A. Medvedev (Kudrin), commandant of the house Ya. M. Yurovsky, his deputy G. P. Nikulin, security commander P. Z. Ermakov and ordinary guard soldiers - Hungarians (according to other sources - Latvians). In the light of I. F. Plotnikov’s research, the list of those executed may look like this: Ya. M. Yurovsky, G. P. Nikulin, M. A. Medvedev (Kudrin), P. Z. Ermakov, S. P. Vaganov, A. G. Kabanov, P. S. Medvedev, V. N. Netrebin, J. M. Tselms and, under very big question, unknown mining student. Plotnikov believes that the latter was used in Ipatiev’s house within only a few days after the execution and only as a jewelry specialist. Thus, according to Plotnikov, the execution of the royal family was carried out by a group consisting of national composition almost entirely from Russians, with the participation of one Jew (Ya. M. Yurovsky) and probably one Latvian (Ya. M. Tselms). According to surviving information, two or three Latvians refused to participate in the execution. , The fate of the Romanovs Besides family former emperor, all members of the House of Romanov were destroyed, for various reasons remaining in Russia after the revolution (with the exception of Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich, who died in Tashkent from pneumonia, and two children of his son Alexander Iskander - Natalia Androsova (1917-1999) and Kirill Androsov (1915-1992), who lived in Moscow). Memoirs of contemporaries Memoirs of Trotsky My next visit to Moscow came after the fall of Yekaterinburg. In a conversation with Sverdlov, I asked in passing: Yes, where is the king? “It’s over,” he answered, “he was shot.” -Where is the family? - And his family is with him. - All? - I asked, apparently with a tinge of surprise. “That’s it,” answered Sverdlov, “but what?” He was waiting for my reaction. I didn't answer. - Who decided? - I asked. - We decided here. Ilyich believed that we should not leave them a living banner, especially in the current difficult conditions. Memoirs of Sverdlova One day in mid-July 1918, shortly after the end of the V Congress of Soviets, Yakov Mikhailovich returned home in the morning, it was already dawn. He said that he was late at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, where, among other things, he informed the members of the Council of People's Commissars about the latest news he received from Yekaterinburg. -Have you not heard? - asked Yakov Mikhailovich. - After all, the Urals shot Nikolai Romanov. Of course, I haven't heard anything yet. The message from Yekaterinburg was received only in the afternoon. The situation in Yekaterinburg was alarming: the White Czechs were approaching the city, the local counter-revolution was stirring. The Ural Council of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, having received information that the escape of Nikolai Romanov, who was being held in Yekaterinburg, was being prepared, issued a resolution to shoot the former tsar and immediately carried out his sentence. Yakov Mikhailovich, having received a message from Yekaterinburg, reported on the decision of the regional council to the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, which approved the resolution of the Ural Regional Council, and then informed the Council of People's Commissars. V.P. Milyutin, who participated in this meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, wrote in his diary: “I returned late from the Council of People's Commissars. There were “current” matters. During the discussion of the health care project, the Semashko report, Sverdlov entered and sat down in his place on the chair behind Ilyich. Semashko finished. Sverdlov came up, leaned towards Ilyich and said something. - Comrades, Sverdlov asks for the floor for a message. “I must say,” Sverdlov began in his usual tone, “a message has been received that in Yekaterinburg, by order of the regional Council, Nikolai was shot... Nikolai wanted to escape. The Czechoslovaks were approaching. The Presidium of the Central Election Commission decided to approve... - Let’s now move on to an article-by-article reading of the draft, - Ilyich suggested...” Destruction and burial of the royal remains Investigation Sokolov's investigation Sokolov painstakingly and selflessly conducted the investigation entrusted to him. Kolchak had already been shot, she returned Soviet authority to the Urals and Siberia, and the investigator continued his work in exile. With the investigation materials, he made a dangerous journey through all of Siberia to the Far East, then to America. While in exile in Paris, Sokolov continued to take testimony from surviving witnesses. He died of a broken heart in 1924 without completing his investigation. It was thanks to the painstaking work of N. A. Sokolov that the details of the execution and burial of the royal family became known for the first time. Search for royal remains The remains of members of the Romanov family were discovered near Sverdlovsk back in 1979 during excavations led by consultant to the Minister of Internal Affairs Geliy Ryabov. However, then the found remains were buried on the instructions of the authorities. In 1991, excavations were resumed. Numerous experts have confirmed that the remains found then are most likely the remains of the royal family. The remains of Tsarevich Alexei and Princess Maria were not found. In June 2007, realizing the global historical significance of the event and the object, it was decided to carry out new survey work on the Old Koptyakovskaya Road in order to discover the proposed second hiding place for the remains of members of the Romanov imperial family. In July 2007, bone remains young man aged 10-13 years, and girls aged 18-23 years, as well as fragments of ceramic amphorae with Japanese sulfuric acid, iron corners, nails, and bullets were found by Ural archaeologists near Yekaterinburg near the burial site of the family of the last Russian emperor. According to scientists, these are the remains of members of the Romanov imperial family, Tsarevich Alexei and his sister Princess Maria, hidden by the Bolsheviks in 1918. Andrey Grigoriev, deputy general director Scientific and Production Center for the Protection and Use of Historical and Cultural Monuments of the Sverdlovsk Region: “From the Ural local historian V.V. Shitov, I learned that the archive contains documents that tell about the stay of the royal