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His Imperial Highness Tsar Nicholas II and the members of his most beloved family, along with his most devoted friends were not just executed, but martyred on the night of July 17, 1918 at the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg (also spelled Ykaterinburg), Russia. This July 17, 1999 we shall commemorate the 81st anniversary of this Holy Martyrdom of the Holy Royal Martyrs of Russia. For many people it will not just be another day, but a day to spiritually and honestly reflect on what happened on that fateful horrific night of July 17, 1918. From a pure Christian point of view forgiveness is truly in order. We must truthfully and honestly as good loving Christians forgive and put this matter to rest with the Royal Martyrs who were finally buried on July 17, 1998 in St. Petersburg, Russia at the Fortress Cathedral Church of Ss. Peter and Paul, and then laid to eternal rest in St. Catherine's Chapel. However in the meantime we still have two missing children, two missing Royal Family members of Tsar Nicholas and Tsarina Alexandra who have not yet been buried in St. Petersburg, the Child-Martyrs Tsarevich Alexis and Grand Duchess Marie. The issue or phenomena of pretenders isn't a new issue, it's been going on since that unbelievable, horrible hour when the Holy Royal Martyrs of Russia were executed. The issue at hand is will the pretenders continue coming forward? Only when we are fooled and led astray to believe in them, perhaps due to our ignorance or our misunderstanding of the facts at hand, and the information that has been provided to us over many decades. That information was not available when the Martyrdom of the Royal Family took place, as we were truly deceived by Lenin himself - first we heard that the Tsar and his family were taken to Perm, Russia and shot! This was not true! Then we heard rumors that the Ipatiev house was going to be blown up with all the family members in the house along with their most devoted friends, and if anyone tried to escape all would be shot! This was not true! Then it was discussed whether to poison the Royal Family. None of this took place of course. The simple fact is that all of the Imperial Romanov Family members and most devoted friends who were with them at the time, were all taken to the Ipatiev house basement during the late hours of July 16th and then into the early hours of July 17th shot to death and bayoneted when anyone dared to move in their sufferings and pain! Many sources have it that the young innocent Child Martyr Tsarevich, actually tried to crawl towards his mother once he fell on the now bloody floor, but to no avail as the soldiers pushed their long bayonets from their rifles into this pure innocent soul! It was also reported that the chambermaid Anna Demidova was also bayoneted again, and then we have reports that the Grand Duchesses moaned and moved and then were bayoneted. All giving up their sweet loving souls to our Lord God! Once the Royal Martyrs of Russia were buried and the soldiers had walked away from this unchristian act, rumors started immediately. The telegram reached Lenin late that same morning that the Imperial Romanov Family were all dead. Then on July 19, (1918) the Moscow press carried a short official report of the execution. However, it falsely stated that the "wife and son of Nicholas Romanov were sent to a safe place." Lenin was waiting for reactions within Russia and from Europe as foreign policy now was extremely important to Russia. No serious adverse reactions were expressed by the people of Russia, as everyone was too frightened - revolution was at the doorstep of every man, woman, and child who simply were trying to survive from day to day. Anyone who was concerned about the Tsar and his family, or supported them, were simply shot on the spot or send to a concentration camp. Many perished, but a very few survived to tell us of these horrors. Russia in itself, now the Soviet Union, became a blood bath, and everyone seemed to live within one massive concentration camp. No one could hardly believe what happened to the Imperial Romanov Family. No wonder the
Reports then started to appear in the Moscow press: the Tsar was shot! Then a few months later reports came out that the Tsar and Tsarina were shot! Finally a few more reports came out that all of the Imperial Romanov and friends were shot. People could not react but pray inwardly to hear of this horrific news that their Tsar and his most beloved family were shot to death, and declared themselves as Holy Martyrs of the Orthodox Church. Finally truthful accounts began to spread about the cities and towns of all of Russia, that not only was the Tsar shot, but his wife and beloved children, and also the Tsar's physician, cook, chambermaid, and waiter (sometimes called the footman). Since that fateful day at Golgotha for the Russian Royal Family on July 17, 1918, impostors, and pretenders began to appear throughout the following years, and these pretenders still exist today. What do these pretenders expect? Inheritance perhaps? To be perhaps next in line to the Throne of Russia? Impossible! They are just what they are - "Pretenders of the Romanovs". John Godl has deep loving respect for the Imperial Romanov Family of Russia, and has given us an outstanding presentation of the truth in his article on Anna Anderson, who thought she was Grand Duchess Anastasia, but after her death several years ago we discovered who she really was - Franziska Schanzkowska. You can read this excellent article written by John Godl Now I would like to humbly present to you another outstanding presentation by John Godl: "The Romanov Pretenders":
