Russians In Exile - The History of a Diaspora - Part 3 - The October Revolution and the Russian Civil War

Part III: After the Revolution
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6. The October Revolution and the Russian Civil War
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1917 November 21: The new patriarch Tikhon is enthroned in the Assumption Cathedral of Moscow. Patriarch Tikhon is a good-natured and approachable man, who is aware of the responsibilities of his position and his obligations towards the Church and the country.
November 22: The bolsheviks capture the Smirnoff Company. Vladimir Smirnoff escapes, but is arrested in the Ukrain, for collaboration with the Tsarist regime.
General Yuri Daniloff's son Serge was a cadet in Tenishev, the elite military academy in St. Petersburg, where only sons of generals and field marshalls were allowed to study. In March 1917 General Daniloff advised Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate. When Nicholas refused, the General made sure that his three children could leave for Paris; he could see the storm coming. After his arrival in Paris Serge Yuryevich Daniloff, the eldest son of General Yuri and Anna, served as a second lieutenant in the Russian Embassy in Rome. After the October Revolution he and his fellow officers of the embassy divide the money, after which they all go their own way.
November 26: Vladimir Smirnoff is taken before a firing squad. No one orders to shoot. Vladimir is scared to death.
November 27: Svekhin, the Russian Envoy in the Netherlands, moves from The Hague and leaves the legation in charge of his First Secretary Henri de Bach.
November 27: Numerous prominents and high officers are executed, as enemies of the state or oppressors of the working class. Among them are some pilots of the Ilya Muromets-squadrons, who are shot because of the simple fact that they are officers, and as such represent the Tsar's regime. Igor Sikorsky understands that he's no longer safe, especially as some very good friends of him are executed without any form of trial. He escapes to Murmansk, where he embarks the English freighter Oporto. One week later he disembarks the ship in England, as a free man. In England Sikorsky tries to sell his plans, but nobody is interested in them, most likely because of the biases against the aviation in `backward' Russia. In France he has more success. The French government orders him to build heavy bombers, but a week before the prototype goes up in the air the French blow up the project.
November 28: Vladimir Smirnoff is once more taken before a firing squad. Once more nothing happens, once more he's scared s...less.
Shortly before the banks are closed by the bolsheviki, Count Paul Nikolaevich Ignatieff (1870-192- 6), the last Minister of Education under Nicholas II, is able to transfer his money to a local cooperative society, and some hours before the society is nationalized, he cashes the complete amount. He and his wife, the former Princess Natasha Meshchersky, hide the money in an earthenware jar.
Princess Ekaterina Alexandrovna Meshcherskaya, a cousin of Princess Natasha, chooses not to escape. `I'm not going anywhere,' says her mother, `I'm not going to sit in the doorway of some foreign embassy, like a beggar, to ask for protection against my own motherland.' Ekaterina stays with her mother; her brother and uncles escape abroad.
There are more aristocrats who want to stay in Russia. Ekaterina sees them becoming isolated and lonely. They sell all their valuables in the black market, and when nothing is left they become beggars, who in perfectly French ask for charity. `It is a sorry and disgraceful sight,' she writes in her diary.
November: The last Ambassador of Russia to France is Vasili Maklakov, who is appointed by the Kerensky administration. He only arrives in Paris after the October Revolution, and although the bolsheviki have dismissed him from his office in the mean time, he and his staff keep manning the Embassy in the Grand H“tel d'Estrées, as if nothing had happened. (Until 1922 the French government will consider him the Ambassador of Russia.)
From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: December 1, 1917: a lamentation from Aunty. Grandfather is dying, the house has been plundered.
December 4: The farmlands of the churches and monasteries are confiscated.
From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: December 10, 1917: Grandfather died. Gorbunov came to tell us that we are allowed to burry him wherever we want; he even allowed a clergyman to be present. Grandfather was hardly dead, when the soldiers came to confiscate the entire house. We were allowed the use of only one room. They sing and shout all day. Today they killed the time by shooting with their revolvers at the icons and mirrors in all rooms.
December 11: The government closes the churches, seminaries and theological academies.
December 17: 3,000 mutineers of the Russian expeditionary force in France are shipped via Marseille to North Africa. 89 mutineers, the leaders of the pack, are imprisoned in Bordeaux. Among them is soldier Rodyon Malinovsky, 19, who later will become Marshall and Minister of War of the Soviet-Union, and even more later will be convicted and sentenced to death.
December 18: The Church looses the right to register births and marriages.
December 20: The institution of civil marriage is introduced. Lenin founds the Special Commissi- on for the Oppression of the Counterrevolution (Cheka), and Felix Dzherzhinsky becomes its first director. The Red Terror gives short shrift to all `enemies' of the new administration.
The Davidoffs own a house in Kiev, where more and more refugees find a shelter. Shortly before Christmas 1917 they hear that the bolsheviki are preparing an attack on Kiev.