family in Yekaterinburg and its subsequent murder, and also about an attempt to hide their remains. We were unable to begin search work until the end of 2006. On July 29, 2007, as a result of our searches, we came across the finds.” On August 24, 2007, the Russian Prosecutor General's Office resumed the investigation into the criminal case of the execution of the royal family in connection with the discovery of the remains of Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria Romanov near Yekaterinburg. Traces of chopping were found on the remains of the children of Nicholas II. This was announced by the head of the archeology department of the scientific and production center for the protection and use of historical and cultural monuments of the Sverdlovsk region, Sergei Pogorelov. “Traces that the bodies were cut up were found on a humerus belonging to a man and on a fragment of a skull identified as female. In addition, a completely preserved oval hole was found on the man’s skull, possibly a trace from a bullet,” explained Sergei Pogorelov. 1990s investigation The circumstances of the death of the royal family were investigated as part of a criminal case initiated on August 19, 1993 at the direction of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation. Materials of the government Commission to study issues related to the research and reburial of the remains of Russian Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family have been published. Reaction to the shooting Kokovtsov V.N.: “On the day the news was published, I was on the street twice, rode a tram and nowhere did I see the slightest glimmer of pity or compassion. The news was read loudly, with grins, mockery and the most ruthless comments... Some kind of senseless callousness, some kind of boasting of bloodthirstiness. The most disgusting expressions: - it would have been like this a long time ago, - come on, reign again, - the lid is on Nikolashka, - oh brother Romanov, he finished dancing. They were heard all around, from the youngest youth, but the elders turned away and remained indifferently silent.” Rehabilitation of the royal family In the 1990-2000s, the question of legal rehabilitation of the Romanovs was raised before various authorities. In September 2007, the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation refused to consider such a decision, since it did not find “charges and corresponding decisions of judicial and non-judicial bodies vested with judicial functions” in connection with the execution of the Romanovs, and the execution was “a premeditated murder, albeit one with political overtones, committed by persons not endowed with appropriate judicial and administrative powers." At the same time, the lawyer of the Romanov family notes that "As is known, the Bolsheviks transferred all power to the soviets, including the judiciary, therefore the decision of the Ural Regional Council is equivalent to a judicial decision." Supreme Court of the Russian Federation 8 November 2007 recognized the decision of the prosecutor's office as legal, considering that the execution should be considered exclusively within the framework of a criminal case.The decision of the Ural Regional Council dated July 17, 1918, which made the decision, was added to the materials provided by the party rehabilitated to the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, and then to the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation about carrying out the execution. This document was presented by the Romanovs' lawyers as an argument confirming the political nature of the murder, which was also noted by representatives of the prosecutor's office, however, according to Russian legislation on rehabilitation, in order to establish the fact of repression, a decision of bodies vested with judicial functions is required, which the Ural Regional Council de jure was not. Since the case was considered by a higher court, representatives of the Romanov dynasty intended to challenge the decision of the Russian court in the European Court. However, on October 1, the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation recognized Nikolai and his family as victims of political repression and rehabilitated them. As the lawyer of Grand Duchess Maria Romanova, German Lukyanov, stated: According to the judge, According to the procedural norms of Russian legislation, the decision of the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation is final and not subject to revision (appeal). On January 15, 2009, the case of the murder of the royal family was closed. , , In June 2009, the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation decided to rehabilitate six more members of the Romanov family: Mikhail Alexandrovich Romanov, Elizaveta Fedorovna Romanov, Sergei Mikhailovich Romanov, Ioann Konstantinovich Romanov, Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov and Igor Konstantinovich Romanov, since they “were subjected to repression... by class and social characteristics, without being charged with committing a specific crime...“. In accordance with Art. 1 and paragraphs. “c”, “e” art. 3 of the Law of the Russian Federation “On the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression”, the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation decided to rehabilitate Vladimir Pavlovich Paley, Varvara Yakovleva, Ekaterina Petrovna Yanysheva, Fedor Semenovich Remez (Mikhailovich), Ivan Kalin, Krukovsky, Dr. Gelmerson and Nikolai Nikolaevich Johnson ( Brian). The issue of this rehabilitation, unlike the first case, was resolved in fact within a few months, at the stage of Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna's appeal to the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation; no legal proceedings were required, since the prosecutor's office during the inspection revealed all the signs of political repression. Canonization and church cult of the royal martyrs Notes Multatuli, P. To the decision of the Supreme Court of Russia on the rehabilitation of the royal family. Yekaterinburg initiative. Academy of Russian History(03.10.2008). Retrieved November 9, 2008. The Supreme Court recognized members of the royal family as victims of repression. RIA News(01/10/2008). Retrieved November 9, 2008. Romanov Collection, General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library,

