I'm currently in university at the moment, my first year and I must say all is going well with terms over, my break starting next week thankfully and the next semester on its way to begin in January. I must say, that my favourite class of all, pretty obvious as a history major is history. My course focuses on war, revolution, etc in the 20th century. Probably my favourite era.
We are just wrapping up learning about World War One at the moment, and I must say I found the death on Nicholas II and his family, the Czar of Russia until 1918, quite interesting. Today, on my free time, I decided to look more into it and found quite the shocking connection between the Czar and another extremely important player in the Royal Family, that is Prince Philip.
Unfortunately, I'm not able to attach the interesting family tree showing the connection between the two, literally years apart from each other. If you scroll far enough you can see it listed on this site.
To give a rundown of what happened to the Czar and his family goes like this (credits to history.com):
What happened?
-In Yekaterinburg, Russia, Czar Nicholas II and his family are executed by the Bolsheviks, communists, bringing an end to the three-century-old Romanov dynasty
-Basically, there were quite strong tensions with a party or group called the Bolsheviks, who despised everything about the Czar. Not to mention the unrest going on at the time
-There were what is referred to as the 4 crises' during the October Revolution, but referring most importantly to the fate of the Czar and the literal execution of his entire family (a Royal Family) on July 17, 1918
-This, as you know it sent shock waves to Royal families around the world, all connected somehow, at this point Russia is on its last ledge to grip onto for dear life.
Keep in mind that at this point Russia has had unrest over electoral votes,
there's a whole load of communism stirring up, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
was signed (March 3, 1918), and of course the leader of Russia and his entire
the family has been murdered all in one night. Not in a pleasant matter either.
Along follows the Russian Civil War but that's a topic for another blog to
be continued.
So now that you can understand the basic situation going on, it's visible Russia's looking like quite the mess. Nothing is going right and people are upset. On July 17, 1918, the Czar and his entire family were brutally murdered. It said supposedly that they were were shot and bayoneted to death by the Bolsheviks. To make it worse yet, each family member was forced to watch each other as this occurred with the youngest being a 13-year-old boy.
Another unsettling description comes from history.com stating:
"Late on the night of July 16, Nicholas, Alexandra, their five children and four servants were ordered to dress quickly and go down to the cellar of the house in which they were being held. There, the family and servants were arranged in two rows for a photograph they were told was being taken to quell rumors that they had escaped. Suddenly, a dozen armed men burst into the room and gunned down the imperial family in a hail of gunfire. Those who were still breathing when the smoked cleared were stabbed to death."
"The remains of Nicholas, Alexandra and three of their children were excavated in a forest near Yekaterinburg in 1991 and positively identified two years later using DNA fingerprinting. The Crown Prince Alexei and one Romanov daughter were not accounted for, fueling the persistent legend that Anastasia, the youngest Romanov daughter, had survived the execution of her family. Of the several “Anastasias” that surfaced in Europe in the decade after the Russian Revolution, Anna Anderson, who died in the United States in 1984, was the most convincing. In 1994, however, scientists used DNA to prove that Anna Anderson was not the czar’s daughter but a Polish woman named Franziska Schanzkowska."
As the website, I provided mentions, "Both Elizabeth II and Philip were descendants of Queen Victoria. It is not unusual for royals to marry their cousins, as, through most of history, royal family members could only marry people of their class, and there was a limited pool of people of royal lineage to choose from. Therefore, it’s not particularly surprising that Philip was also a descendant of George II, Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, and King Christian IX of Denmark." says Esther.
It's said the only possible way this DNA match to prove that indeed the bodies found were those of the Romanov's was by Prince Philip himself! That's right. Firstly proving true that he indeed was closely related to Nicholas II, he gave them a sample. He cracked the case. I suppose you could go along to agree that the descendants from Prince Philip and the Queen are indeed also related to this string of the Russian Royal Family. Quite fascinating! I definitely recommend reading further on this if you have the time
The website says:
"The tsarina was Queen Victoria’s granddaughter — Philip’s great-aunt — and that meant that she shared mitochondrial DNA with Prince Philip. So Prince Philip contributed a blood sample, and his DNA was compared to that of the remains and of other family members. This allowed researchers to confirm virtually beyond a doubt that the bodies were indeed those of the murdered Romanovs."
Remarkably said by Prince Philip himself, "I would like to go to Russia very much, though the b*****ds murdered half my family" he said in the 1960's after being asked if he would ever visit Russia.
The grave of the family, excluding 2 children was found by a geologist sometime during the Soviet Regime, but he thought it would be best if he had just kept it secret to reveal until the fall of the regime in 1991.
"Two children who were missing from the original mass grave – fuelling speculation that the youngest Romanov daughter, Anastasia, had survived the execution – were found in 2007 in a second burial site closeby." says the Independant.co.uk.
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