WHAT HAPPENED TO THE RUSSIAN ROYAL FAMILY? | Russian royal history documentary | History Calling

this footage from the early 1910s shows the russian royal family the romanovs in it we see tsar nicholas zarina alexandra and their son zaravich alexei followed closely behind by their daughters grand duchesses olga tatiana maria and anastasia wearing white dresses and hats just a few short years later the entire family would be wiped out within minutes of each other under horrific circumstances this is history calling where i bring you new videos every friday on all aspects of history and today we're going to look at what happened to the russian imperial family and why make sure you stay till the end to also hear the decades-long mysteries surrounding what happened to their bodies and why rumors persisted for nearly 90 years that anastasia had somehow escaped her family's brutal fate and survived nicholas was born in 1868 the eldest son of zar alexander iii of russia and a member of the romanov family who had ruled the country since 1613. on the 20th of october 1894 his father died and nicki as he was known by his family ascended to the throne he married the 22 year old princess alex of hesse who took the russian name alexandra federovna just three and a half weeks later and the couple were crowned together in 1896 the tsar and zarina were desperate to have a son as russian love forbade the throne from being inherited by a female however this proved easier said than done their four daughters arrived one after the other in 1895 1897 1899 and 1901 and it wasn't until 1904 that the longed four son alexei was finally born tragically it soon became clear that the boy had inherited the blood disorder hemophilia from his mother's family meaning that it was incredibly difficult for his blood to clot and even small bumps bruises and cuts could be life-threatening this illness was hidden from the public but it would be one factor in the ultimate downfall of the romanovs on top of this personal catastrophe the early 20th century was a turbulent time for russia nicholas who was not a very capable leader started a war with japan in 1904 which russia lost then struggled to deal with issues including a field revolution led by unhappy workers in 1905 and world war one which began in 1914 things were not helped by his wife's reliance on a disreputable self-proclaimed monk and mystic grigori rasputin who she believed could heal their son alexei but whose behavior and involvement with the family were deeply unpopular amongst the russian people alexander only made the situation worse when she was left in charge of the russian government while nicholas took charge of the army and gave rasputin a formal position within that government nazar and zarina relied heavily on the advice given to them by their friend as they called him despite warnings from family and advisors about his disreputable lifestyle and the danger they were placing themselves in through their near obsession with following his instructions and their mismanagement of the government rasputin was eventually assassinated in december 1916 but the damage to the imperial family's reputation was done less than three months later there were marches by women in petrograd on the 23rd of february which was international women's day in the old julian style calendar then still in use in russia to protest against bread shortages and the government these quickly spiraled into full-scale revolution the army refused to support nicholas and after rejecting the idea of abdicating in favor of his son alexei because of the boy's poor health he abdicated on both their behalfs on the 2nd of march 1917 this temporarily made his brother michael the new czar however he too abdicated within a day imperial russia had come to an end and for the remainder of their lives the former royal family would be held prisoners first by the provisional government set up in place of imperial rule then by the bolsheviks who seized control of the country in october at first they were kept in alexander palace near st petersburg though held in isolation from the rest of the world they were allowed to walk in the gardens and plant vegetables the children were recovering from measles which had caused the girl's hair to fall out and so in july 1917 they shaved their remaining hair off as did alexei as a show of solidarity with his sisters initially there had been hopes that the family could go into exile in england but nicholas's cousin george v of great britain retracted an offer of asylum due to political pressures at home as 1917 progressed there were concerns for the safety of the former imperial family and worries that the xr might be the focal point for a counter-revolution on the 1st of august they were therefore dispatched by train to the governor's house in tobolsk siberia here life was more restricted so much so that anastasia apologized in her letters to a friend for how empty they were saying i am terribly sorry my letters turned out to be so stupid and boring but nothing interesting happens here she and her sisters would sit at the windows watching the people pass by outside and this gives us some distraction she said the girls made friends with the guards too talking to them and decorating christmas trees for them and the former grand duchesses even put on a farcical play to amuse everyone in the house the bolsheviks didn't take kindly to the guards befriending the prisoners though and replaced them with far stricter men in february 1918 in the face of plots to rescue and restore nicholas and his family to par some wanted the family killed right away or nicholas put on trial however for the time being they were moved to ekaterinburg a bastion of bolshevik strength alexei was too ill to travel and so he and his sisters olga tatiana and anastasia remained in tubulsk whilst nicolas alexandra and maria left on the 26th of april arriving on the 30th they were placed here in a patief house which was known as the house of special purpose where they were joined in may by the remaining children again life was even more restricted and the family were told it was meant to resemble a prison regime it did there were difficult negotiations just to be allowed to open a small window in the heat their possessions were stolen and food and outdoor exercise were rationed the guards did soften towards them over time however and several were very taken with the younger three grand duchesses indeed maria's close relationship with one caused a rift with her mother and sister olga the apative regime would last only a few months however in mid-june as the czech legion which might have freed nicholas and his family approached to katerinburg it was decided that the euro regional soviet categorically refuses to take responsibility for transferring nicholas ruminov in the direction of moscow and considers it necessary to liquidate them there is grave danger citizen ruminov will fall into the hands of czechoslovaks and other counter-revolutionaries we cannot turn away from our duty to the revolution romanov's family must also be liquidated this chilling plan was soon put into action the family's sympathetic guards were replaced with hardline bolsheviks and on the 11th of july a mine shaft in which to dump the bodies was selected in woods not far from a patio house the executions had now been approved in moscow allegedly by the head of the new soviet government vladimir lenin though historians cannot agree on the extent of his involvement and all that remained was to work out the exact timings this didn't take long their jailer yakov mikhailovic recorded that he began to plan the assassinations on the 