1918 January 20: The subsidies to the Church are abolished. Patriarch Tikhon hastens to condemn all these proceedings against the Church, and he calls on all believers to defend the Church and the religion. What right do the bolsheviki have to call themselves `warriors for common welbeing' and `creators of new life'? Tikhon orders the clergy everywhere in the country to found religious unions and to organize the believers to defend the rights of the Church with all means. Tikhon explicitly calls on passive resistance. The same day the Council approves of the appeal of the patriarch, but the members worry about the future. They decide to organize a procession to the Red Square, to find out how large the following of the Church in Moscow is. The procession becomes an overwhelming demonstration, hundreds of thousands of people join the parade. Lenin and his lot are still not confident and strong enough to put down this massive ostentation heavy- handed. They restrict to proclaiming the separation of Church and State.
January 23: The bolsheviks abolish religious education at all schools. That ukase becomes the starting point of the Soviet legislation regarding the Church.
January 23: The Civil War reaches Kiev. Kiev is bombarded severely. After 15 days of defending the city the Ukrainian nationalists have to withdraw; the bolsheviki capture the city. One refugee after another is caught and taken hostage. The Davidoffs, who live in a common suburb of Kiev, notice relatively little of the terror of the bolsheviki, but they fear for it all the time. They hear that Kamenka is completely plundered. During the battle between the Reds and the Whites many churches and monasteries of the city are bombed and destructed. The famous Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra Monastery is bombed heavily by the communists, because they suspect that the bell tower is used as a military watchtower. In fact the bell tower is closed, and there are virtually no troops in sight. The bombing of churches and their bell towers is a matter of course during the communist actions.
The communists capture the monastery, and from that moment on the inhabitants of the Lavra Monastery witness an accumulation of violence and barbarism. Armed soldiers of the Red Army force an entry into the churches. Cursing and screaming they search the premises, even during services. Old monks are dragged outside, undressed in the court yard, and beaten merciless.
January 24: Vladimir Smirnoff is `officially' sentenced to death, without a trial that is. He is brought before a firing squad. He prays. Nothing happens.
January 25: A night of terror in the Lavra Monastery. Four armed men and a woman, dressed up as members of the Red Cross, force an entry into the chambers of the abbott, search everything and take everything valuable with them. In the middle of the night three of them rob the bursar. Later that day three armed soldiers search the rooms of the Metropolitan and because they can't find anything else valuable, they take a golden medal from the safe. At 5.30 p.m. the doorbell rings three times. Five men, dressed in military uniforms and headed by a sailor, come in and demand to see `Vladimir the Metropolitan'. They are led downstairs, to the cell of the archpriest. The Metropolitan is tortured and beaten with the chain of his Cross. They also demand money. Twenty minutes later the Metropolitan comes upstairs, surrounded by his torturers. On the steps he is approached by his old servant Philip, who asks for his blessing. The sailor pushes him aside and screams, `Stop showing respect to these leeches, we're through with them!' The Metropolitan goes to Philip, blesses and kisses him, shakes his hand and says with tears in his eyes, `Farewell Philip.' Eyewitnesses see how Metropolitan Vladimir is carried off through the gates of the monastery to the place where he will be executed. When the car has reached an open spot, he asks, `Do you want to kill me here?' One of the murderers answers, `Why not? What makes you think we're gonna make a fuss of your execution?' The Metropolitan asks permission to pray before he is executed. `But make it quick!' snarls the sailor. Four shots are heard in the night, then another two, and three...
`They are executing the Metropolitan,' says one of the monks in the Lavra monastery. `Too many shots for one execution,' answers another. At the sound of the shots about fifteen sailors with torches and revolvers enter the court yard. One of them asks, `Have they taken the Metropolitan with them?' The monks says, `They have taken him outside the gate.' The sailors run outside and come back after about twenty minutes. `Have you found the Metropolitan?' ask the monks. `Sure, we found him,' the sailors answer, `and we'll take each one of you the same way.' Nearby Metropolitan Vladimir's corps is lying in a pool of blood. The next day the monks communion decides to bring the Metropolitan's body to the monastery. They need however permission from the communist authorities. At 9 a.m. Archimandrite Anfin and four infirmarians go to the place of the murder. Metropolitan Vladimir is lying on his back, covered with a soldiers coat. His clothes, his cross, his boots and his golden watch are missing. The medical examination shows a bullet wound next to his right eye, a wound on his head, a knife wound under his right ear, four knife wounds on and next to his lips, two bullet wounds in his right collarbone, a large open bayonet wound in his chest, and a knife wound in his stomach.
After a short prayer the body is layed on a stretcher and brought to the monastery chapel, where Metropolitan Vladimir has spent the last days of his life. When Archimandrite Anfin lifts the body, he is surrounded by ten armed men who shout, `Do you want to burry him!? He doesn't deserve any better than to be thrown in a ditch! You want to make a place of pilgrimage out of his grave, that's why you take him from here!' In Moscow a special memorial service is held, and the entire clergy of Moscow, headed by Patriarch Tikhon himself, attends the mass. Metropolitan Vladimir is the first martyr of a series of Russian bishops, who during and after the Revolution are tortured and murdered. He was born on January 1, 1848 in the province of Tombovsk. After the death of his wife and child he retreated to a monastery, where he adopted the name of Vladimir. In 1892 he was enthroned Archbishop and in 1898 he was appointed Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna, which position he held for fifteen years. In 1912 he was appointed Metropolitan of Petrograd, but in 1915 he fell into disfavour with the Tsar, because of a discord regarding Rasputin, after which he was transferred to the Metropoly of Kiev. .
February: The most important center of the anti-communists is in Southern Russia, where this month the Volunteer Army is formed by the Generals Alexeev and Kornilov. In the beginning the Volunteer Army composes of a small group of officers, cadets, students and even boys from highschool, who are badly armed, but very motivated. The murder of the Romanoffs is not the most important cause of the Civil War, but it certainly contributes to it. Most Russians weren't satisfied with the tsar, but only few find it justified that he was executed. Why did he have to die? Didn't he abdicate? Wasn't he imprisoned? The common people never say, `The times of the tsar were much better.' One could hear them say, `Even under the tsar it wasn't as bad as this.' While the Civil War is raging in Southern Russia, the leaders of the White Army in the South and the administration of the Russian-Orthodox Church in Moscow work close together. Once it is clear to Patriarch Tikhon and the Church Council how explicitly anti-religious the new regime is, the Church chooses the side of the Whites. The resistance against the communists increases, and more and more resistance groups are formed, which gradually associate with each other, until real armies come to being, which feel strong enough to fight the communists in the open. The White Army - `White' by analogy with les Blancs, their French counterrevolutionary predecessors - needs weapons. Sometimes they are seized from the communists, but often the communist troops sell their weapons to the Whites, in exchange for some Kerensky roubles and some bottles of vodka. The soldiers of the White Army sign on for four months and pledge implicit obedience to the commanding staff. Initially the total army does not exceed 4,000 men, dwindling at times to absolutely insignificant proportions, but when they hear that some of the White soldiers are captured by the bolsheviks and shot after horrible tortures, all of them know that it's a matter of life or death. In Southern Russia enormous hotbeds of resistance against the bolsheviki come into being, and the population places al its hopes in the counterrevolutionaries. The Whites however miss the opportunity to assure themselves of the support of the `new' farmers. As soon as they chase away the Reds, the White government reinstalls the laws of before November 1917. The landed gentry returns to their estates and the new farmers, who have taken the land with the help of the communists, are driven away.
The new farmers, who are a large part of the population, now fall between two stools, between the Reds, who rob and murder them, and the Whites, who chase them from `their' land. So a `Green' government is formed, which has to protect the farmers against the two other parties. The Greens are not very steady. Sometimes they side with the Whites, only to side with the Reds a week later, who they subsequently have chased away by the Whites. No White government tries to reinstall tsarism. After all the tsar has abdicated and there are no suitable candidates to succeed him. Many feel that tsarism is an old fashioned institution. Contrary to what some people say, most Whites are even explicit republicans. They are however anti-communists. The two most important leaders of the White army, General Denikin in the south and Admiral Kolchak in Siberia, are planning a transition period of some years, with a strong military administration, after which a National Assembly has to be gathered, which has to decide which form of government Russia will have in the future.
February 1: Lenin asks General Daniloff to join the Red Army. The General turns down the offer and leaves for Kiev, to join the White Army. General Peter Alexandrovich Frolov, the uncle of General Yuri Daniloff's wife, withdraws, to cultivate roses in his estate in Issar, south of Yalta. One week later the German troops are on their way, and the bolsheviki make themselves scarce.
February 2: This time it's for real. Vladimir Smirnoff is taken before a firing squad. He waits and waits... Nothing happens. It's torturous!
Petrograd, February 14: All Russians have become 13 days older today, because the old Julian calendar is replaced by the new Georgian calendar, which is used in Western countries.
Halfway through February 1918 the Germans and the Ukrainian nationalists enter Kiev. Piece is restored immediately.
Subsequently these troops occupy the southern provinces, as a result of which Kamenka returns into the hands of the Davidoffs. The local population is forced to return all stolen goods and cattle. The Davidoffs will never return to Kamenka, but work in the estate is resumed.
February 18: Vladimir Smirnoff is freed by the White Army. He escapes to Paris, via Poland.
February 28: Patriarch Tikhon calls on the believers to found parochial unions, which should not call themselves `religious groups'. This way the unions can call themselves the legal owners of the church properties, to prevent that the `raiders' (the bolsheviki) will take possession of it. The appeal of the patriarch to the people is followed in many cities and towns, which leads to counterblows of the bolsheviki. Processions of believers are shot at and scattered, hundreds of clergymen and lays are arrested and dozens are wounded and killed.
March 1: The Davidoffs leave for Odessa, where they have rented a house.
March 2: Because Germany uses the Civil War to claim certain areas for itself, and the German troops are on their way to Murmansk, in the north, the Allied Forces are forced to intervene. Moreover particularly France and Great-Britain have invested large sums in Russia's economy, especially in the Ukrain, and they want to secure these interests.
March 3: Signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between Russia and Germany.
