History Book: The fall of the Romanovs

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, July 7th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next, the WORLD History Book. Back in 1917, the Bolsheviks overthrew the royal family during the Russian Revolution. Soldiers forced the Romanovs into house arrest, and for many years, their fate was shrouded in secrecy. WORLD’s Emma Eicher has the story.

EMMA EICHER: On July 16th, 1918, the Russian royal family sleeps soundly in a modest, two-story stone house, a far cry from the opulent palaces they’re accustomed to.

Guards downstairs are quietly slipping Colt pistols into their pockets. If all goes according to plan, the Romanovs will be dead by dawn.

Voice actor Kim Rasmussen reads what the head guard, Yakov Yurovsky, later remarked:

RASMUSSEN: It’s no easy thing to arrange an execution, contrary to what some people may think.

The Romanovs have been under house arrest for more than a year. In 1917, Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate the throne during the Russian Revolution, and the provisional government wasn’t sure what to do with the family.

They only knew they must protect them, and limit their influence over counter-revolutionaries.

So under constant guard, the family of seven moves from house to house around Russia. At each location, they lose more food, money, and possessions.

The children have to adjust to life outside the royal palace—there’s Olga, the oldest at 23. Then there’s Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and the only son, Alexei. He’s the youngest at 14.

Nicholas’s wife, Alexandra, writes about the hardships in a letter to her sister-in-law, voice actor Michelle Schlavin reads.

ALEXANDRA: We live quietly, have established ourselves well although it is far, far away from everybody. But God is merciful. He gives us strength and consolation.

At first, revolutionaries treat the Romanovs gently. They want to cultivate good public opinion at home and abroad.

But anger at the royal family starts to mount. Communist Vladimir Lenin and violent Bolsheviks—a Marxist faction—replace the provisional government. They ask themselves: why should the exiled Romanovs still live, protected and comfortable, while peasants scrape by on meager rations?

Then, loyalists to the crown begin to gain ground. The White Army—as they’re known—advances, threatening to topple the Bolsheviks. They’re getting close to the place where the Romanovs are imprisoned.

If they find them, they’ll set them free.

The head guard Yurovsky and his friends at Bolshevik headquarters decide it’s time to send a message. One of Lenin’s officials says later:

RASMUSSEN: The execution of the Tsar’s family was needed not only to frighten, horrify and dishearten the White Army, but also to shake up our own ranks to show them that there was no turning back, that ahead lay complete victory or complete ruin …

So Yurovsky orders his soldiers to clear out the cellars. He hand picks a few of them to carry out the execution. At 1:30 in the morning, he wakes up the family. He says, the White Army is approaching and they have to go down to the cellars. For their own safety.

The family complies, getting ready with their maids, the family physician, and the house cook.

Then, guards lead all eleven of them into the cellars below.

Yurovsky recalls:

RASMUSSEN: They still did not imagine anything of what was in store for them.

Three days after the execution, the government releases an official statement saying they killed Nicholas II, but the rest of the family is safe, though they won’t say where they’ve taken them. One official says privately:

RASMUSSEN: The world will never know what has become of them.

The White Army captures the town a week later. Officials are still hopeful the Romanovs are alive. Soldiers search the house … and find the cellar pockmarked with bullet holes. But there aren’t any bodies. So they figure the family may still be alive. Or at least some of them.

News of the Romanovs’ mysterious disappearance swirls through the nation, and beyond, into Europe and the Americas.

What happened to them?

For 8 years, the Russian government insists that Alexandra and the children are safe.

But the family gathers mystique in the public eye. Rumors of their survival circulate across the globe. People report seeing the Romanov daughters in Crimea, North America, even Japan. In fact, individuals claiming to be Anastasia, or Marie, or Alexei step forward. More than 200 people claim to be the missing children over the next 60 years.

Until investigators finally uncover the truth. Audio here from a National Geographic documentary.

AUDIO: So … what did you find?

[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

They discover a shallow grave in the forest, near the house where the Romanovs were last imprisoned.

On July 9th, 1993, British forensic scientists use DNA samples to determine that the remains are indeed that of the Romanov family and their royal entourage.

AUDIO: In 1991, nine sets of remains were found. There were 11 people that were killed … that night. Two sets of remains were still missing.

But it takes more than a decade to find evidence of the other two bodies. In 2007, archaeologists unearth another grave a few hundred feet away containing bone fragments. They take DNA samples, but it’s difficult to conduct tests.

AUDIO: The mystery within the mystery is, what happened to Anastasia? Did she escape? Or, is she here? Right now, I can’t tell whether we have 2 females or a male and a female, or whether these fragments are part of the other bones that were already recovered.

Using advanced technology, they determine the fragments belong to both Alexei and one of his sisters: either Maria or Anastasia.

Nearly 90 years after the early morning executions, the analysis finally puts to rest the secrecy behind the Romanov family’s fate.

DOCUMENTARY: It was surely not the end any of them expected, but the DNA evidence makes it clear that’s what really happened, on the night Russia’s longest dynasty came to its abrupt and bloody end…

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Emma Eicher.

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