Page 3 of 3 FirstFirst 123
Results 101 to 120 of 120

Thread: The Romanov Family

  1. #101
    radiojane Guest
    As I understand it the Czar was overthrown. The revolutionists forced him out of power and took him and his family as prisoners to prevent their return to power.

  2. #102
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Virginia
    Posts
    1,181
    Quote Originally Posted by Miho View Post
    Ok can someone explain in Cliff Note terms why they were inprisoned to start with?
    Due to a disasterous war with Germany (part of WWI) and the questionable regency by Alexandra while he was at the front, Nicholas the II abdicated the throne (pretty much forced) for himself and his son, in favor of his brother. The brother refused to be Tsar so a provisional government was set up and the family was kept under house arrest in the Alexander Palace (right outside of St. Petersburg where they normally lived) until it could be decided what to do with them...The talk was letting them leave the country for England, but George V was worried about how it would look, basically, so there was much hemming and hawing.

    During this time, the soviets rose to power and pretty much became hostile toward the family and moved them from the Alexander Palace to Siberia and eventually a house in Ekaterineburg. The Soviets (The Red Army) were engaged in a civil war with parts of the country who did not want them to take over and as the other army (the White Army) started making progress near where the Tsar and his family were imprisoned. It was determined that they had to be killed so they would not become a rallying point for the White Army if they were captured. I think killing all of them and not just the former Tsar and the former Tsarvitch was simply eaiser for the Red Army instead of allowing the women and retainers to safely leave the country.

    In addition to the Tsar and his immediate family, many other family members were murdered as well, including the Tsarina's sister who had become a nun.
    Last edited by Dulcinea; 03-17-2012 at 08:51 PM.


  3. #103
    Patience54 Guest
    In answer to the above question, I found this on answers.yahoo.com posted by a Russian History buff named "Chels"
    I also recommend the Nonfiction Book by Nicholas Sparks, entitled, "Nicholas and Alexandra" it was a best seller in the 1970's.... about the Romanov family...

    "Tsar Nicolas II wasn't very good at his job, But he was a really good man and he loved the Russian people. But Russia got into WWI. the war dragged on a lot longer then it was expected to.

    Nicolas's son the Tsarevich Alexei (heir to the trown) had hemophilia (a diease that provents blood from clotting) he could die from a small scratch. He was in so much pain so often because of inturnal bleeding. his parents found a man how could help him. he was a peasant named Rasputin. he lessend Alexei's pain by praying over him. The Tsar and his wife kept Alexei's disease a secret from the people of Russia because they didn't want them to worry, so the people didn't know why Rasputin was around the royal family. The russians were confused and upset to see this dirty man with the royal family. They thought he was trying to get power and that he was using the Tsar. The people were mad at Nicolas for allowing Rasputin to have power.

    Also the Tsar's wife Tsarina Alexandra was from Germany. Russia was fighting against Germany in the War, and many Russians hated Germany and the Germans. There were some rumors that Alexandra was spying for Germany. She really wasn't she was very loyal to Russia.

    It also didn't help Nicolas's popularity any that the war was lasting so long and costing so many lives.

    Nicolas ended up abdicating his thrown.

    a group called the Bolsheviks took advantage of this weak time and imprisoned and brutally executed the Tsar and his family for power.
    Source(s):

    Years of research. I love history and the Romanovs."

  4. #104
    Ted Challinor Guest
    For those interested in this, beg,steal or borrow Nicholas & Alexandra by Robert K Massie. It is THE account of the last of the Romanovs and their downfall. Recommended over and over again here http://www.amazon.com/Nicholas-Alexa.../dp/0345438310

    ....and adapted into a good British film in 1971

  5. #105
    havoc Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by Ted Challinor View Post
    For those interested in this, beg,steal or borrow Nicholas & Alexandra by Robert K Massie. It is THE account of the last of the Romanovs and their downfall. Recommended over and over again here http://www.amazon.com/Nicholas-Alexa.../dp/0345438310

    ....and adapted into a good British film in 1971
    Absolutely! Both the book and the film are riveting. When I taught high school World History, I showed the video in class.

    .

  6. #106
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Location
    Connecticut, You know home of ESPN
    Posts
    9,165
    Thank you for that explanation.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

    "I will be buried in a spring loaded casket filled with confetti, and a future archaeologist will have one awesome day at work."

  7. #107
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Virginia
    Posts
    1,181
    Quote Originally Posted by havoc View Post
    Absolutely! Both the book and the film are riveting. When I taught high school World History, I showed the video in class.
    The book is wonderful. I didn't really like the movie very much (aside from the costumes). I would also recommend "A Lifelong Passion" which is a book that tells the story of Nicholas and Alexandra through their own letter and diary entries and the letters and diary entries of others. It is an excellent "first hand" account.

