Introduction:  The Romanov Saga
 
 
 
 
 The Romanov saga is one that has intrigued people all over the world for centuries.  This story is more than a story of the Revolutions that swept across Russia and the victims caught in its wake; it is a legend of a ruthless slaughter and the mystery that surrounds it.  Russia was ripe for the Bolshevik Revolution; the proletariat was clamoring for substantial change.  Tsar Nicholas II was extremely unpopular for involving Russia in World War I, was harshly criticized for taking over the powers of the military in 1915, and his family was viewed as shamelessly living in the lap of luxury while the rest of Russia was wasting away in squalor.

There was a growing wave of strikes, demonstrations, civic organizing, and demands for political reform and social change.  Nicholas was pressured into signing the October Manifesto, a doctrine promising reform and establishing a national representative assembly (the Duma).  However, a few months later, he dissolved the Duma due to a strong oppositional mood within the assembly.  Nicholas realized all too late the weakness and deterioration of the Romanov dynasty and saw that a revolutionary coup was inevitable.

The Marxist Manifesto of Lenin coupled with the genius ingenuity of general Tolstoy empowered the Proletariat and the Romanov family became the target of intense bitterness and hatred.  The last Tsar was extremely quick to abdicate himself and his heir, Alexei,  to the sweeping Revolution on March 15, 1917.  The Romanovs' doomed fate was quickly sealed and they were imprisoned at Tsarskoe Selo.  In February of 1918, the Bolshevik party newspaper, the Pravda, called for stricter terms of imprisonment for the Tsar and his family.  They are then moved to the Impatiev house in Ekaterinburg in the Ural mountains were they are put on strict rations and await trial.  

July 17, 1918 an order was sent to assassinate the entire imperial family.  No one knows for sure why Lenin deviated from his earlier plan to put the Tsar on trial.  Maybe because he didn't want the family to be a rallying point for revolutionary rebels or because the Czech Legion had taken over the Siberian railroad and were fast approaching Ekaterinburg.  But on that still fatal night, the entire family was lined up in the basement of the house and shot by a firing squad.  Those that did not die soon enough were gutted by dull bayonets and smashed by riffle buts.  The family remains were then cut up with axes, thrown in a shallow grave, and were coated with sulfuric acid.   

The Romanov tragedy has stayed with the world since the early nineteen hundreds when the atrocity took place.  Nicholas proved to be an incompetent leader and the bloody revolutions that swept Russia were a result of the Romanov's harsh aristocratical rule.  But the horror inflicted upon the Romanov family was not justifiable as a means to a political end.  These next pages give justification to a family sacrificed for revolution.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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