Exactly one hundred years have passed since the death of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II and his family. In 1918, on the night of July 16-17 royal family shot. We talk about life in exile and the death of the Romanovs, disputes about the authenticity of their remains, the version of the “ritual” murder and why the Russian Orthodox Church canonized the royal family.

CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

What happened to Nicholas II and his family before their death?

After abdicating the throne, Nicholas II turned from a tsar into a prisoner. The last milestones in the life of the royal family are House arrest in Tsarskoe Selo, exile in Tobolsk, imprisonment in Yekaterinburg, writes TASS. The Romanovs were subjected to many humiliations: the guard soldiers were often rude, they imposed restrictions on everyday life, and prisoners’ correspondence was viewed.

While living in Tsarskoe Selo, Alexander Kerensky forbade Nicholas and Alexandra from sleeping together: the spouses were allowed to see each other only at the table and speak to each other exclusively in Russian. True, this measure did not last long.

In Ipatiev’s house, Nicholas II wrote in his diary that he was only allowed to walk for an hour a day. When asked to explain the reason, they answered: “To make it look like a prison regime.”

Where, how and who killed the royal family?

The royal family and their entourage were shot in Yekaterinburg in the basement of the house of mining engineer Nikolai Ipatiev, RIA Novosti reports. Together with Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, their children - Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, Tsarevich Alexei, as well as physician Evgeny Botkin, valet Alexei Trupp, room girl Anna Demidova and cook Ivan Kharitonov died.

The commandant of the Special Purpose House, Yakov Yurovsky, was assigned to organize the execution. After the execution, all the bodies were transferred to a truck and taken out of Ipatiev’s house.

Why was the royal family canonized?

In 1998, in response to a request from the Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, the senior prosecutor-criminologist of the Main Investigation Department of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, who led the investigation, Vladimir Solovyov, replied that “the circumstances of the death of the family indicate that the actions of those involved in the direct execution of the sentence (choice of the place of execution, command, murder weapons, burial places, manipulations with corpses) were determined by random circumstances,” quotes “” refers to the assumption that doubles of the royal family could have been shot in Ipatiev’s house. In a publication by Meduza, Ksenia Luchenko refutes this version:

This is out of the question. On January 23, 1998, the Prosecutor General's Office presented the government commission led by Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov with a detailed report on the results of the study into the circumstances of the death of the royal family and people from its circle.<…>And the general conclusion was clear: everyone died, the remains were correctly identified.

At one in the morning on July 17, 1918, the former Russian Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, their five children and four servants, including a doctor, were taken to the basement of a house in Yekaterinburg, where they were detained, where they were brutally shot by the Bolsheviks and subsequently burned bodies.

The eerie scene continues to haunt us to this day, and their remains, most lying for centuries in unmarked graves, the location of which was known only to the Soviet leadership, are still surrounded by an aura of mystery. In 1979, enthusiastic historians discovered the remains of some members of the royal family, and in 1991, after the collapse of the USSR, their identity was confirmed using DNA analysis.

The remains of two more royal children, Alexei and Maria, were discovered in 2007 and subjected to similar analysis. However, the Russian Orthodox Church questioned the results of the DNA tests. The remains of Alexei and Maria were not buried, but were transferred to a scientific institution. They were analyzed again in 2015.

Historian Simon Sebag Montefiore recounts these events in detail in his book “The Romanovs, 1613-1618,” published this year. El Confidencial already wrote about it. In Town & Country magazine, the author recalls that last fall the official investigation into the murder of the royal family was resumed, and the remains of the king and queen were exhumed. This gave rise to conflicting statements from the government and Church representatives, once again bringing the issue into the public spotlight.

According to Sebag, Nikolai was good-looking, and his apparent weakness hid a powerful man who despised ruling class, a rabid anti-Semite who did not doubt his sacred right to power. She and Alexandra married for love, which was a rare occurrence back then. She brought into family life paranoid thinking, mystical fanaticism (just remember Rasputin) and another danger - hemophilia, which was passed on to her son, the heir to the throne.

Wounds

In 1998, the reburial of the remains of the Romanovs took place in a solemn official ceremony designed to heal the wounds of Russia's past.

President Yeltsin said that political change should never again be carried out by force. Many Orthodox Christians again expressed their opposition and perceived the event as an attempt by the president to impose a liberal agenda in the former USSR.

In 2000, the Orthodox Church canonized the royal family, as a result of which the relics of its members became a shrine, and according to statements of its representatives, it was necessary to carry out reliable identification.

When Yeltsin left his post and nominated the unknown Vladimir Putin, a KGB lieutenant colonel who considered the collapse of the USSR “the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century,” the young leader began to concentrate power in his hands, put up barriers to foreign influence, and help strengthen Orthodox faith and pursue an aggressive foreign policy. It seemed - Sebag reflects with irony - that he decided to continue the political line of the Romanovs.

Putin is a political realist, and he is moving along the path outlined by the leaders of a strong Russia: from Peter I to Stalin. These were bright personalities who resisted the international threat.

The position of Putin, who questioned the results scientific research(faint echo cold war: there were many Americans among the researchers), calmed the Church and created a breeding ground for conspiracy theories, nationalist and anti-Semitic hypotheses regarding the remains of the Romanovs. One of them was that Lenin and his followers, many of whom were Jews, transported the bodies to Moscow, ordering their mutilation. Was it really the king and his family? Or did someone manage to escape?