March 6: An American force appears in Vladivostok; 130 British marines land in Murmansk, Russia's only ice-free port, and shortly afterwards British marines are stationed in Arkhangelsk. In Odessa, in the south-west, French ships put ashore 80,000 French, Serbian, Polish and Greek troops. The Allied Forces have no univocal policy regarding the purpose of the intervention. At first they came to prevent that the Germans would get hold of their military supplies, but now both the Brits and the French establish friendly relations with the anti-bolshevist groups in Russia. The American troops have mainly come to Siberia to prevent that the Japanese will expand their territory. The American President urges his troops to remain neutral in the Russian Civil War. They are only allowed to support the Czech troops. Among the Austrian soldiers who before the revolution were taken prisoners of war by the Russians, are a large number of Czechs, who were sent to the front as subjects and soldiers of the Austrian Emperor. In the summer of 1917 they sided with the Russians, hoping to found an independent Czechian state. Because Russia has withdrawn from the war three days ago, and the communists want to intern the Czechs once more, they fight their way out and join the White Army.
Since 1917 Prince Ilarion (Lari) Sergeevich Vasilchikov, his wife Lydia, who before her marriage was called Princess Viatzemsky, and their children Alexander, Irina, Tatiana and Missie, live in the Crimea. The bolshevist reign of terror in the Crimea reaches its climax. One afternoon, it is late March, Lydia walks in the garden with her mother, when they suddenly see a large group of panicing people run towards the sea. Among them are Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna Romanoff (sister of Nicholas II), her husband, who carries their baby in his arms, as well as servants of the nearby villa's. Lydia never has witnessed such a panicing mass before. She's surprised that everyone is running towards the coast, because it's strictly forbidden for civilians to be there. The bolsheviki have killed offenders of this ban before. Lydia and her mother hurry home and are relieved when they find the children in the dining room with a cup of tea. There they hear that a train loaded with bolsheviki with machine guns have arrived, and that they are planning to shoot all the inhabitants of the villa's. Evidently someone has stopped them at the very last moment, because nothing happens. Yet Lydia and Lari alternately stand guard that night. The children are allowed to sleep with their clothes on, so that they can leave in a hurry. The next morning the children are disappointed, because nothing has happened; they obviously don't realize that they escaped from a catastrophe.
April 20: the Germans arrive, as a result of which the peace in the Crimea returns. Only then they hear what happened that day. The Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, her daughters Olga and Xenia and their families were interned by the bolsheviki in the villa Duelber, at the coast. They would certainly all have been killed, when Sadoroshni, a sailor of the Black Sea fleet, hadn't been in charge of the Duelber villa. When the bolshevist gang arrived at the villa and demanded to see the prisoners, Sadoroshni fobbed the men off. He and he alone was responsible for the Imperial Family, and nobody but the administration in Moscow could deprive him of his responsibilities. At first Sadoroshni had about 60 guards, but later this was reduced to 20, and when the train with the bolsheviki arrived to kill the Romanoffs, he armed all his `prisoners', so they would be able to defend themselves against the rebellions. Thanks to Sadoroshni's courage the bolsheviki had nothing to show for their pains. Weeks later the sons of Grand Duchess Xenia still boast about the fact that they have carried firearms. In fact only the eldest boy was given a revolver.
April 23: The Germans conquer the patheticly bad organized Red Army and capture Kiev, while the Austrians occupy Odessa.
Paris, May 2: Vladimir Smirnoff buys a small distillery to produce vodka. In a country full of wine drinkers...
May 8: Rostov on the Don falls into the hands of the Germans. Subsequently General Paul Skoropadsky, a puppet of the Germans, is appointed head of the new Ukrainian government. The Red Army consists largely of the military of the Tsar's army. Forced by the Cheka they enter the Red Army, and from that moment on they have to fight for their lives, because if they are captured by the White Army, they very likely are killed. When they defect to the Whites, the Cheka will take revenge on their relatives. The soldiers' relatives are in fact hostages of the Cheka. (This system is later also applied to civilians, and maintained in the Soviet-Union until the late 1980s.)
May 13: General Kornilov is mortally wounded by a grenade. General Denikin makes sure that he is burried in the German colony of Gnachbau.
May 14: When the last diplomatic train leaves from Petrograd, Tatiana Dolgorouky misses this last opportunity to leave legally. She is drafted in a brigade of snow clearers and receives a pittance for it. She also has to check in weekly with the Cheka.
May 17: Prince Peter Dolgorouky smuggles a letter to his daughter out of the Peter and Paul fortress, in which he begs Tatiana to escape. She can't do anything for him, he writes.
Tatiana Petrovna escapes from Petrograd with false identity papers, but with that she still isn't safe. Once the Cheka knows that she has escaped, they will search for her. She tries to escape to Finland, but this plan fails, because her helpers are shot.
May 20: Grand Duke Serge Mikhaïlovich Romanoff (1869-1918), his secretary F. Remez, the Grand Dukes Ivan, Constantin and George Constantinovich (the sons of Grand Duke Constantin) and 22 years old Prince Vladimir Paley arrive from Perm. They are accommodated in a dirty hotel in Ekaterinburg.
They are put in one room, badly treated and almost starve. Sometimes they are however allowed to leave the hotel, to meet people and even to visit old acquaintances. At the end of May all of them are brought to Alapaevsk, near Ekaterinburg, where they are accommodated in an old school. June 5: The White Army fights a battle against the Reds, less than 70 miles from Moscow. Count Paul Ignatieff uses this opportunity to transfer part of his money behind the lines. With the help of the Kuban Cossacks and the Don Cossacks the White Army is able to drive the communists from the areas of the Don and the Northern Caucasus.
June 12: The Czechs occupy all important towns between Samara and Vladivostok, and shortly afterwards they chase the Red Army from entire Eastern Russia and Siberia.
The Allies are in the north and in the Far East, the Czechs control the area of the Trans Siberian Railroad, and the Germans occupy the south-west. They can do that unpunished, because the communists acknowledged the independence of the Ukrain in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
June 13: At night three Cheka agents show up in a hotel in Perm, and with them a warrant for the arrest of Tsar Nicholas' brother Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich Romanoff. Outside three other Cheka agents are waiting with two carriages.
Michael's secretary, the Englishman Brian Johnson, also stays in the hotel, just like Michael's valet and driver. The Cheka agents wake up Michael. The Grand Duke has no intentions to leave with them and demands to speak to Malkov, an important bolshevik. `Him I know, you I don't know.' The leader of the gang curses and grabs the former Grand Duke at his shoulder.
`We are sick and tired of you Romanoffs!' Michael gets dressed without saying a word. His valet says, `Don't forget your medicines, Your Highness.' The leader of the pack curses once more and doesn't allow that the medicines are taken. The men outside grow impatient. Michael Romanoff is pushed into the first carriage. 3 miles from the village of Motovilikha they go into the woods. After a mile one of the Cheka agents says, `Get out!' As soon as Johnson gets out of the carriage he is shot in the temple; he staggers and falls down. Michael Romanoff is wounded, but he runs towards his secretary and begs to say goodbye to him. The request is not granted. Michael is shot in the head. After the murder one of the killers takes Johnson's watch. `A souvenir,' he says proudly. It is the murderers' habit to steal the watches of their victims.
July 12: Picasso marries Olga Khoklova, a young dancer of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and daughter of a colonel. The marriage is celebrated in Paris, in the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, and the ushers are: Guillaume Apollinaire, Jean Cocteau and Max Jacob.
Originally article 12 of the constitution of July 6, 1918 adjudges the citizens the right to make both religious and anti-religious propaganda, but the right to make religious propaganda is limited soon, while the government does everything to stimulate anti-religious propaganda. The state for example paints slogans like, `Religion is opium for the people' on church walls. The churches and their possessions are nationalized and given in loan to the parish councils; every parish has to contract to maintain the church building and to pay the taxes which the Soviet-regime impose on the parishes. The higher ecclesiastical councils are not recognized by law and the parishes are strictly forbidden to do charitable work. All religious educational establishments are abolished. Offenders of this ukase risk hard labour. Initially the Soviet administration states that it is neutral in religious matters, but soon it chooses openly for militant atheism. The Soviet leaders promise to fight religion with all means, obviously because this is an integral part of the class war against bourgeoisie and capitalism. In the opinion of the bolshevik theorists Church and religion are no more than means by which the bourgeoisie chains and oppresses the working class. This fierce anti-religious policy makes many Russians decide to leave their motherland. The Church council lets the people know: `Even the Tatars had more respect for our holy religion than our current legislators, who are changing our holy Orthodox Russia into the land of the Antichrist.'
July 18: Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna Romanoff (1864-1918), Grand Duke Serge Mikha&i- uml;lovich Romanoff (1869-1918), his secretary F. Remez, the Grand Dukes Ivan, Constantin and George Constantinovich (the sons of Grand Duke Constantin) and Prince Vladimir Paley are cruelly murdered, not far from Ekaterinburg. That's where they lived until this fatal night, in which all of them are suddenly taken to a place about 8 miles from Alapaevsk, where they are murdered. This happens near the mine `Nizhnaya Selimskaya'. Grand Duke Serge Mikhaïlovich is the only one who is shot; the others are blindfolded and thrown into the mine, while they're still alive, after which the murderers throw down some hand grenades and a lot of flammable wood. The mine is about 200 feet deep, but the bodies of the Grand Duchess and Grand Duke Ivan Constantinovich are found on a ridge, only 40 feet below the edge. The Grand Duchess must have been alive for a long time. The next day a passing farmer hears her singing hymns. He's terrified and hurries to the camp of the White Army, which is in the neighborhood. The soldiers start to rant and rave because he did not help her at once. When the White Army finally reaches the spot, the soldiers can only recover the bodies. An investigation shows that the Grand Duchess, mortally wounded herself, still has managed to bandage the wounds of Grand Duke Ivan. Near her body two hand grenades are found, and on her chest an icon of Christ. Elisabeth Feodorovna was the eldest sister of the Tsaritsa. She was eight years older than the Tsaritsa and contrary to the Tsaritsa she was raised by her mother, and not by her grandmother, Queen Victoria of England. She was very popular among the Russian people because of her numerous charitable deeds.
After she was engaged to Grand Duke Serge Alexandrovich Romanoff, the young Grand Duchess enthousiasticly started to study the Russian people, and particularly its religion, Russian Orthodoxy, which had so much influenced Russian culture. Serge Alexandrovich was Governor of Moscow, where the Grand Duchess soon became involved in several social and charitable activities. On February 4, 1905, while Elisabeth was preparing to go to work, she was startled by the sound of an exploding bomb. She rushed towards the place the sound came from, and arrived still in time to see how a soldier covered the mutilated corpse of her husband with his coat. The soldier tried to spare her the horrifying sight of her unfortunate husband. Elisabeth sank on her knees and embraced the human remains. The murder of Grand Duke Serge Alexandrovich made Elisabeth decide to withdraw from social life. The shock and the terror she had witnessed left a wound in her heart, and from that moment on she ordained her whole life to the organization of a congregation and taking care of the poor. The congregation grew fast and attracted many nuns, both from the highest circles and the common people. Life in the congregation was like in a monastery. After the revolution, which raged like a storm over Russia, she stayed in her monastery, where she nursed the wounded and fed the poor. To everyone's surprise the communists at first granted the Grand Duchess and her sisters all freedom, and they even gave her all kinds of material necessities and extra food. But on Easter 1918 all that was suddenly finished. The communists ordered the Grand Duchess to leave Moscow at once and to join the Imperial Family in Ekaterinburg. The suffering she awaited could have been avoided when she had only listened to the words of the Swedish Prime Minister, who at the request of the German Emperor had come to Moscow to help her to leave the country. She said that he was right by saying that horrible times would break, but she wanted to share the fate of her country and her people. This decision would be her death sentence. The communists told the Grand Duchess that she would be able to work for the Red Cross in the South. Elisabeth looked forward to see her sister, the Tsaritsa, but when she arrived in Ekaterinburg she was refused to have any contact with the Imperial Family. The Grand Duchess was temporarely placed in a monastery, where she was welcomed by the nuns and was allowed to attend all services.
Grand Duke Ivan Constantinovich Romanoff always had been a lover of singing in church; he directed the church choir of the palace in Pavlovsk, and even in his place of bannishment Perm he kept singing in the church choir. The young Prince Vladimir Paley, son of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich Romanoff (1860-1919), was a talented poet. Some of his poetry regards his bannishment, `All my loved ones are so painfully far away and all my enemies so painfully nearby.' Two of the murderers become insane shortly after this terrible murder.
The Pravda of July 18, `On the morning of July 16 the ex-tsar was transferred from his prison to a parade ground outside of the city of Ekaterinburg, where ten soldiers of the Red Guard were waiting for him. The chairman of the Soviet read the death sentence, after which the ex-tsar asked permission to say a few last words to his wife and children before he was executed. This request was turned down. Without any resistance and completely poised the tsar stood in front of the firing squad; the execution was carried out. His body was taken away by car.'
July 18: Countess Sophia Karlovna Buxhoeveden, who was lady in waiting to Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna and went voluntarily in exile with the Imperial Family, escapes from Russia with the help of the German Kaiser.
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The end
Oche! Prosti jim, ibo nye znayut, chto dyelayut. (Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Luke 23:34.)
Nicholas II Alexandrovich (1868-1918), the last Emperor of Russia and the last Tsar of the House of Romanoff (1894-1917), was the eldest son of Alexander III. On March 2, 1917 Nicholas was forced to abdicate. He and his family were interned. All of them were shot in Ekaterinburg, in July 1918, at the command of the local soviet administration.
That's what it says in most encyclopaedia's, and that still is the official version of the death of the Romanoffs. But what happened really? Nicholas and Alexandra (Nicky and Alix) had four daughters (Olga, Tatiana, Marie and Anastasia) and one son, Alexis, who suffered from haemophilia. How did they come to an end? Until now all official institutions based their story on the report of Nicholas Alexeevich Sokolov, an investigator of the White Army. Romanoff expert Robert K. Massie:
Nicholas was instantly killed. This was the sign for all the other men to start shooting. Alexandra only had time to cross herself before she was mortally wounded by the first shot. Olga, Tatiana and Marie were hit and died within seconds. Dr. Botkin, Kharitonov and Trupp were also killed instantly. Demidova survived the first volley and in stead of reloading their revolvers the men got their rifles from the room nextdoor and pursued her with their bayonets. (...) Suddenly it was quired in the room, which was full of powder-smoke. Blood ran over the floor. They heard someone moan. Alexis, still in the arms of his father, tried to hold on to his father's coat. One of the men cruelly kicked the head of the boy with his heavy boot. Yurovsky walked towards them and shot the Tsarevich twice in the head. At that very moment Anastasia, who only had fainted, regained consciousness. She started to scream. The entire gang pounced on her with bayonets and rifle butts. Then she also stopped moving. It was all over. (...) The bodies were wrapped up in sheets and carried to a truck which was waiting outside. Before daybreak the truck and it's sinister cargo drove to the `Four Brothers', where the destruction of the mortal remains began. All corpses were cut to pieces with axes and saws and subsequently burned, after being dowsed with gasoline. (...) The larger parts of the skeletons were not destroyed by the fire and had to be treated with sulphuric acid. (...) Finally the ashes were thrown into the pool down under in the mine. The murderers were so satisfied with their work that Voysov, the member of the Ural Soviet who had purchased the gasoline, proudly said, `The world will never know what we did with them.'
Harrison E. Salisbury: `Immediately after that the members of the Cheka opened fire. (...) Alexis didn't die instantly and Yurovsky shot another two bullets into his body. The bodies were brought to a deserted mine. They were chopped into pieces, burned, dowsed with acid and disappeared so completely, that only small pieces of bone could be found later.'
