Tsar Nicholas II Of Russia

With the mounting pressures of World War I, combined with years of injustice toppled the rule of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia in March 1917. Forced to abdicate he was replaced by Provisional Government committed to continuing the war between red and whites.

In mid February 1917 the popular discontent in St. Petersburg took place in a series of strikes in factories, street demonstrations and riots. The constantly increasing numbers of strikes and demonstrations was growing. As in 1905, the soldiers were ordered to fire on the demonstrators, but this time they disobey and rebelled against their superiors. The success of the revolt was assured. To defend the revolution, groups of workers began to emerge and formed the Red Guard, workers resurrect the representative body witch was born on 1905; the soviets of workers, soldiers and peasants were spread throughout the Russian Empire. No one will support the tsar, neither the army that was tired of the World War I, the working class or the political parties. The liberal deputies in the Duma essentially the Kadet party set up a provisional committee. Contacts between this committee and the Soviets resulted in a series of agreements to establish a Provisional Government after the tsar abdication; this Provisional Government would represent the end of the Romanov Dynasty and the abolition of the Russian Monarchy. This is how the Russian Empire becomes a Constitutional Republic.

The last day of the Romanov family took place on July 17th of 1918, after the tsar abdication the family was put under house arrest; Russia was situated in the developing of civil war so the family was kept at fist instance in the outsides of

St. Petersburg, then moved to Tolbolsk in Siberia to finally be located in the basement of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, Russia. Nicholas had gave Lenin a big problem because, until there’s a legitimate hirer to the crown the white army would have hopes for the tsar to restore his power as well as the people who support the monarchy and was against the communist ideas Lenin implement. So if Nicholas escapes, his followers will have someone to lead them. That’s why the Bolsheviks decide to kill Nicholas and his family. The Bolsheviks authorities, let by Yurovsky, shot Nicolas II and his family [1] . The Romanovs were told in the night on July 17th that they would be photograph so the family was left alone for several minutes, they were arrange for the occasion accompany by servants and a doctor, after that a group of twelve Red army soldiers irrupt in the basement and began shooting, Nicholas tried to protect his son that was in his lap but the death was inevitable, the girls didn’t die for the first shots because they were protected by the jewels sewn in their corsets [2] . The shooters were surprised and scare at how the girls made to live and fear that the family have really a divine right. So to end with their lives the shooters stab them with bayonets. Those fail to because of the jewelry in their cloth, so finally in a desperate action they were shot at a close range in the heat.

After the Bolsheviks killed the Romanovs they began to work fast to dispose the bodies, they wanted to destroy them because that was the evidence of the cruel murder, casting chemical substance like sulfuric acid to disintegrate de bodies and bones. Finally the Bolsheviks led by Yurovsky decide to burn the bodies, which was a difficult task, as burning a human body is very difficult since it is needed a specific temperature. “We piled the corpses in the pit, poured sulfuric acid onto their faces and generally over their whole bodies to prevent them both from being recognized and from stinking as a result of decomposition (the pit was not deep). Having thrown dirt and brushwood on top, we put down railroad ties and drove over them a few times – no traces of the pit were left. The secret was completely safe; the Whites didn’t find this burial place.” [3] 

Because of the unknown location of Anastasia’s body during the rule of communism, people began to say that the young grand Duchess survive the terrible murder of all her family. Peolple said that, as Anastasia was only seventeen at the time, a soldier felt so much pity for the dying young princess that he had helped her to escape. This story was proving to be just a myth on 1991, when the bodies of the tsar and the tsarina as well as tree of their daughters and four servants were found in Yekaterinburg. In July 2007 remains of two bodies were found 60 meters from the first one. To this corps medical examiners and specialize people made a DNI test and got to the conclusion that those bodies were from the Tsarevich Alexei and one of his sisters. So it was proved that no member of the Romanov family survived the brutal murder.

In the years that followed the murder of the royal family, some people began thinking young Anastasia had survive, because nobody knew what really happened that night. Being the most famous story the one by Anne Anderson, a mentally disturbed woman, that in 1920 claimed to be the Grand Duchess after 18 months of being on a mental institution because she jumped off a bridge on Berlin. Anne Anderson stated she went to Berlin looking for her aunt, Princess Irene, who she was introduced to later, alongside with Anastasia’s family, who really wanted to believe she was the lost princess, so Anne was interrogated about her childhood by her (supposedly) cousins. The Princess Irene, Anastasia’s aunt admitted that Anne kept a great resemblance with her lost niece, but Grand Duchess Olga denied that Anne could be Anastasia.

The story of Anne was not very reliable, because she was institutionalized for 18 months before she identify herself as Anastasia Romanov. She claimed a soldier rescued her after she had been injured nearly to death with a bayonet, after that, he took her to Romania, until she came back to Germany searching for her aunt Irene.

Anne gained several supporters in family and friends of the Romanov’s, with probably expected some of the inheritance Anastasia was entitled to, as said by people who were against her. Those supporters contribute to maintain Anne and were believed to give her information about the royal family, but find it difficult to cope with Anne, because of her mood swings and strange behavior, leading her to run completely naked at times or attacking people.

Anne attended court several times to prove she was the lost Princess until 1970, when the court determined she did not provide enough evidence of her true identity. Anne Anderson died and was cremated on 1984, ten years later a DNA test were made to compare Anderson’s tissue with the duke of Edinburgh, grandnephew of tsarina Alexandra, which determined Anne was not related to the Romanov family. They also tested Anderson’s tissue with a great-nephew of a missing factory worker named Franziska Schanzkowska and in this case, they found a match, so she was confirmed to not be the Great Duchess.

In conclusion, the Romanov dynasty ended with the murder of Nicholas II’s family by the Bolsheviks, who were against the monarchy and supported communism. The Romanov family had a tragically and inhuman death, no one survived. The country often speculated about one of the Grand Duchesses being alive, but that wasn’t true and it was proven with the discovery of the remains of the Romanov family spread in different locations in Yekaterinburg, which allowed investigators to make DNA exams and prove that the whole family died in the massacre.