Context

How the kings returned to Russian history

Atlantico 08/19/2015

304 years of Romanov rule

Le Figaro 05/30/2016

Why both Lenin and Nicholas II are “good”

Radio Prague 10/14/2015

What did Nicholas II give to the Finns?

Helsingin Sanomat 07/25/2016 During Civil War The Bolsheviks declared the Red Terror. They took the family away from Moscow. It was a terrifying journey by train and horse-drawn carriages. Tsarevich Alexei suffered from hemophilia, and some of his sisters were subjected to sexual violence on the train. Finally, they found themselves in the house where their life path. It was essentially turned into a fortified prison and machine guns were installed around the perimeter. Be that as it may, the royal family tried to adapt to the new conditions. The eldest daughter Olga was depressed, and the younger ones played, not really understanding what was happening. Maria had an affair with one of the guards, and then the Bolsheviks replaced all the guards, tightening the internal rules.

When it became obvious that the White Guards were about to take Yekaterinburg, Lenin issued an unspoken decree on the execution of the entire royal family, entrusting the execution to Yakov Yurovsky. At first it was planned to secretly bury everyone in the nearby forests. But the murder turned out to be poorly planned and even worse executed. Each member of the firing squad had to kill one of the victims. But when the basement of the house was filled with smoke from shots and the screams of people being shot, many of the Romanovs were still alive. They were wounded and crying in horror.

The fact is that diamonds were sewn into the clothes of the princesses, and the bullets bounced off them, which led to the confusion of the killers. The wounded were finished off with bayonets and shots to the head. One of the executioners later said that the floor was slippery with blood and brains.

Scars

Having completed their work, the drunken executioners robbed the corpses and loaded them onto a truck, which stalled along the way. On top of that, at the last moment it turned out that all the bodies did not fit into the graves dug in advance for them. The clothes of the dead were removed and burned. Then the frightened Yurovsky came up with another plan. He left the bodies in the forest and went to Yekaterinburg to buy acid and gasoline. For three days and nights, he carried containers of sulfuric acid and gasoline into the forest to destroy the bodies, which he decided to bury in different places to confuse those who intended to find them. No one should have known anything about what happened. They doused the bodies with acid and gasoline, burned them, and then buried them.

Sebag wonders how the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution will be celebrated in 2017. What will happen to the royal remains? The country does not want to lose its former glory. The past is always seen in a positive light, but the legitimacy of the autocracy remains controversial. New research initiated by the Russian Orthodox Church and carried out by the Investigative Committee led to the re-exhumation of the bodies. Was held comparative analysis DNA with living relatives, in particular with the British Prince Philip, one of whose grandmothers was Grand Duchess Olga Konstantinovna Romanova. Thus, he is the great-great-grandson of Tsar Nicholas II.

The fact that the Church still makes decisions on such important issues has attracted attention in the rest of Europe, as well as the lack of openness and a chaotic series of burials, exhumations, and DNA tests of certain members of the royal family. Most political observers believe Putin will make the final decision on what to do with the remains on the 100th anniversary of the revolution. Will he finally be able to reconcile the image of the revolution of 1917 with the barbaric massacre of 1918? Will he have to hold two separate events to satisfy each party? Will the Romanovs be given royal honors or church honors, like saints?

In Russian textbooks, many Russian tsars are still presented as heroes covered in glory. Gorbachev and the last Tsar Romanov renounced, Putin said he would never do this.

The historian claims that in his book he omitted nothing from the materials he examined on the execution of the Romanov family... with the exception of the most disgusting details of the murder. When the bodies were taken to the forest, the two princesses moaned and had to be finished off. Whatever the future of the country, it will be impossible to erase this terrible episode from memory.

Novikova Inna 07/06/2015 at 14:33

A sad date in the history of Russia is approaching -execution of the royal family. Despite investigations, the Russian Orthodox Church and members of the imperial familydid not admit that those buried in1998- m in the Peter and Paul Cathedral the remains belong to the family of NicholasII.Why? About the secrets of the death of the Romanovswebsitesaid Charge d'Affaires of the Russian Imperial House German Lukyanov.

- German Yurievich, in19 '98in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg the remains were buried royal martyrs. But until now the Church and members of the imperial family have not recognized that these are their remains. Tell me, what are the problems? What situation now, is there any news?

On July 17, 1918, in the city of Yekaterinburg, in a special purpose house, the royal family was executed by verdict of the Ural Soviet of Deputies. After the Emperor abdicated the throne, he and his family were arrested.

They were under arrest from March to the end of July 1918, then they were exiled to Tobolsk, and from Tobolsk they were transferred by decision of the central authorities of the Bolshevik leadership to Yekaterinburg. Then the verdict took place, and the whole family was destroyed. It was murder without a statute of limitations.

After the fall of the communist regime, when the process of returning the Imperial House to Russia began, the head of the Russian Imperial House Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna raised the question of investigating the circumstances of the death of her relatives - Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family.

I dealt with this issue as a lawyer for the Grand Duchess - first Leonida Georgievna, now Maria Vladimirovna. First, the question was raised about whether the death of members of the royal family was registered. Numerous requests were made to all organizations in the city of St. Petersburg and the city of Yekaterinburg. The answers were negative; the death of these persons was not confirmed.

