Execution of Tsar and Family
On July 17, 1918, Bolshevik authorities acting on Yakov Sverdlov's orders in Moscow and led locally by Filip Goloschekin and Yakov Yurovsky, shot Nicholas II, his immediate family, and four servants in the cellar of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, Russia.
The family was told that they were to be photographed to prove to the people that they were still alive. The family members were arranged appropriately and left alone for several minutes, the gunmen then walked in and started shooting. The girls did not die from the first shots, because bullets rebounded off jewels that were sewn into their corsets. The gunmen tried to stab them with bayonets, which also failed because of the jewels. The gunmen then shot each girl in the head at close range.
Ironically, the Ipatiev House has the same name as the Ipatiev Monastery in Kostroma, where Mikhail Romanov had been offered the Russian Crown in 1613. The spot where the Ipatiev House once stood has recently been commemorated by a magnificent cathedral "on the blood."
After years of controversy, Nicholas II and his family were proclaimed passion-bearers by the Russian Orthodox church in 2000. (In orthodoxy, a passion-bearer is a saint who was not killed because of his faith like a martyr but died in faith at the hand of murderers.)
Read more about this topic: House Of Romanov
Famous quotes containing the words execution of, execution and/or family:
“Union of Religious Sentiments begets a surprising confidence and Ecclesiastical Establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption, all of which facilitate the Execution of Mischievous Projects.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“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)
“If family communication is good, parents can pick up the signs of stress in children and talk about it before it results in some crisis. If family communication is bad, not only will parents be insensitive to potential crises, but the poor communication will contribute to problems in the family.”
—Donald C. Medeiros (20th century)