Romanov Pretenders Ever since Russian forensic investigators declared that Grand Duchess Maria's body, not Anastasia's, was missing from the Ekaterinburg mass grave along with that of her brother Tsarevich Alexis, the focus of pretenders claiming descent from Nicholas II has shifted accordingly towards them, with an ever increasing number of people around the world claiming descent from Tsarevich Alexis. The most unlikely of survivors given his debilitating, life threatening hemophilia, and the infamous brutality of the regicide. The history books are full of people pretending to be heirs to thrones, aristocratic titles and great fortunes, the current spate of Romanov claimants perpetuates this most ancient of charades on the verge of a new millennium. At the root of so many claims of secret royal descent is illegitimacy, a glamorous way of explaining a quiet adoption within (or without) a family or birth of a child whose father/mother is unknown or unmentionable for one reason or another. Many families, noble and otherwise, have vague legends passed down generations of being related to a royal dynasty or someone of great distinction. Since time immemorial glamorous stories have been invented to help a child lacking one or more parents understand his/her place in the world, mothers telling a fatherless child of a doomed romance with a man of superior royal or noble blood to cover-up a less glamorous relationship which ended in an unwanted pregnancy and desertion. In the period following the Russian Revolution it became a convenient excuse for deserted mothers or families forced to take unwanted children of relatives, that one's parent was a member of the Tsar's family or nobility who died, or was taken away, and cannot be spoken of for reasons of personal safety. Which explains the explosion of Romanoff claimants stemming from post-Stalinist Russia to the present day, there being literally dozens of people who honestly believe one of Nicholas II's children was a parent or grandparent based on such family folklore. The phenomena isn't restricted to Russia. In the wake of the French Revolution claims of descent from noble or royal houses resulting from doomed romances between woman of generally inferior breeding and a guillotined nobleman became a convenient excuse for many unmarried mothers. The dramatic demise of King Louis XVI, Queen Antoinette and mysterious death of their young son Prince Louis created an endless throng of Bourbon claimants. For decades Europe was abuzz with dramatic tales of how the Dauphin had been spirited out of France to England or Canada, married secretly and lived happily ever after, or waited patiently to regain his father's throne. There are still people in Europe and America who disputably claim descent from the most noble pre-Revolutionary French families and indeed the Dauphin himself, the current rise of Romanov pretenders merely perpetuating an ancient fairy tale of miraculous survival, rightful heirs, fantastic fortunes waiting to be claimed and royal conspiracies foiling a noble quest which was already deeply ingrained in popular culture. Any event which shakes the world as profoundly as a revolution becomes the repository of a million urban myths and a magnet for people with fertile imaginations or identity disorders. It's human nature and not confined to royalty. In the wake of the RMS. Titanic disaster in 1912 which claimed 1,500 people, many extremely rich and famous, reports that some of the notable dead had survived and lived in secret were common. As were claims of kinship to Titanic officers who died heroically, notably First Officer Murdoch who has a host of people around the world claiming descent from his alleged illegitimate children. Credible people even claimed to have seen and spoken to Titanic's captain E.J.Smith years after his heroic death, stories eerily reminiscent of those told years later by people claiming to have seen and spoken with Nicholas II as he walked down a street in London or Paris, the events and people change but the psychological processes remain the same. The recent burial of Nicholas II and Imperial Family aroused great public curiosity in Russia for its imperial heritage, and as a result it is currently awash with Romanov impostors, people claiming to be heirs to the throne - Grand Dukes - Princes, even Tsars. Although fledgling monarchist groups try their best to defeat them, most go unchallenged and make good livings from their bogus claims due to public ignorance of pre-communist history and a general reluctance to accept DNA identification performed outside in Europe and America. At last count there were nine well-organized individuals (worldwide) claiming descent from Tsarevich Alexis - eight from Grand Duchesses Olga and Maria - seven from Anastasia and Tatiana. The list grows daily and quoted figures do not include the vast number of impostors whose stories change with circumstances or fashion; in all, the total figure is likely to be in the hundreds, and all tell well-honed tales of love, murder and dramatic escape. Now we are also seeing a rise in people claiming parallel descent, from illegitimate children allegedly fathered by Nicholas II, his brother the Grand Duke Michael or their father Alexander III. One of the newer claimants to kinship with Nicholas II is Anthony A. Goralski, of Cleveland, Ohio, who claims his late mother, Maria, was the Tsar's illegitimate daughter, allegedly conceived with Adela Sytchova at the Mariinski Palace in 1912 on the prompting of the Dowager Empress, in an attempt to "purify" the Romanov bloodline tainted by hemophilia from Empress Alexandra. To