About the Last Romanovs

All the emperors of Russia (except Alexander III) had German-born consorts, a circumstance that cost the Romanovs their popularity during World War I. Nicholas's wife Alexandra Fyodorovna, although devoutly Orthodox, was particularly hated by the populace, largely because of her German origins.

Alexandra Fyodorovna had inherited a mutation gene, causing hemophilia, from her grandmother, Queen Victoria. This caused the hemophilia of her son, the long-awaited heir to the throne, Alexei. Nicholas and Alexandra also had four daughters (Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia).

When the Romanov family celebrated the tercentenary of its rule, in 1913, the solemnities were clouded by numerous bad omens. The face of Our Lady of St. Theodore, the patron icon of the family, became badly blackened. Grigori Rasputin proclaimed that the Romanov's power would not last two years after his death if a Romanov caused his death. He was murdered by a group of nobles, including Nicholas II's nephew by marriage (Felix Yussupov) and a cousin (Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich), on 16 December 1916. Two months later, the February Revolution of 1917 resulted in abdication of Nicholas II in favor of his brother Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich. The latter declined to accept the throne, terminating the Romanov dynasty's rule over Russia.

After the February Revolution, Nicholas II and his family were placed under house arrest. Several members of the Royal Family, including Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich of Russia, managed to establish good relations with the interim government and eventually fled the country during the October Revolution. Yekaterinburg's "Church on the Blood," built on the spot where the last Tsar and his family were killed.

On July 17, 1918, Bolshevik authorities, led by Yakov Yurovsky, shot Nicholas II, his immediate family, and four servant members in the cellar of the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg, Russia. The family was told that they would be photographed to prove to the people that they were still alive. The family was arranged appropriately and left alone for several minutes. Soon the very people that were protecting them entered and shot them. At first, the girls did not die because of the jewels sewn into their corsets. These jewels were for protection but also so that the family could have some money for when they fled the country. The shooters were horrified at how the girls were able to withstand the bullets and feared that the family really was in power due to Divine Right (the idea that Kings and Queens are placed on the throne by God). To solve that problem, the shooters tried to stab them with bayonets. That failed, too, because of the jewels, so then, they were shot 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, Nikolai 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.)

In 1991, the bodies of Nicholas II and his wife, along with three of their five children and four of their servants, were exhumed (although some questioned the authenticity of these bones despite DNA testing). Because two bodies were not present, many people believed that two Romanov children escaped the killings. There was much debate as to which two children's bodies are missing. A Russian scientist made photographic super-impositions and determined that Maria and Alexei were not accounted for. Later, an American scientist concluded from dental, vertebral, and other remnants that it was Anastasia and Alexei that were missing. Much mystery surrounded Anastasia's fate. Several films have been produced, including the full length animated feature Anastasia by Twentieth Century Fox, suggesting that she lived on.

After the bodies were exhumed in June, 1991, they sat in laboratories until 1998, while there was a debate as to whether they should be reburied in Yekaterinburg or St. Petersburg. A commission eventually chose St. Petersburg, so they (along with several loyal servants who died with them) were interred in a special chapel in the Peter and Paul Cathedral near the tombs of their ancestors.

In September 2006, Empress Marie Fedorovna, the consort of Alexander III, was buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral beside her husband. Having fled Russia at the time of the Revolution, she had spent her remaining years in exile in her native Denmark, where she was initially buried in Roskilde Cathedral. The transfer of her remains was accompanied by elaborate ceremonies, including at St. Isaac's officiated by the Patriarch. For monarchists, the reburial of the Empress in the former Imperial Capital, so many years after her death, further underscored the downfall of the dynasty. Princes Dmitri and Nicholas Romanov were present at the ceremony, along with Princess Catherine Ioanovna, daughter of Prince Ioann Konstantinovich of Russia. Other members of the Imperial Family present included the descendants of the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna including Prince Michael Andreevich of Russia the senior direct male descendant. Princess Catherine who was 90 years old at the time, and passed away in Montevideo Uruguay the following year, was the last member of the Imperial Family to be born before the fall of the dynasty, and was ultimately to become the last surviving uncontested dynast of the Imperial House of Russia.

In September 2007, the skeletal remains of two bodies were found in a burned field near Ekaterinburg. In April 2008, the governor of the region Sverdlovsk made public that DNA-research has proved the remains to belong to Crown Prince Alexei and his older sister Grand Duchess Marie. The UK Channel Five on 22 July 2008 aired a documentary "Riddle of the Romanov's: Revealed" showing the process of a forensic investigation on the 2007 remains. The DNA research confirmed that there was a male whose DNA is combination of the DNA from the grave discovered in 1991, and a female, who is a sister of the male. The DNA research could not reveal who in particular she was (whether Anastasia or Maria for example), nevertheless the investigation proved that all the Romanov's family was then shot to death, even though an experiment showed that jewels in the females corsets indeed offered some significant protection against the bullets. The program also revealed that King George V (cousin of the Czar) initially offered an asylum to Romanovs, and the government agreed, but soon after that King George V changed his mind, because he was afraid that presence of Romanovs in Great Britain would cause similar revolution to that in Russia, and he ordered to withdraw the grant of asylum. That way George V "sentenced" them to death (as the TV program puts it).

All information from Wikipedia.com