Execution of Extended Family
On July 18, 1918, the day after the killing at Yekaterinburg of the last Tsar, Nicholas II and family, members of the extended Russian royal family, the Romanovs, including a nun, and servants met a brutal death by being thrown down a mineshaft near Alapayevsk by Bolsheviks. All except Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich of Russia survived the fall. Hand-grenades were thrown down after them killing Grand Duke Sergei's secretary, Fyodor Remez. Other victims died a slow death including 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 Elizabeth Fyodorovna, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Grand Duchess Elizabeth had departed her family after the death of her husband in 1905 and donated all her wealth to the poor and became a nun, but was nonetheless killed.
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 Elisabeth 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. The town is a place of pilgrimage to the memory of Elizabeth Romanov.
Read more about this topic: House Of Romanov
Famous quotes containing the words execution of, execution, extended and/or family:
“I am gradually drifting to the opinion that this Rebellion can only be crushed finally by either the execution of all the traitors or the abolition of slavery. Crushed, I mean, so as to remove all danger of its breaking out again in the future.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“I herewith commission you to carry out all preparations with regard to ... a total solution of the Jewish question in those territories of Europe which are under German influence.... I furthermore charge you to submit to me as soon as possible a draft showing the ... measures already taken for the execution of the intended final solution of the Jewish question.”
—Hermann Goering (1893–1946)
“Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on.... The small landowners are the most precious part of a state.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“The American father ... is never seen in London. He passes his life entirely in Wall Street and communicates with his family once a month by means of a telegram in cipher.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)