(1672–1725) Mikhail was succeeded by his only son
Alexei, who steered the country quietly through numerous troubles. Upon Alexei's death, there was a period of dynastic struggle between his children by his first wife
Maria Ilyinichna Miloslavskaya (
Feodor III,
Sofia Alexeyevna,
Ivan V) and his son by his second wife
Nataliya Kyrillovna Naryshkina, the future
Peter the Great. Peter ruled from 1682 until his death in 1725. New dynastic struggles followed the death of Peter. His only son to survive into adulthood, Tsarevich
Alexei, did not support Peter's modernization of Russia. He had previously been arrested and died in prison shortly thereafter. Near the end of his life, Peter managed to alter the succession tradition of male heirs, allowing him to choose his heir. Power then passed into the hands of his second wife, Empress
Catherine, who ruled until her death in 1727. Initially, gunmen shot at Nicholas who immediately fell dead as a result of multiple bullet wounds. Then the dark room where the family was held filled with smoke and dust from the spray of bullets. With limited visibility, the gunmen shot blindly, often hitting the ceiling and walls, creating more dust and debris. As a result of this many of the gunmen themselves were injured. Alexandra was soon shot in the head by military commissar
Peter Ermakov and was killed. It was not until after the room had been cleared of smoke that the shooters re-entered to find the remaining imperial family still alive and uninjured. Maria attempted to escape through the doors at the rear of the room, leading to a storage area, but the doors were nailed shut. The noise produced as she rattled the doors attracted the attention of Ermakov. Some of the family were shot in the head, but several of the others, including the young and frail tsarevich, would not die either from multiple close-range bullet wounds or bayonet stabs. The gunmen then proceeded to shoot each family member once again. Even so, two of the daughters were still alive 10 minutes later, and were then bludgeoned to death with the butt of a rifle. Later it was discovered that the bullets and bayonet stabs had been partially blocked by diamonds sewn into the children's clothing. Following the murder of the Romanov family, the Bolsheviks made several attempts to dispose of the bodies. Initially the bodies were to be thrown down a mineshaft; however, the location of the disposal site was revealed to locals, causing them to change the location. Instead of a burial, the Bolsheviks decided to burn two of the corpses of the former royal family. Burning the corpses proved to be difficult as it took significant time, so the group resorted to disfiguring the pair with acid. In a rush, the Bolsheviks threw nine additional bodies into a grave and covered them with acid as well. The bodies of the Romanovs were then hidden and moved several times before being interred in an unmarked pit where they remained until the summer of 1979 when amateur enthusiasts disinterred and re-buried some of them, and then decided to conceal the find until the fall of the USSR. In 1991 the grave site was excavated and the bodies were given a state funeral under the nascent democracy of post-Soviet Russia, and several years later DNA and other forensic evidence was used by Russian and international scientists to make accurate identifications. At the time, Anastasia was 17 years old while Maria was 19 years. Their brother Alexei was just a few weeks away from turning 14. Alexei's elder sisters Olga and Tatiana were 22 and 21 years old at the time of the murder respectively. The bones were found using metal detectors and metal rods as probes. Also, striped material was found that appeared to have been from a blue-and-white striped cloth; Alexei commonly wore a blue-and-white striped undershirt. In mid-2007, a Russian archaeologist announced a discovery by one of his workers. The excavation uncovered the following items in the two pits which formed a "T": • remains of 44 human bone fragments; • bullet jackets from short barrel guns/pistols; • wooden boxes which had deteriorated into fragments; • pieces of ceramic which appear to be amphoras which were used as containers for acid; • iron nails; • iron angles; • seven fragments of teeth; • fragment of fabric of a garment. Geneticists used a combination of autosomal STR and mtDNA sequencing to detect relationships between the family members' remains. Using a DNA sample from
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, a grand nephew of Alexandra, scientists matched his DNA to her and her children's remains found in the mass grave. The investigation concluded that Alexei and one Romanov daughter were missing. Experts continue to debate which daughter was missing from the grave; those from the United States believe the missing child to be Anastasia, while those from Russia believe it to be Maria. However, "
conspiracy theories" persisted throughout the 20th century, with some authors still contending that "somehow the real Anastasia, Maria, or perhaps Aleksei, might have survived the Russian Revolution" even after the discovery of the bodies and the confirmation of their identities was made public. Additionally, despite their discovery in 2007, the remains of the two bodies found in the separate grave did not "receive a proper burial due to the Russian Orthodox Church's unsubstantiated doubts about their authenticity." they remained in laboratories until 1998, while there was a debate as to whether they should be reburied in Yekaterinburg or St. Petersburg. A commission eventually chose St. Petersburg. The remains were transferred with full military honor guard and accompanied by members of the Romanov family from Yekaterinburg to St. Petersburg. In St. Petersburg remains of the imperial family were moved by a formal military honor guard cortege from the airport to St Petersburg's
Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral where they (along with several loyal servants who were killed with them) were interred in a special chapel near the tombs of their ancestors. At the cathedral, the remaining Romanov family hosted a formal funeral for Tsar Nicholas II attended by many relatives and representatives from nations worldwide.