Elisabeth Heresch: `The same day he orders large quantities of sulphuric acid, to make the faces of the corpses, which already are lying in an open spot in the forest, unrecognizable. (...) The bodies were cut into pieces and burned, the faces were made unrecognizable with hydrochloric acid. (...) May 1992: the skeletons of the in 1918 murdered ex-Tsar and his family have been found.'
In numerous novels that are enacted in this period, the murder of the Romanoffs is described alike. It all comes down to the same: the whole family has been murdered in the House of Ipatiev in Ekaterinburg, in the night of July 16, 1918.
Even Edvard Radzinsky, a Russian playwriter who investigated the murder of the Romanoffs for more than 25 years, comes to the conclusion that it must have happened this way. He hesitant takes into consideration that Anastasia and Alexis might have survived the massacre, but does not share this point of view. In fact he also blindly trusts the report of Sokolov. Radzinsky had one problem: he was a Russian in Russia and as such he was not trustworthy to any other Russian in Russia, never mind how good his intentions were. Anthony Summers & Tom Mangold, two reporters of the BBC, didn't have this handicap when they in the 1970s, more than 15 years before Radzinsky's book was published, investigated the case thouroughly, in Russia and abroad. Others have broken new grounds relating to the identity of Anna Anderson, the woman who all her life kept saying that she was Anastasia. The bodies were treated with hydrochloric acid, sulphuric acid and quicklime, riddled with bullets, run through with bayonets; skeletons were chopped and sawed to pieces, the remaining small pieces were burned... Initially nothing was left of the corpses, afterwards small bone pieces were found back, and in 1979, April 1989, 1991 and May 1992 complete skeletons - of the entire Imperial Family, including Anastasia and Alexis - were found near Ekaterinburg. A real miracle... Only recently was announced that some of the corpses belong to the Romanoffs, and that Alexis and one of the daughters are missing. How strange, but one thing's for sure: the official story that's been told for almost 75 years, is wrong. So what happened?
I'll start with the facts: Nicholas II abdicates on March 16, 1917. The Imperial Family is placed under house arrest in the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoe Selo. Some months later, on July 31, 1917, they are deported to the city of Tobolsk in Siberia, where their freedom of movement also is limited. The following persons volunteer to be bannished with the Imperial Family: General Ilya Leonidovich Tatistcheff (aide de camp), Prince Vasili (Valia) Alexandrovich Dolgorouky (marshall of the court), Pierre Gilliard (governor of the children), Sydney Gibbes (Alexis' English teacher), Evgeni Sergeevich Botkin (personal physician), Anastasia Gendrikova (personal lady in waiting to the Tsaritsa), Ekaterina Adolfovna Schneider (reading lady and former Russian teacher of the Tsaritsa) and Countess Sophia Karlovna Buxhoeveden (lady in waiting). On April 26, 1918 Nicholas, Alexandra and Marie are taken away from Tobolsk to Ekaterinburg. The rest of the Imperial Family will follow them in May. On May 10, 1918 the Romanoffs are together again. Until July 16 that is. What happened from that day on never completely became clear. From July 16, 1918 there are several theories and even more conflicting testimonies. I will restrict to Sokolov's report and the theories of Edvard Radzinsky and Anthony Summers/Tom Mangold.
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Sokolov's disappeared box
For years it was only known that Sokolov had smuggled his evidence to France. Only few knew who did the actual smuggling and where the contents of Sokolov's box ended up. General Yanin, the commander of the French military mission in Siberia, brought back a box and some suitcases with him to France, in which the files of investigator Sokolov and evidence regarding the investigation on the murder of the Imperial Family in Ekaterinburg, in 1918. All this material Sokolov entrusted to General Diterichs on March 19, 1920, when the General was about to leave from Harbin. In his book Ma mission en Sibérie (Paris 1933) Janin wrote, `He had gathered about 30 charred bone fragments, as well as some human tissue which was found in the stake, human hairs, a cut finger, which the experts recognized as a ring finger of the Tsaritsa, (...) some small icons, (...) the buckle of a belt that belonged to the Tsarevich, bullets of a revolver etcetera.' At the end of June 1920 Janin wrote a letter to Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich Romanoff, who was considered the spokesman of the Russian emigrants, in which he asked to whom he should entrust the evidence. On October 22, 1920 Janin was invited by the Grand Duke. Michel de Giers, the eldest former ambassador of Imperial Russia, was present. The jewelry and other objects of the victims were handed to Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna, who divided them among several members of the Imperial Family. The human remains were also entrusted to the Romanoffs. Nobody has seen anything of it ever since. It is quite remarkable that Sokolov, who lived in Paris since 1921, didn't try to have this evidence analyzed by the forensic scientists in the French capital. Today the Sokolov files are kept in the Houghton Library of Harvard University.