15th of july complaining that it's no easy matter to arrange an execution contrary to what some people think at 8pm on the 16th of july as the family at dinner yurovsky told his men that they would shoot the romanovs and their remaining attendants 11 people in all at that night two men backed out unwilling to kill the girls and the final group of assassins numbered eight or ten several of them drunk and one only 17 years old alexandra's final ever diary entry noted that she went to bed at 10 30 pm that evening three hours later in the early morning of the 17th of july a truck was brought to the house the family and their servants who were named ivan carotenov alexey trump anna demiduva and eugene botkin were awoken and told they needed to be moved for their own safety they were given time to dress then at 2 15 am they were led into this basement room the damage you see on the walls occurred in 1919 when investigators tore the room apart to retrieve evidence of what had happened that night either nicholas or alexandra historians aren't sure which asked for chairs for the former's arena and her son these were julie brought in the two sat with nicholas in front of the boy and tatiana behind her mother with anastasia at her sister's side olga and maria were behind them against the wall the truck was now brought into the courtyard of the house and the driver told to rev the engine to drown out the noise of what was to come inside yurovsky read out a short statement in view of the fact that your relatives continue their offensive against soviet russia the presidium of the ural regional soviet has decided to sentence you to death nicholas couldn't comprehend what he was hearing and he asked that the statement be read again yourofsky complied but when nicholas still stammered what what he pulled out his gun said this and shot the former czar in the chest the other assassins followed suit and what exactly happened next was so chaotic that historians are still unable to establish the precise course of events according to simon c by montefiore however all the assassins initially aimed at nicholas and the room quickly filled with bullets smoke and screams some of the servants had been hit as well but alexander and the children were not immediately fired upon then as she crossed herself the former empress was killed by a bullet to the head maria tried to run for the door but was shot down by a bullet to the thigh yourofsky then had to order the shooting stopped and the doors opened to let the smoke out so that the assassins could see what they were doing and not shoot each other as the smoke cleared it became obvious that only the former czars arena and two servants were dead the gunfire now resumed but the girls and even alexei who was still rooted to his chair and terror were protected to some extent by jewels soon into their blouses and shirt in the end the thirteen-year-old former zarovich was bayonetted then finally shot in the head his sisters tried to escape but they too were shot then bayoneted as the exasperated assassins discovered their bullets seemingly bounced off the girls dual laden corsets the whole ordeal took between 10 and 20 terrifying minutes as the bodies were carried out to the truck two of the former grand duchesses most likely anesthesia and maria spluttered to life and started to cry they were bayoneted again until they were dead the assassins began to loot the family's belongings until ordered to stop and return what they had stolen by yarovsky and at 3 am the truck left a patio house to take the bodies to the pre-arranged mine shaft in another sign of how shambolic the entire operation was this truck soon broke down and the bodies had to be transferred into carts at almost 7am they reached the mine where the roomanovs and their attendance were stripped the last of their belongings taken and their clothing burned when they were tossed into the mine shaft however it quickly became apparent that it wasn't deep enough to adequately hide them after much chewing and fruiting they were retrieved in the early hours of the 19th of july alexei and one of his sisters were then burnt and buried the others were put into a freshly dug grave 70 feet away and doused in sulfuric acid before being buried too as news of what had happened leaked out the lack of bodies allowed rumors to spring up that one of the girls anastasia had survived the massacre most notably a woman later identified as a polish factory worker named anna anderson would claim to be the lost grand duchess dna testing conducted on hair and tissue samples preserved after her death in 1984 showed that she was lying no one had survived instead the remains of all the romanovs and their servants continued to lie for decades in the coptiyaki woods outside sverdlovsk a patio of house was destroyed in 1977 and in 1979 some of the ruminovs were discovered by two amateur historians this was during the soviet era however and so the discovery was not made public and the bones were reburied it was only in july 1991 after the fall of the soviet union that the bones of nine of the eleven murder victims were recovered dna from prince philip duke of edinburgh and other members of the extended royal family identified the tsar and serena and from there three of their daughters could also be confirmed as present alexei and the remaining girl had not been located in 1998 on the 80th anniversary of the murders desire his family and their servants were buried at the peter and paul cathedral in st petersburg the romanov's tombs can be seen in this picture a new cathedral named the church on blood in honor of all saints resplendent in the russian land was built on the former site of a pattie of house and in 2000 nicholas alexandra and their children were canonized as passion bearers by the russian orthodox church seven years later the heavily damaged remains of alexei and one of his sisters popularly believed to be maria but possibly anesthesia were discovered though the church refused to recognize them in 2015 dna was used once again to confirm their identity and they were then supposed to be buried with their family that october however the church continues to delay asking for additional dna testing as it stands the shards of bone which are all that is left of these two siblings remain in boxes in the russian state archives that brings us to the end of this video on the tragic feat of the romanovs and their servants let me know in the comments section below if you have any further questions about what happened to them and why as i mentioned earlier there's still considerable dispute as to some of the details of what happened in july 1918 so i'd be interested to hear your take on the events surrounding the romanovs deaths and why you think they were killed i'll leave links in the description box to one of the books i used when putting this video together in case you'd like to check it out make sure you're subscribed with notifications switched on so you don't miss my new video next friday and until then keep learning

Channel: History Calling

Views: 27,514

Keywords: What happened to the Russian royal family, Russian royal history documentary, what happened in the house of special purpose, Russian royal family, who was Anna Anderson, the last tsar of Russia and his family, what happened to the Romanovs, what happened to the Romanov family, House of special purpose, the story of the Romanovs, the last tsar of Russia, History Calling, the death of Rasputin, grand duchess Anastasia, did anastasia escape, Romanov documentary, Tsar Nicholas

Id: EsHr13d14XU

Length: 14min 41sec (881 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 26 2021