Other executions On 18 July 1918, the day after the killing at
Yekaterinburg of the tsar and his family, members of the extended Russian imperial family were killed near
Alapayevsk by Bolsheviks. They included:
Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich of Russia,
Prince Ioann Konstantinovich of Russia,
Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich of Russia,
Prince Igor Konstantinovich of Russia and Prince
Vladimir Pavlovich Paley, Grand Duke Sergei's secretary Varvara Yakovleva, and Grand Duchess
Elisabeth Feodorovna, a granddaughter of
Queen Victoria and elder sister of
Tsarina Alexandra. Following the 1905 assassination of her husband, Grand Duke
Sergei Alexandrovich, Elisabeth Feodorovna had ceased living as a member of the Imperial family and took up life as a
serving nun, but was nonetheless arrested and slated for death with other Romanovs. They were thrown down a mine shaft into which explosives were then dropped, all being left to die there slowly. The bodies were recovered from the mine by the
White Army in 1918, who arrived too late to rescue them. Their remains were placed in coffins and moved around Russia during struggles between the White and the opposing
Red Army. By 1920, the coffins were interred in a former Russian mission in
Beijing, now beneath a parking area. In 1981 Grand Duchess Elisabeth was
canonized by the
Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, and in 1992 by the
Moscow Patriarchate. In 2006, representatives of the Romanov family were making plans to re-inter the remains elsewhere. The town became a place of pilgrimage to the memory of Elisabeth Fyodorovna, whose remains were eventually re-interred in
Jerusalem. On 13 June 1918,
Bolshevik revolutionary authorities killed
Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia and Nicholas Johnson (Michael's secretary) in
Perm. Their bodies have never been found. The exiled
Grand Duke Nicholas Konstantinovich of Russia died on 26 January 1918, with some rumors claiming he was killed by the Bolsheviks. His morganatic son Prince Artemy Nikolayevich Romanovsky-Iskander was killed the following year in the
Russian Civil War. In January 1919, revolutionary authorities killed Grand Dukes
Dmitry Konstantinovich,
Nikolai Mikhailovich,
Paul Alexandrovich and
George Mikhailovich, who had been held in the prison of the Saint
Peter and Paul Fortress in
Petrograd. The four Grand Dukes were buried in a mass grave in the fortress, though Dmitry Konstantinovich's body was collected by his former adjutant, rolled up in a rug and taken away for a private burial in the garden of a house in Petrograd, where he remains to this day.
Exiles Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna In 1919, Maria Feodorovna, widow of Alexander III, and mother of Nicholas II, managed to escape Russia aboard , which her nephew, King
George V of the United Kingdom, had sent to rescue her, at the urging of his own mother, Queen Alexandra, who was Maria's elder sister. After a stay in England with
Queen Alexandra, she returned to her native Denmark, first living at
Amalienborg Palace, with her nephew, King
Christian X, and later, at Villa
Hvidøre. Upon her death in 1928, her coffin was placed in the crypt of
Roskilde Cathedral, the burial site of members of the
Danish royal family. In 2005, the coffin with her remains was moved to the
Peter and Paul Fortress to be buried beside that of her husband. The transfer of her remains was accompanied by an elaborate ceremony at
Saint Isaac's Cathedral officiated by
Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow. Descendants and relatives of the Dowager Empress attended, including her great-grandson Prince
Michael Andreevich,
:Princess Catherine Ivanovna of Russia, the last living member of the Imperial Family born before the fall of the dynasty, and Prince
Dmitri and Prince
Nicholas Romanov.
Other exiles Among the other exiles who managed to leave Russia were Maria Feodorovna's two daughters, the Grand Duchesses
Xenia Alexandrovna and
Olga Alexandrovna, with their husbands, Grand Duke
Alexander Mikhailovich and
Nikolai Kulikovsky, respectively, and their children, as well as the spouses of Xenia's elder two children and her granddaughter. Xenia remained in England, following her mother's return to Denmark, although after their mother's death Olga moved to Canada with her husband, both sisters dying in 1960. Grand Duchess
Maria Pavlovna, widow of Nicholas II's uncle, Grand Duke
Vladimir, and her children the Grand Dukes
Kiril,
Boris and
Andrei, and Kiril's wife
Victoria Melita and children, also managed to flee Russia. Grand Duke
Dmitri Pavlovich, a cousin of Nicholas II, had been exiled to the
Caucasus in 1916 for his part in the murder of Grigori Rasputin, and managed to escape Russia. Grand Duke
Nicholas Nikolaievich, who was supreme commander of Russian troops during World War I prior to Nicholas II taking command, along with his brother, Grand Duke
Peter, and their wives, Grand Duchesses
Anastasia and
Militza, who were sisters, and Peter's children, son-in-law, and granddaughter also fled the country.
Elizaveta Mavrikievna, widow of
Konstantin Konstantinovich, escaped with her daughter
Vera Konstantinovna and her son
Georgii Konstantinovich, as well as her grandson Prince
Vsevolod Ivanovich and her granddaughter Princess
Catherine Ivanovna to Sweden. Her other daughter,
Tatiana Konstantinovna, also escaped with her children
Natasha and
Teymuraz, as well as her uncle's aide-de-camp Alexander Korochenzov. They fled to Romania and then Switzerland.
Gavriil Konstantinovich was imprisoned before fleeing to Paris. Ioann Konstantinovich's wife,
Elena Petrovna, was imprisoned in Alapayevsk and Perm, before escaping to Sweden and Nice, France.
Olga Constantinovna of Russia, Dowager Queen of Greece, who had returned to Russia in her widowhood, was able to escape to Switzerland with the help of the Danish embassy. Her daughter
Maria Georgievna, wife of George Mikhailovich, had been vacationing in England with her daughters
Nina and
Xenia when the war broke out and chose not to return to Russia. == Contemporary Romanovs ==