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Sokolov's Romanoff files
Nicholas Alexeevich Sokolov (1882-1924), 36, was appointed examining magistrate of the district of Omsk (which was in the hands of the White Army), on February 7, 1919, by Admiral Kolchak, and as such his task was the continuing of the investigation on the murder of the following eleven persons: Nicholas Alexandrovich Romanoff, Alexandra Feodorovna Romanoff, Alexis Nikolaevich Romanoff, Olga Nikolaevna Romanoff, Maria Nikolaevna Romanoff, Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanoff, Tatiana Nikolaevna Romanoff, Dr. Evgeni Sergeevich Botkin, Alexis Trupp (lackey), Anna Stefanova Demidova (servant) and Ivan Kharitonov (cook). His conclusion that all of them were killed in the night of July, 16, 1918 in the basement of the House of Ipatiev, is based on five `facts': 1. A telegram was intercepted in which the bolsheviki confirmed that the entire Imperial Family was murdered. 2. Several eye-witnesses stated that they had seen that the Romanoffs and their people were dead. 3. The bodies were burned, and on the spot where this had happened were found several clothes, jewels and other personal possessions. 4. Near this spot, on the bottom of a mine, in which permanently was three feet of water, Sokolov found the carcass of Tatiana's dog, dentures and a finger. There wasn't any grave, he solumnly stated. 5. Nobody has seen the Romanoffs alive after this night. Numerous investigations of forensic scientists show that Sokolov's conclusions were extremely debatable and most of the time wrong. Professor Francis Camps, pathologist of the British Home Ministry, analyzed Sokolov's material during a month, and concluded that the examining magistrate did an ill service to history, and that Sokolov obviously loved the fine art of self-deception. Dr. Edward Rich of the American Military Academy West Point confirmed professor Camps' conclusions. `Sokolov's conclusions are based on a series of presuppositions and not accurate.' On June 25, 1919 Sokolov took a picture of the carcass of Tatiana's dog, which was the only recognizable corpse. Professor Keith Simpson, pathologist of the British Home Ministry, `If you look at the picture with a magnifyer, you see very little loss of fur. (...) It is impossible that this carcass at first has been in the water for two or three months. (...) No dog could have had so much fur after being in cold water for two of three months. After the frost period the dog would have been in the water for another two months, and this picture doesn't show that at all.' It's not just the contents of Sokolov's report which can be disposed of as improper, the things he does not mention are also food for thought regarding his meticulousness. Why for example didn't he mention the fact that during the investigation the substitute district attorney Magnitsky found five bodies of Austrian men in a nearby mine? This information was important, because the interior guard of the House of Ipatiev partly consisted of former Austrian prisoners of war.
In April 1989 the Soviet Russian journalist Geli Riabov wrote that he had found the place where the eleven victims of the Ekaterinburg tragedy were burried. The mine that was discovered by Sokolov was only used to store the victims temporarely. Subsequently the human remains were brought to their definitive grave. Ten years before, in 1979, this grave was also discovered, by three geologists from Ekaterinburg (in those days the city was still called Sverdlovsk). In 1991 the grave was once more `discovered', and again in May 1992. Very peculiar, very confusing. Was it the same grave every time, or were it different graves? Which grave was the real one, and who were the people in the other graves? Have the Tsaritsa and the Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana and Marie been murdered? Sure, but after reading the book of Summers and Mangold I doubt if that happened in July 1918. My guess is January 1919 or later, when Lenin was less depending on the Germans. This also explains why the carcass of Tatiana's dog was still in such a good condition when Sokolov found it in June 1919. .
Another remarkable fact: In October 1918 the English Sir Charles Eliot inspected the House of Ipatiev thouroughly. He found seventeen bullet wholes in the room in the basement . `There were no signs of blood visible,' he reported. Carl Ackerman, a reporter of the New York Times confirmed this. At the end of November 1918, when Sokolov wasn't on the case yet, Ackerman wrote, `There are no signs of pools of blood and I doubt it that seven persons (sic) died such a horrible, violent death with leaving no more behind than some blood in the bullet wholes and some bloodstains on the floor.' And what about the statement of Pierre Gilliard, the children's tutor, who at first identified Anna Anderson as Anastasia, but later changed his opinion dramaticly. In August 1918 Gilliard returned to Ekaterinburg. After having inspected the basement of the House of Ipatiev, he said, `I can not believe that the Imperial Family really died here. In the walls of the room I searched were so few bullet wholes that I find it hard to believe that everyone was executed here.' Two years later he said, `The atmosphere in the room was very sinister, indescribable. In the walls and on the floor were numerous visible traces of bullets and bayonet stabs. A first examination made clear that a terrible crime was committed there, that several people were killed in this room.' Sokolov, who only came to Ekaterinburg in February 1919, stated in his report, `There was so much blood, that it even had seeped through the floor and saturated the ground. Everywhere were large pools of blood. There were thirty bullet wholes in the wall.'
Edvard Radzinsky is the only one who wrote that not eleven, but nine carcasses were found. Only recently it was announced that some of the carcasses belong to the Romanoffs and that the boy and one of the girls were missing, which fits with the theory that Alexis and Anastasia survived the murder.
But my informer `Feodor' Romanoff told me that the Romanoffs still have every reason to keep things quiet, because there's still a considerable amount of money at stake, even though Anastasia died in 1984. In September 1994 Russian scientists stated that one of the skeletons found in the grave was Anastasia's, and that the remains of Alexis and Maria were not found. This statement is good for the Romanoffs's financial situation. Money talks, and there's no place where it talks better than in Russia, where a scientist would be filthy rich with US$ 200 a month.