Free Republic

July 17, 2018 marks 100 years since Russia’s Romanov family was executed by Bolsheviks in the basement of the Ipatiyev house in Yekaterinburg. Yet outside Yekaterinburg, the 100th anniversary of Romanovs’ deaths is passing with little notice from the government. The memory of Nicholas II’s and his family’s deaths remain largely unprocessed. The death of the Romanovs remains a controversial moment in Russia’s history. Tsarism and Bolshevism are — for the most part — not presented as conflicting forces in a battle in which one order defeated another. Rather, tsars, Bolsheviks and later communists, are seen as a succession of...

Russia's Supreme Court has ruled that the last Tsar, Nicholas II, and his family were victims of political repression and should be rehabilitated... Nicholas, his wife Alexandra, their five children, doctor and three servants were shot dead by Bolshevik revolutionaries in July, 1918. Lower courts had previously refused to reclassify the killings, which had been categorised as simply murder... The Romanovs were shot by a firing squad without a trial, in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg. The Supreme Court "declared as groundless the repression of Tsar Nicholas II and his family and ordered their rehabilitation", the judge's decision said on...

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's highest court on Thursday refused to recognize the executed last czar Nicholas II and his family as victims of political repression — a ruling Kremlin critics said was dictated by the government's reluctance to condemn the bloodiest chapters of the country's Communist past. The Supreme Court upheld repeated rulings by lower courts and prosecutors that the 1918 slaying of the czar, his wife and their five children by a Bolshevik firing squad was premeditated murder, not a political reprisal, said German Lukyanov, a lawyer for the royal family's descendants. "This is an illegal decision," Lukyanov told...

The reburial of empress Maria Fyodorovna, the mother of Russia's last tsar, has taken place in St Petersburg in accordance with her wishes. The Danish-born empress was exiled after the communist revolution and died in the country of her birth in 1928. Her son, Nicholas II, abdicated in 1917 and was executed by the Bolsheviks, along with much of his family. Members of several European royal families attended the reburial ceremony at St Isaac's Cathedral. Among them were Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark and the UK's Prince Michael of Kent, a distant relative of Maria Fyodorovna.

Descendant of last czar pushes Russia to admit mistake. Relative seeks formal admission that Nicholas II was unjustly killed By GRAEME SMITH Monday, January 9, 2006 YEKATERINBURG, RUSSIA -- On the face of it, Maria Romanova's legal application to Russian prosecutors might seem straightforward. As the self-described head of the surviving family of Nicholas II, Russia's last czar, Ms. Romanova wants rehabilitation for her ancestors, according to her lawyer. Under Russian law, this would mean a formal admission that Nicholas II was unjustly killed along with his wife, children and attendants after revolution swept away Russia's monarchy. Boris Yeltsin went...

Thousands of Russians marked the 87th anniversary of the assassination of Nicholas II, paying tribute to the last Russian tsar, who was shot by a firing squad. Orthodox Christian priests led groups of observant Russians, Cossacks and others in processions in Moscow and Kiev. In Yekaterinberg, long lines of regally clad priests marched through the Siberian city to the site where Nicholas II and most of his family were killed on the night of July 16-17, 1918. Hundreds jammed into Moscow's Christ the Saviour Cathedral to participate in ceremonies. Nicholas abdicated in 1917 as revolutionary fervor swept Russia, and he...