Everyone knows that when a person is born, he has a birth certificate, when he dies, he must have a death certificate. There was a special order in the royal houses. In 1904, the son of the sovereign, Emperor Nikolai Alexandrovich, was born, who was named Alexei. A manifesto was issued: “By the grace of God, We, the Emperor Autocrat of Russia, the Tsar of Poland, the Grand Duke of Finland, and so on, and so on, announce to all our subjects, on the 30th day of this, our dear wife, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, was safely delivered from her burden by the birth of our son, named Alexey."

But when he and other royal persons were shot, there was no registration of the civil status of death. And so the Grand Duchesses Maria Vladimirovna and Leonida Georgievna dealt with this issue. Applications for registration were officially submitted to the Civil Registry Office of the city of St. Petersburg.

The facts of death of members of the royal family were registered in 1996. Here is the death certificate that Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov died on July 17, 1918 at the age of 50, which was recorded in the death register of 1996 on July 10 as number 151. The cause of death was the city of Yekaterinburg, a special purpose house, shot. This is the most important document.

- In general, the executions were somehow formalized"enemies of the people" of noble blood and ordinary people

- Tens of thousands were shot by the Bolsheviks, and they destroyed the entire flower of the nation. The Bolsheviks held tribunals and executed people without trial or investigation. Members of the Russian Imperial House are a special case. There was a telegram to Moscow, where it was written that the emperor was shot by the verdict of the Ural Soviet of Deputies, since he was guilty of countless bloody violence against the Russian people.

The highest body - the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee - considered this message and recognized this execution as correct. The head of the Soviet state, Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov, at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, which was chaired by Lenin, made an extraordinary announcement about the execution of Nikolai Romanov by the verdict of the Ural Soviet of Deputies. The Council of People's Commissars took note of this.

- Do you have a collection of all the documents?

Yes, everything regarding this issue. The head of the Russian Imperial House, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, was studying and collecting all the necessary documents in order to raise the question of the legal rehabilitation of her august relatives, members of the royal family.

- Who should have made the decision on rehabilitation?

- According to the law on victims of political repression in force at that time, the decision was made by the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation. When everything was served Required documents, The Prosecutor General's Office reviewed this application and denied rehabilitation, stating that there were no grounds for rehabilitation. Since rights and freedoms were not violated, and the Soviet totalitarian Bolshevik state had nothing to do with the death of members of the royal family. This was already in 2005.

After this, the Grand Duchess went to court to recognize the decision to refuse to rehabilitate members of the royal family as illegal and to oblige the authorities of our state to consider this issue, and yet the members of the royal family were recognized as victims of political repression. Because there is a law that says that political repression- these are measures taken by the state against individuals for belonging to the exploitative class, when measures are taken in the form of restriction of freedom, deprivation of life, restriction of rights and freedoms.

There is a telegram to the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Lenin, and the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Sverdlov: “In view of the approach of the enemy to Yekaterinburg and the discovery by the Emergency Commission of a large White Guard conspiracy aimed at kidnapping the former Tsar and his family. Period. The documents are in our hands. Period. By resolution of the Presidium of the Regional Council on the night of Nikolai Romanov was shot on July 16. His family was evacuated to a safe place."

The Bolsheviks misinformed about the evacuation of the family, because they understood that it could not be published. Because even in that harsh time, the people of Russia and foreign countries would not have accepted this.

In this regard, the following notice is issued: “In view of the approach of counter-revolutionary gangs to the red capital of the Urals and the possibility that the crowned executioner will escape the people's court, a conspiracy of the White Guards who tried to kidnap him himself has been revealed, the documents found will be published. The Presidium of the Regional Council, fulfilling the will of the revolution, decided to shoot the former Tsar Nikolai Romanov, comma, guilty of countless bloody violence against the Russian people on the night of July 16, 18."

But in fact, on the night of July 16-17, 1918, the royal family was executed in the basement of the Ipatiev house, where they were kept in custody.

After the execution, the bodies were taken away and attempts were made to destroy the bodies. They were doused with sulfuric acid. The commandant of the special purpose house, Yurovsky, wrote that two bodies were burned, and then they were all discovered. The heads were allegedly shown to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in the Kremlin. There is a version that there is a special room, there was something there. There is a list of what was discovered, but it is still classified for the future. No one still knows what was discovered there.

The question of the authenticity of the discovered remains remains open. The Russian Orthodox Church doubts their authenticity. The Russian Imperial House, the head of the Russian Imperial House, Princess Maria Vladimirovna, supports their position. Now there are enough precise methods medical genetic research, but science moves forward, after some time the methods can be improved and give different results, new circumstances may open up. The Church cannot make a mistake in this matter; it has no right.

“We can only hope that the Lord knows the names and whose remains these are, as well as all the other innocent victims.” But can we hope to know this truth?

- A long way has been passed, a lot of work has been carried out and established, including through judicial means, historical facts. The presidium made a historic decision: “From the documents examined by the court, it is clear that the Romanovs were deprived of their lives not as a result of someone committing a criminal crime. Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov and members of their family were detained and were shot on behalf of the state.