suggest one of history's great imperial dynasties would attempt to "purify" its bloodline through an illegitimate child of lesser birth with no rights of ascendancy is an absurdity. There is no evidence of any kind to support this or other such claims and no serious historian gives them any credence. Recent claims made in the book, Blood Relative, by British history professor Michael Gray that the Tsarevich (from whom he claims illegitimate descent) escaped Russia with the Dowager Empress in 1919 onboard HMS Marlborough, and assumed the name Nikolai Chebotarev are likewise absurd. As is his claim Nicholas II's corpse was switched with that of his brother the Grand Duke Michael to throw off investigators. The fact that the Grand Duke's body was dismembered and incinerated by Bolsheviks in a St Petersburg blast furnace after his murder in 1918 (prior to the regicide) is ignored, and a host of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories involving forensic evidence tampering, combined with a loose (in places erroneous) interpretation of DNA analysis, advanced in a futile attempt to explain the alleged body switch and DNA results which do not prove his point. Gray is not the first to point out the skull of Nicholas II has no mark resultant from the attempt on his life in Otsu, Japan, in 1892, when a lunatic hit the then Tsarevich Nicholas on the forehead with a samurai sword. Although some claim the wound was serious and a mark should appear on his skull, such claims misinterpret the facts and are highly speculative considering x-rays weren't available in 1892. The blade is known to have glanced off his forehead drawing blood and leaving a scar but not cutting deep. The Tsarevich only required basic medical attention which wouldn't have been the case if the injury was serious enough to have damaged his skull as claimed. Had the Tsarevich Alexis (or anyone else) escaped abroad there would have been no need to have kept it a secret or to have given him a new identity. The monarchy in Russia was so thoroughly discredited by the end of its Civil War that no one considered the Romanov dynasty a serious treat or replacement to the new regime in Moscow. The governments of Lenin and Stalin wouldn't have considered an Ekaterinburg survivor a threat to their hold on power. Europe was full of legitimate heirs, some claiming the throne or proclaiming themselves Emperor-in-exile and none were threatened or assassinated by a disinterested USSR. Had Alexis survived somehow, and been spirited out of Russia, the Romanov family would have joyfully rallied behind him publicly. There would have been no reason to have kept him a secret. Nikolai Chebotarev never publicly claimed to be the Tsarevich in his lifetime and so far no attempt has been made or contemplated to exhume his remains to perform DNA tests which would, unlike Mr. Gray's claims, resolve the matter with 100% certainty. The simple fact remains that the absence of two bodies from the mass grave in Ekaterinburg containing Russia's last Imperial Family does not validate a survival hypothesis for either the Grand Duchess Anastasia (alternatively Maria) or Tsarevich Alexis. The solution to the mystery is much simpler. There is little reason to doubt chief executioner Yakov Yurovsky's account of the disposal of the Imperial Family's remains, as his report detailing their disposal led investigators a generation later directly to the site of the mass grave, and he never attempted to hide anything. It's simply logical that when the funeral pyre had been lit using gasoline as an accelerant, Yurovsky would have started with the two smallest bodies to see how long it took to reduce them to ash. However, time being of the essence and damp conditions hindering the process, a communal grave was dug for the other victims, Alexis and Anastasia's smoldering, charred remains consigned to a separate grave by their pyre as detailed by Yurovsky. There were simply too many witnesses to the murder and disposal of the Imperial Family, for a cover-up to have occurred or been sustained 80 odd years. Forensic and historic records continue to uphold the accuracy of Yakov Yurovsky's account of those hideous events in 1918 which still haunt the world. The controversy caused by the purely political decision of the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church to reject DNA testing and refuse to acknowledge the authenticity of the Imperial Family's remains or participate in their funeral, has given credibility to those making outlandish claims of descent, for at the core of all their absurd stories are half-baked conspiracy theories attempting to undermine scientific certainties to legitimize claims which have no substantiating evidence. Most pretenders promote and trade on ignorance, a comic-book view of history and convenient conspiracy theories to distract from an absence of tangible evidence, like Anna Anderson whose fanciful claims spawned a million dollar industry her successors cash in on today. The sad fact remains there were no survivors of the bloodbath in the Ipatiev House in 1918, and those claiming direct descent are either innocently misled, suffering from a personality disorder, or trying to profit from the public's legendary gullibility to buy any fanciful story. Perhaps one day charred bone fragments will be found in Ekaterinburg and lay to rest forever this tragic chapter of Russian history, although I seriously doubt the public will ever be satisfied or convinced by the less romantic truth. John Godl.
Holy Martyrs Of The Royal House, Pray Unto God For Us! Glory Be To God For All Things! | |||
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