    Several fiction books have come out in the last few years as well. I've read most of them, but the best was "The Kitchen Boy" by Robert Alexander. He followed it up with two more fiction books about the family, but this was by far the best.

    Beware, however that most fiction books tend to go on the theory that one or more of the family survived. While I never believed (and we now know) that was not the case, they can be interesting in how it is presented.
    Last edited by Dulcinea; 03-19-2012 at 07:52 AM.


  8. #108
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Location
    S.E. Pennsylvania, USA
    Posts
    624
    I recommend reading The Last Tsar By Edvard Radzinsky. I've always wondered why the Bolsheviks didn't imprison and murder the dowager Empress, her daughters Olga and Xenia, along with Olga's and Xenia's husbands and children? After all, so many other Romanovs (male and female) suffered the same fate as the Tsar. I "enjoy" the movie Nicholas and Alexandra, but after reading Radzinsky's book you'll realize that so many other people (not included in the film) remained loyal to (and stayed with) the Tsar & Tsarina & their children after his abdication. Nearly all were eventually murdered by the Bolsheviks. It's because of the survivors' memoirs that we know what captivity was like for the Imperial family. The movie made it appear that only a male (tutor?) and a female (nurse?) stayed with them. In the film, Alexei had so many temper-tantrums I expected his head to start spinning around "Linda Blair-Exorcist" style. Most memoirs of the royal family describe a gentler Alexei than the bratty one portrayed on film. Even the film's Tsar shouted in some scenes, whereas one of his many ministers in actuality once exclaimed "I wish he [the Tsar] would get ANGRY about something for once", instead of being casually fatalistic (the Tsar attributed his misfortunes to the fact that he was born on the feast day of Job). I really enjoy Lionel Barrymore's performance as Rasputin in Rasputin and the Empress. Apparently MGM failed to realize that many of the people portrayed in this film were in fact still very much alive and very litigious ... MGM ended up being sued by those unhappy with the way they were portrayed, and from that point on films started to include the basic message in their credits that "any similarity to actual persons living or dead is coincidental." This is probably why Ingrid Bergman's 1950's film Anastasia omitted both Olga and Xenia from its storyline. Both of the Tsar's sisters were still alive at the time the film was made, whereas the dowager Empress (played by Helen Hayes in the film) had died back in 1928. Olga actually met with "Anna Anderson" and was presumably pressured by the dowager Empress et al. relatives to declare Anderson an impostor, although Olga admitted "in her heart" that she felt that Anderson was probably Anastasia.

  9. #109
    Ted Challinor Guest
    oh God Dulcinea I purposely didn't mention 'A lifelong passion' cos I read it just once and it moved me to tears...still have it, virtually untouched.
    Listen, come the revolution I would be first to man the barricades!!! - but if someone mentioned the Romanovs and I'd be telling everyone to go home, it's not worth it....

  10. #110
    jhpeters2 Guest

    Eh?

    As is typical, children are murdered at the behest of marxists. One must break a few eggs to make an omelette. Noble intentions or not, why did the bolsheviks need to kill little girls? Why? Why? Evidently murder solves everything.... Name the marxist that intoned that. I dare you. Hint his initials were JS.

  11. #111
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Location
    S.E. Pennsylvania, USA
    Posts
    624
    As is typical, children are murdered at the behest of marxists. One must break a few eggs to make an omelette. Noble intentions or not, why did the bolsheviks need to kill little girls? Why? Why? Evidently murder solves everything.... Name the marxist that intoned that. I dare you. Hint his initials were JS

    Yet for some unknown reason the Bolsheviks spared the cook’s little-boy assistant. (The cook himself was also murdered, along with Dr. Botkin, a valet and a maid.) The day of the execution, the boy was taken away under the pretext that his uncle had come to visit him, and Alexandra’s last diary entry includes a comment about this incident, ending with “wonder if it’s true and if we will ever see him again?”

    Further recommended reading: chapter 15 of Dead Men Do Tell Tales by William R Maples PhD. He (along with several other experts) was invited by the Russians to examine the Imperial skeletal remains to try and determine what was left of whom, who was missing, etc.

  12. #112
    Madamlehag Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by Meliss9900 View Post
    Even kings are subject to the governments they head. no one one in the British government wanted to take on the Romanov issue so King George was pretty much powerless. Besides the Bolsheviks wouldn't have agreed.