The use of such a repressive measure was due to the fact that the former Russian emperor, his wife and children, members of the Russian imperial house, from the point of view of the state authorities of the RSFSR, on class, social and religious grounds, posed a danger to the Soviet state and political system." Here is the court's conclusion .

And the Prosecutor General’s Office believed that criminal offenses had been committed against them. They were captured and killed by criminals. Now, with this court decision, the issue of rehabilitation is closed. The honest, good name of Sovereign Emperor Nikolai Alexandrovich has been restored.

- But the most important question remains open.

Yes, it's open. This complex issue, so not everything is solved right away. Now there is a period of construction and growth of our civil society. The country has embarked on a democratic path of development. According to the Constitution, Russia is a legal state. We have all the mechanisms, both legal and political, to ensure that peace and harmony reign in society.

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In this case, we will talk about those gentlemen, thanks to whom, on the night of July 16-17, 1918, there was atrocity in Yekaterinburg The Romanov royal family was killed. These executioners have one name - regicides. Some of them made the decision, while others carried it out. As a result of this, Russian Emperor Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra Feodorovna and their children died: Grand Duchesses Anastasia, Maria, Olga, Tatiana and Tsarevich Alexei. The service personnel were also shot along with them. This is the family's personal cook Ivan Mikhailovich Kharitonov, chamberlain Alexey Yegorovich Trupp, room girl Anna Demidova and family doctor Evgeny Sergeevich Botkin.

Criminals

The terrible crime was preceded by a meeting of the Presidium of the Urals Council, held on July 12, 1918. It was there that the decision was made to execute the royal family. A detailed plan was also developed for both the crime itself and the destruction of corpses, that is, concealing traces of the destruction of innocent people.

The meeting was headed by the chairman of the Urals Council, member of the presidium of the regional committee of the RCP (b) Alexander Georgievich Beloborodov (1891-1938). Together with him, the decision was made by: the military commissar of Yekaterinburg Philip Isaevich Goloshchekin (1876-1941), the chairman of the regional Cheka Fyodor Nikolaevich Lukoyanov (1894-1947), the editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Ekaterinburg Worker" Georgy Ivanovich Safarov (1891-1942), the supply commissar of the Ural Council Pyotr Lazarevich Voikov (1888-1927), commandant of the “House of Special Purpose” Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky (1878-1938).

The Bolsheviks called the house of engineer Ipatiev “a house of special purpose.” It was here that the Romanov royal family was kept in May-July 1918 after it was transported from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg.

But you have to be a very naive person to think that middle-level managers took responsibility and independently made the most important political decision to execute the royal family. They found it possible only to coordinate it with the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov (1885-1919). This is exactly how the Bolsheviks presented everything in their time.

Here and there, in Lenin’s party, discipline was ironclad. Decisions came only from the very top, and lower-level employees carried them out unquestioningly. Therefore, we can say with full responsibility that the instructions were given directly by Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, who was sitting in the silence of the Kremlin office. Naturally, he discussed this issue with Sverdlov and the main Ural Bolshevik Evgeniy Alekseevich Preobrazhensky (1886-1937).

The latter, of course, was aware of all the decisions, although he was absent from Yekaterinburg on the bloody date of the execution. At this time, he took part in the work of the V All-Russian Congress of Soviets in Moscow, and then left for Kursk and returned to the Urals only in the last days of July 1918.

But, in any case, Ulyanov and Preobrazhensky cannot be officially blamed for the death of the Romanov family. Sverdlov bears indirect responsibility. After all, he imposed the “agreed” resolution. Such a soft-hearted leader. I resignedly took note of the decision of the grassroots organization and readily scribbled the usual formal reply on a piece of paper. Only a 5-year-old child could believe this.

The royal family in the basement of the Ipatiev house before execution

Now let's talk about the performers. About those villains who committed terrible sacrilege by raising their hands against God’s anointed and his family. To date, the exact list of killers is unknown. No one can name the number of criminals. There is an opinion that Latvian riflemen took part in the execution, since the Bolsheviks believed that Russian soldiers would not shoot at the Tsar and his family. Other researchers insist on the Hungarians who guarded the arrested Romanovs.

However, there are names that appear on all the lists of a wide variety of researchers. This is the commandant of the “House of Special Purpose” Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky, who led the execution. His deputy Grigory Petrovich Nikulin (1895-1965). The commander of the royal family's security Pyotr Zakharovich Ermakov (1884-1952) and Cheka employee Mikhail Aleksandrovich Medvedev (Kudrin) (1891-1964).

These four people were directly involved in the execution of representatives of the House of Romanov. They carried out the decision of the Ural Council. At the same time, they showed amazing cruelty, since they not only shot at absolutely defenseless people, but also finished them off with bayonets, and then doused them with acid so that the bodies could not be recognized.

Each one will be rewarded according to his deeds

Organizers

There is an opinion that God sees everything and punishes the villains for what they have done. Regicides are among the most brutal part of the criminal elements. Their goal is to seize power. They walk towards her through the corpses, not at all embarrassed by this. At the same time, people are dying who are not at all to blame for the fact that they received their crowned title by inheritance. As for Nicholas II, this man was no longer emperor at the time of his death, since he voluntarily renounced the crown.

Moreover, there is no way to justify the death of his family and staff. What motivated the villains? Of course, rabid cynicism, disregard for human lives, lack of spirituality and rejection of Christian norms and rules. The most terrible thing is that, having committed a terrible crime, these gentlemen were proud of what they had done for the rest of their lives. They willingly told journalists, schoolchildren and simply idle listeners about everything.

But let’s return to God and trace the life path of those who doomed innocent people to a terrible death for the sake of an irrepressible desire to rule over others.

Ulyanov and Sverdlov

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. We all know him as the leader of the world proletariat. However, this people's leader was splashed to the top of his head with human blood. After the execution of the Romanovs, he lived only a little over 5 years. He died of syphilis, losing his mind. This is the most terrible punishment of heavenly powers.

Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov. He left this world at the age of 33, 9 months after the crime committed in Yekaterinburg. In the city of Orel, he was severely beaten by workers. The very ones for whose rights he supposedly stood up. With multiple fractures and injuries, he was taken to Moscow, where he died 8 days later.

These are the two main criminals directly responsible for the death of the Romanov family. The regicides were punished and died not in old age, surrounded by children and grandchildren, but in the prime of life. As for other organizers of the crime, here heavenly powers They delayed the punishment, but God’s judgment was completed anyway, giving everyone what they deserved.

Goloshchekin and Beloborodov (right)

Philip Isaevich Goloshchekin- chief security officer of Yekaterinburg and adjacent territories. It was he who went to Moscow at the end of June, where he received verbal instructions from Sverdlov regarding the execution of crowned persons. After this, he returned to the Urals, where the Presidium of the Urals Council was hastily assembled, and a decision was made to secretly execute the Romanovs.

In mid-October 1939, Philip Isaevich was arrested. He was accused of anti-state activities and an unhealthy attraction to little boys. This perverted gentleman was shot at the end of October 1941. Goloshchekin outlived the Romanovs by 23 years, but retribution still overtook him.

Chairman of the Urals Council Alexander Georgievich Beloborodov- in modern times, this is the chairman of the regional Duma. It was he who headed the meeting at which the decision was made to execute the royal family. His signature was next to the word “affirm.” If we approach this issue officially, then it is he who bears the main responsibility for the murder of innocent people.

Beloborodov had been a member of the Bolshevik Party since 1907, joining it as a minor boy after the 1905 revolution. In all the positions that his senior comrades entrusted to him, he showed himself to be an exemplary and efficient worker. The best proof of this is July 1918.

After the execution of the crowned persons, Alexander Georgievich flew very high. In March 1919, his candidacy was considered for the post of president of the young Soviet republic. But preference was given to Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin (1875-1946), since he knew well peasant life, and our “hero” was born into a working-class family.

But the former chairman of the Urals Council was not offended. He was appointed head of the political department of the Red Army. In 1921, he became the deputy of Felix Dzherzhinsky, who headed the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. In 1923 he replaced him in this high post. True, a further brilliant career did not develop.

In December 1927, Beloborodov was removed from his post and exiled to Arkhangelsk. Since 1930 he worked as a middle manager. In August 1936 he was arrested by NKVD workers. In February 1938, by decision of the military board, Alexander Georgievich was shot. At the time of his death he was 46 years old. After the death of the Romanovs, the main culprit did not live even 20 years. In 1938, his wife Franziska Viktorovna Yablonskaya was also shot.

Safarov and Voikov (right)

Georgy Ivanovich Safarov- editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Ekaterinburg Worker". This Bolshevik with pre-revolutionary experience was an ardent supporter of the execution of the Romanov family, although she did nothing wrong to him. He lived well until 1917 in France and Switzerland. He came to Russia together with Ulyanov and Zinoviev in a “sealed carriage.”

After the crime committed, he worked in Turkestan, and then in the executive committee of the Comintern. Then he became editor-in-chief of Leningradskaya Pravda. In 1927, he was expelled from the party and sentenced to 4 years of exile in the city of Achinsk ( Krasnoyarsk region). In 1928, the party card was returned and again sent to work in the Comintern. But after the murder of Sergei Kirov at the end of 1934, Safarov finally lost confidence.

He was again exiled to Achinsk, and in December 1936 he was sentenced to 5 years in the camps. Since January 1937, Georgy Ivanovich served his sentence in Vorkuta. He performed the duties of a water carrier there. He walked around in a prisoner's pea coat, belted with a rope. His family abandoned him after his conviction. For the former Bolshevik-Leninist, this was a severe moral blow.

After the end of his prison term, Safarov was not released. The time was difficult, wartime, and someone apparently decided that Ulyanov’s former comrade-in-arms had nothing to do behind the lines of the Soviet troops. He was shot by decision of a special commission on July 27, 1942. This “hero” outlived the Romanovs by 24 years and 10 days. He died at 51, having lost both his freedom and his family at the end of his life.

Pyotr Lazarevich Voikov- main supplier of the Urals. He was closely involved in food issues. How could he get food in 1919? Naturally, he took them away from the peasants and merchants who did not leave Yekaterinburg. With his tireless activities he brought the region to complete impoverishment. It was good that the troops of the White Army arrived, otherwise people would have started to die of hunger.

This gentleman also came to Russia in a “sealed carriage,” but not with Ulyanov, but with Anatoly Lunacharsky (the first People's Commissar of Education). Voikov was at first a Menshevik, but quickly figured out which way the wind was blowing. At the end of 1917, he broke with his shameful past and joined the RCP(b).

Pyotr Lazarevich not only raised his hand, voting for the death of the Romanovs, but also took an active part in hiding the traces of the crime. It was he who came up with the idea of ​​dousing the bodies with sulfuric acid. Since he was in charge of all the city’s warehouses, he personally signed the invoice for receiving this very acid. By his order, transport was also allocated for transporting bodies, shovels, picks, and crowbars. The business owner is in charge of what you want.

Pyotr Lazarevich liked activities related to material values. Since 1919, he was involved in consumer cooperation, while serving as deputy chairman of the Central Union. Part-time, he organized the sale abroad of treasures of the House of Romanov and museum valuables of the Diamond Fund, the Armory Chamber, and private collections requisitioned from exploiters.

Priceless works of art and jewelry went to the black market, since at that time no one officially dealt with the young Soviet state. Hence the ridiculous prices that were given for items that had unique historical value.

In October 1924, Voikov left as plenipotentiary envoy to Poland. This was already big politics, and Pyotr Lazarevich began to settle into a new field with enthusiasm. But the poor guy was out of luck. On June 7, 1927, he was shot by Boris Kaverda (1907-1987). The Bolshevik terrorist fell at the hands of another terrorist belonging to the white emigrant movement. Retribution came almost 9 years after the death of the Romanovs. At the time of his death, our next “hero” was 38 years old.

Fedor Nikolaevich Lukoyanov- chief security officer of the Urals. He voted for the execution of the royal family, therefore he is one of the organizers of the crime. But in subsequent years this “hero” did not show himself in any way. The thing is that from 1919 he began to suffer from attacks of schizophrenia. Therefore, Fyodor Nikolaevich devoted his entire life to journalism. He worked for various newspapers, and died in 1947 at the age of 53, 29 years after the murder of the Romanov family.

Performers

As for the direct perpetrators of the bloody crime, God’s court treated them much more leniently than the organizers. They were forced people and were just following orders. Therefore, they have less guilt. At least that’s what you might think if you trace the fateful path of each criminal.

The main perpetrator of the terrible murder of defenseless women and men, as well as a sick boy. He boasted that he personally shot Nicholas II. However, his subordinates also applied for this role.

Yakov Yurovsky

After the crime was committed, he was taken to Moscow and sent to work for the Cheka. Then, after the liberation of Yekaterinburg from the white troops, Yurovsky returned to the city. Received the post of chief security officer of the Urals.

In 1921 he was transferred to Gokhran and began to live in Moscow. Was engaged in accounting of material assets. After that, he worked a little at the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs.

In 1923 there was a sharp decline. Yakov Mikhailovich was appointed director of the Krasny Bogatyr plant. That is, our hero began to manage the production of rubber shoes: boots, galoshes, boots. Quite a strange profile after security and financial activities.

In 1928, Yurovsky was transferred to director of the Polytechnic Museum. This is a long building near the Bolshoi Theater. In 1938, the main perpetrator of the murder died of an ulcer at the age of 60. He outlived his victims by 20 years and 16 days.

But apparently regicides bring a curse on their offspring. This “hero” had three children. The eldest daughter Rimma Yakovlevna (1898-1980) and two younger sons.

The daughter joined the Bolshevik Party in 1917 and headed the youth organization (Komsomol) of Yekaterinburg. Since 1926 at party work. She made a good career in this field in the city of Voronezh in 1934-1937. Then she was transferred to Rostov-on-Don, where she was arrested in 1938. She stayed in the camps until 1946.

His son Alexander Yakovlevich (1904-1986) was also in prison. He was arrested in 1952, but, however, was soon released. But trouble happened to my grandchildren. All the boys died tragically. Two fell from the roof of the house, two were burned during the fire. The girls died in infancy. Yurovsky's niece Maria suffered the most. She had 11 children. Only 1 boy survived into adolescence. His mother abandoned him. The child was adopted by strangers.

Concerning Nikulina, Ermakova And Medvedev (Kudrina), then these gentlemen lived to old age. They worked, were honorably retired, and then buried with dignity. But regicides always get what they deserve. These three have escaped their well-deserved punishment on earth, but there is still judgment in heaven.

Grave of Grigory Petrovich Nikulin

After death, every soul rushes to heavenly tabernacles, hoping that the angels will let her into the Kingdom of Heaven. So the souls of the murderers rushed to the Light. But then a dark personality appeared in front of each of them. She politely took the sinner by the elbow and nodded unequivocally in the direction opposite to Paradise.

There, in the heavenly haze, a black mouth could be seen in the Underworld. And next to him stood disgusting grinning faces, nothing like heavenly angels. These are devils, and they have only one job - to put a sinner on a hot frying pan and fry him forever over low heat.

In conclusion, it should be noted that violence always begets violence. The one who commits a crime himself becomes a victim of criminals. A clear proof of this is the fate of the regicides, about whom we tried to tell in as much detail as possible in our sad story.

Egor Laskutnikov