    Melissa

    I know this is an old post but wanted to add to this. Recent biographies of the British royals (there have been a handful covering the czar, the kaiser and the British King) have unearthed the truth. The Government wanted to give them exile and had already pledged to do so. The King heard and demanded they retract it. His papers show his advisers in the government were horrified and argued with him. The King felt his own throne was on shaky ground and he did not want their presence to remind the British people of his own German family ties. He even changed the family name to Windsor to bolster his "non German" heritage. King George was warned that they would be killed. Whatever he felt later, he effectively turned away and signed off on the execution and murder of members of his family. People he grew up with and knew well, innocent children! Totally heartless. Those children suffered an agonizing death because of his thirst for power.

  13. #113
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Posts
    2,495
    Somehow I don't feel the Tsar's immediate family, even the daughters who were barred from inheriting or even passing along the throne to sons of their own, would have been safe wherever they went, not for decades, anyway. And it's not too much of a stretch to hypothesize that they may have presented a danger to those who harbored them, or came in close proximity.
    Tsar Nikolai and King George had been great friends (as well as first cousins, via their mothers) from an early age, and even bore a strong resemblence. Alexandra was also a first cousin of George (her mother and his father were siblings) and the large family was unusually close while grandmother Victoria was alive.

    However, aside from German ancestry (which was shared by most of Europe's royalty by that point, anyway) Alexandra had become a controversial figure due to her gross mismanagement of her regency, her expressed distate for the fledgling Russian parliament, the Duma, and her publicly inexplicable championship of Rasputin, whom she believed could keep her only son alive with his prayers and natural hypnotic ability. Not too many people could get along with her after a while, except for her husband and kids (and even then it was a challenge), and a couple of close retainers. Even her sister Elizabeth, who had helped to raise her, and later became a nun, became estranged from her in the last years of their lives.

    Alexandra may have been the sticking point, more than Nikolai, who, after all, had been England's ally, military failure that he turned out to be in spite of his best efforts. Alexandra had repudiated her own German roots since her marriage, partly because she genuinely wanted to be seen as a Russian Tsarina (never mind that her spouse was about 90% of German descent himself) and partly because she genuinely loathed her cousin Emperor Wilhelm. But she had screwed herself up by alienating her husband's most sensible ministers and family members, and sticking up for Rasputin (and his greedy cronies and relatives) without revealing the truth about her son's likely-to-be-fatal genetic ailment (one of her daughters, Maria, also suffered some symptoms of "female hemophilia".)

    As Robert K. Massie noted, this WOULD have put strains on the throne if revealed, since female children could not inherit and Nikolai had numerous uncles, his father's brothers, most of whom had ambitious sons of their own, who would have jumped at the opportunity. His own surviving brother Mikhail put himself out of the running when he married a divorced commoner, as did his youngest uncle Pavel, but that could all be set aside if young Alexei died or became permanently incapacitated. Alexandra was not a well-liked consort by anyone except her besotted husband, and having borne four daughters prior to the one son, became obsessed with proving through Alexei that she had been worthy of her position.

    One of the finest things about this royal couple was their devotion to their children and to each other. But it was also the undoing of the children, anyway. The worst piece of luck came their way when the Revolution broke out. All of the children came down with measles, which can still be quite serious and even fatal. The fevers were so intense that all the children's heads were shaved, as was customary in those days. One of the daughters nearly died. Then Alexei suffered another injury that, without the intense therapies accorded his earlier injuries (and the "help" of Rasputin, who had been assassinated by then), crippled him for good. There were some opportunities, early on, to send the young people to safety, but the illnesses and instability led to the reluctance of the family to separate, and, with the defeat of the more lenient Provisional Government by the Bolsheviks, then it was too late.

  14. #114
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Earth
    Posts
    21,891
    Quote Originally Posted by Linnie View Post
    Somehow I don't feel the Tsar's immediate family, even the daughters who were barred from inheriting or even passing along the throne to sons of their own, would have been safe wherever they went, not for decades, anyway. And it's not too much of a stretch to hypothesize that they may have presented a danger to those who harbored them, or came in close proximity.
    Tsar Nikolai and King George had been great friends (as well as first cousins, via their mothers) from an early age, and even bore a strong resemblence. Alexandra was also a first cousin of George (her mother and his father were siblings) and the large family was unusually close while grandmother Victoria was alive.

    However, aside from German ancestry (which was shared by most of Europe's royalty by that point, anyway) Alexandra had become a controversial figure due to her gross mismanagement of her regency, her expressed distate for the fledgling Russian parliament, the Duma, and her publicly inexplicable championship of Rasputin, whom she believed could keep her only son alive with his prayers and natural hypnotic ability. Not too many people could get along with her after a while, except for her husband and kids (and even then it was a challenge), and a couple of close retainers. Even her sister Elizabeth, who had helped to raise her, and later became a nun, became estranged from her in the last years of their lives.

    Alexandra may have been the sticking point, more than Nikolai, who, after all, had been England's ally, military failure that he turned out to be in spite of his best efforts. Alexandra had repudiated her own German roots since her marriage, partly because she genuinely wanted to be seen as a Russian Tsarina (never mind that her spouse was about 90% of German descent himself) and partly because she genuinely loathed her cousin Emperor Wilhelm. But she had screwed herself up by alienating her husband's most sensible ministers and family members, and sticking up for Rasputin (and his greedy cronies and relatives) without revealing the truth about her son's likely-to-be-fatal genetic ailment (one of her daughters, Maria, also suffered some symptoms of "female hemophilia".)

    As Robert K. Massie noted, this WOULD have put strains on the throne if revealed, since female children could not inherit and Nikolai had numerous uncles, his father's brothers, most of whom had ambitious sons of their own, who would have jumped at the opportunity. His own surviving brother Mikhail put himself out of the running when he married a divorced commoner, as did his youngest uncle Pavel, but that could all be set aside if young Alexei died or became permanently incapacitated. Alexandra was not a well-liked consort by anyone except her besotted husband, and having borne four daughters prior to the one son, became obsessed with proving through Alexei that she had been worthy of her position.

    One of the finest things about this royal couple was their devotion to their children and to each other. But it was also the undoing of the children, anyway. The worst piece of luck came their way when the Revolution broke out. All of the children came down with measles, which can still be quite serious and even fatal. The fevers were so intense that all the children's heads were shaved, as was customary in those days. One of the daughters nearly died. Then Alexei suffered another injury that, without the intense therapies accorded his earlier injuries (and the "help" of Rasputin, who had been assassinated by then), crippled him for good. There were some opportunities, early on, to send the young people to safety, but the illnesses and instability led to the reluctance of the family to separate, and, with the defeat of the more lenient Provisional Government by the Bolsheviks, then it was too late.
    I find this the most plausible as it's what all pieces of the puzzle lead to. Very well done post.
    .

  15. #115
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Posts
    455
    Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia taking one of the first teenage self-portraits using a mirror and a Kodak Brownie camera to send to a friend in 1914.

  16. #116
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    Central Florida
    Posts
    2,681
    Quote Originally Posted by Valessa View Post
    Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia taking one of the first teenage self-portraits using a mirror and a Kodak Brownie camera to send to a friend in 1914.
    The first Selfie!! Wouldn't I be cool if she made ducklips?....
    To my Father. Even though you have crossed the plane, you will always be with me.
    You were not just my Father, but my hero. My life has been a poor attempt to be like you
    You taught me music, vocals, and how to fight. I can only hope I am half the man you are
    When I close my eyes I can see you. And finally, Thank you Dad. for everything.
    March 1934-July 2016

  17. #117
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Posts
    2,495
    Quote Originally Posted by Mcafgr View Post
    The first Selfie!! Wouldn't I be cool if she made ducklips?....
    Anastasia was renowned for her sometimes extreme sense of humor. No doubt she'd have been the first in the world to do that, if it occurred to her. Those kids loved to take candid pictures, fooling around for the camera. Seeing those photos depicting all the innocent fun they appeared to have (even though a couple of the girls were actually young adults in 1918) helps add to their legend and the continuing regret that they (along with millions of other young Russians!) did not get to survive and live out their lives.
    I do wonder who the lady in the background with with the blurred face was.
    Last edited by Linnie; 12-08-2013 at 02:25 PM.

  18. #118
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Location
    San Diego, CA
    Posts
    1,860
    I think the undoing of the Russian Imperial Family was Rasputin, and his power over Empress Alexandra. Alexis had hemophilia. It was a tragedy.
    Everyone must die but not everyone has lived


  19. #119
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Location
    S.E. Pennsylvania, USA
    Posts
    624
    Tonight marks the 100th Deathiversary of their murder in Ekaterinburg.

  20. #120
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Location
    S.E. Pennsylvania, USA
    Posts
    624
    Reading more books about the Romanovs, one of which mentions that during the time of their imprisonment Nicholas, Alexandra and their five children were individually photographed criminal-style, i.e., frontal and profile. Just another reminder to them (as if they needed it) that they were prisoners. When they were told they were being taken from their home in the Alexander Palace, they hoped they'd be sent to their palace in Livadia (in the Crimea). The climate at Livadia was warmer and that area's general population at the time wasn't hostile (yet) to the Romanovs. Instead they were sent to Siberia, the same place where the Tsars sent thousands of prisoners into exlie and imprisonment. Wondering if the "mugshot photos" do exist and if they're accessible for online viewing. I recommend reading The Russian Court At Sea by Frances Welch, about the Romanovs who escaped Russia via a British warship. The Dowager Empress' sister was Alexandra, widow of King Edward VII and mother of King George V. The two sisters remained close over the decades and this was reflected in the close relationships between their children.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •