Author Topic: Captivity photo's  (Read 338181 times)

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Val289

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Re: Captivity photo's
« Reply #45 on: March 22, 2005, 09:10:06 PM »
Lanie and Sian - I thought it looked like Nicholas.  Elisabeth said in a previous post (listed below) that it was actually a guard..........


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Many thanks to Val for posting that photo of Olga, Alexey and Anastasia at the swingset in Tobolsk. The picture she reproduced here is much, much lighter and clearer than the one in my abridged Russian edition of the Sokolov report. I am also informed by Elizaveta that the photo caption in her edition of the report states the children are with a guard (in other words, not Dr. Botkin).
 


DanielB

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Re: Captivity photo's
« Reply #46 on: March 22, 2005, 11:20:07 PM »
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here is the link with a bunch of different pictures, the one I was referring to says the last known photo of Tsar Nicholas... It does look like a captivity picture to me and I know that he had his overcoat which frequently would wear when they let them walk outside...
http://worldroots.com/brigitte/royal/royal20.htm
Troy


The "last known photo of Nicholas" was taken in Tobolsk: the outer fence is clearly visible behind him. The same fence can be seen on various photos taken in Tobolsk (see Gilliard and Gibbs books for instance). The Ipatiev House had a fence hastily made with uneven poles. It might well be the last known photo, but it wasn't taken in Ekaterinburg.

Offline Lanie

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Re: Captivity photo's
« Reply #47 on: March 22, 2005, 11:23:36 PM »
I recall reading that the "last known photograph" of Nicholas standing in the overcoat was at GHQ.

DanielB

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Re: Captivity photo's
« Reply #48 on: March 25, 2005, 03:21:43 PM »
Hi Lanie,

You are right about the « last known photograph » being taken at Headquarters. My memory failed me… :(
Here’s the unedited photo – sorry, not very good quality – which was taken in September 1914. Then the Army Headquarters were at Baranovichi. I must say that the fence in Baranovichi is identical to the one in Tobolsk but I should have noticed that the Emperor looked much younger on that photo than on those taken in Tobolsk. :-[

So it’s definitely not the last known photo of Nicholas II!
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by DanielB »

La_Mashka

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Re: Captivity photo's
« Reply #49 on: March 30, 2005, 11:17:18 AM »
Thanks for posting the complete picture!!!

It is just difficult to know "who to trust".... especially when even books have the captions wrong!

matushka

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Re: Captivity photo's
« Reply #50 on: April 01, 2005, 04:11:46 PM »
I have a question! Eugenie de Grece published a splendid biography of Alexei Nikolaevitch, his diary, letters from Tobolsk to Ekaterinburg. She wrote she found also in the "biscuits box" some photographs. In the book, there are some, but must of them are well known. Does anyone know
- where is this tresure? Private property of the family? A museum?
-Is there any "interesting", rare or unique pictures of the captivity in this collection?
-Had Eugenie de Grece all documents published or some letters stayed unpublished (I do not thonk so).
Thank you for answers.

La_Mashka

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Re: Captivity photo's
« Reply #51 on: May 20, 2005, 12:15:53 PM »
ummm

wow.. I had never heard of such book...  whats the name?

lexi4

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Re: Captivity photo's
« Reply #52 on: May 20, 2005, 05:39:39 PM »
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Many thanks to Val for posting that photo of Olga, Alexey and Anastasia at the swingset in Tobolsk. The picture she reproduced here is much, much lighter and clearer than the one in my abridged Russian edition of the Sokolov report. I am also informed by Elizaveta that the photo caption in her edition of the report states the children are with a guard (in other words, not Dr. Botkin).

By the way, going back to a question Abby asked earlier, does anyone know where to get the full Sokolov report in English? I know there is an edition in English (with ALL the text and photos, of truly wonderful quality), that was published in the United States (I think). I saw this edition in an academic library in the U.S. in the early 1990s. But it seems to be rather rare, because I have not been able to find it since.

I would also like to know how to get a copy of the Sokolove report. Does anyone know?

Robert_Hall

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Re: Captivity photo's
« Reply #53 on: May 20, 2005, 05:51:48 PM »
The N. Sokolov Investigation is easily available from Amazon for not very much money. I have yet to find the Eugenie de Grec [Marie Bonaparte] book on Alexeui though.

lexi4

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Re: Captivity photo's
« Reply #54 on: May 20, 2005, 05:54:35 PM »
It's hard to believe Yurovsky didn't take some pictures.

lexi4

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Re: Captivity photo's
« Reply #55 on: May 20, 2005, 06:47:58 PM »
I found this article. Hope I am posting it in the right place.

Nicholas and Alexandra

Unpublished Romanov Documents are in LC's Law Library

By ANDREI PLIGUZOV and ABBY SMITH

Following is the first of three articles on the Law Library's collection of documents and photographs relating to the assassination of the Russian imperial family. Parts two and three will be published in future issues of the LC Information Bulletin.

The Library of Congress has long served the nation as its "library of last resort," where people can locate copies of rare or hard-to-find research materials. But it has also served as what one might call the "repository of last resort."

Valuable collections from around the globe that have faced censorship, physical degradation or extinction for political, religious or other reasons have made their way here, either intentionally or by accident. In particular, the Law Library, dedicated to the preservation and access of international legal materials, has acquired some of its finest and rarest Russian holdings because donors have deposited documents there to ensure physical safety and free accessibility. This is precisely how the Law Library acquired its unique copy of the Sokolov Commission documents, investigative case files from the first inquiry into the murder of the Romanov family in 1918, begun just weeks after their assassination in Ekaterinburg, Russia. George Tellberg, a former professor of law at the University of Saratov, deposited the documents at the Library in 1953.

The story of the execution of the czar's family in the early hours of the morning of July 17, 1918, is now known in all its bloody details. Recent genetic tests, based on skeletal remains excavated from a pit in the Ural Mountains, where the bodies were dumped, have yielded irrefutable evidence of the death of the family, along with several retainers. Only the remains of Tsarevich Alexis and one of the younger daughters (either Maria or Anastasia) have not been found. Their bodies are believed to have been incinerated. Genetic testing has also proved that Anna Anderson, who long claimed to be Anastasia, had no genetic relationship to the imperial family.

This recent investigation into the murders has been fully supported by the current Russian government, which has even floated, or at least encouraged, rumors that the imperial remains will be interred in the official resting place of the Romanov dynasty in St. Petersburg.

Ironically, the present investigation is driven by exactly the same motives as Sokolov's inquiry -- to find out what actually happened; to prove beyond a doubt that all members of the imperial family were killed (and, therefore, forestall any claims by pretenders like Anderson); and to discredit the Bolsheviks and their methods.

As we now know, the imperial family was killed because the city where they were being held by the Red Army was soon to be overrun by the anticommunists. In the midst of the chaos of civil war, the Bolshevik leaders, thousands of miles away in the Kremlin, deemed it expedient to kill the Romanovs rather than risk their capture during evacuation to a safer place.

Within days of their death, Adm. Alexander Kolchak's "white" army marched into Ekaterinburg and, by July 30, he ordered an investigation into the murders. The gross ineptness of the original investigators, Aleksei Nemetkin and Ivan Sergeev, soon led Kolchak to have all the forensic materials remanded to his personal custody. On Feb. 6, 1919, he handed the case over to Nikolai Sokolov, Investigating Magistrate for Cases of Special Importance of the Omsk Tribunal. During the criminal investigation, Sokolov examined all available witnesses connected with the imperial family during their exile. He gathered photographs, deposed servants, doctors and tutors to the children, guards, soldiers and local eyewitnesses.

The findings of the Sokolov Commission, comprising eight volumes and dozens of photographs, became important state documents for Kolchak's Siberian government and were carefully preserved through the chaos of war, the disorderly retreat to Eastern Siberia and the army's dispersal in the Far East. Sokolov himself transported a set of documents through Vladivostok to Paris, where he prepared a book about the fate of the Romanovs (published posthumously in 1925). Seven of the original eight volumes that belonged to Sokolov are now at Harvard University.

The Law Library has materials that had been in the personal possession of Kolchak's justice minister, George Tellberg. Not unlike today, when authors are rushing to print with books based on the findings of the latest investigation, the early 1920s also saw a rash of books about the then-mysterious fate of the imperial family. Tellberg was among the first into print. In 1920 he published The Last Days of the Romanovs, based on files he had borrowed from Kolchak and his officers. Tellberg held on to the materials and in 1954 donated them to the Law Library, along with a large collection of materials relating to the Siberian government and the last years of Romanov rule.

The collection includes material never published in its original form. While some eyewitness testimony appeared in a German edition of the Sokolov Commission papers in 1987 (in Russian), the evidence that did not relate directly to the assassination was omitted, such as the deposition of Sidney Gibbes, the English tutor to the imperial family from 1908 until the family's avacuation from Tobolsk to Ekaterinburg in spring 1918. Gibbes lived in the royal household, and his account provides new insights into the character of the emperor and individual members of the family, including the children. The oldest, Olga, "was fair, direct, honest and open ... but could be easily irritated and her manners were a little brusque." Tatiana "was reserved, haughty, not open, but the most responsible." Maria loved their place of exile in Tobolsk, and she told Gibbes "she would happily stay there forever." Anastasia "was a real comedian, and she made everyone laugh. But she herself never laughed, just her eyes twinkled." And Alexis was clever, though not fond of reading, and had odd fancies, such as collecting old nails, saying "they may be useful."

While abroad, refugees from Russia such as Tellberg and Sokolov published their accounts of the murder of the Romanovs. In their homeland, the Soviet government refused to divulge any information about the fate of Nicholas and his family. This vacuum of official information was soon filled with numerous popular tales of the miraculous survival of one or more of the children. Several young women declared themselves to be Anastasia, and a telegraph operator in Siberia who was barely literate, certainly knew no foreign languages and was wholly ignorant of the intricacies of court etiquette (which would have been second nature to a Romanov), stubbornly insisted that he was the Tsarevich Alexis.

Today, thanks to unfettered access to all of Sokolov's materials, we have little trouble separating fact from fiction. But there is one pressing question: Who ordered the murders? Lenin's close adviser Yakov Sverdlov? Lenin himself?

There is no written evidence, because in 1918, just as today, such an order would have been given by telephone or face to face behind closed doors. Just as Tellberg understood how important it is for posterity that all documentary evidence about the Romanov deaths be preserved, so the men who ordered the execution understood that that which is not recorded cannot be preserved.

And so history must remain silent.

Andrei Pliguzov is a senior research fellow at the Russian Academy of Sciences who is doing archival research in the Law Library. Abby Smith is assistant to the associate librarian for Library Services and holds a doctorate in Russian history from Harvard University.



Katharine

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Re: Captivity photo's
« Reply #56 on: May 20, 2005, 09:49:50 PM »
So it's all a bit uncertain as to what the last photographs taken of the Romanovs were?

Were any known photos taken of them during their brief but awful time in the Ipatiev House?

The Carol Townend/James Blair Lovell book Royal Russia describes this photo as the last taken of Alexandra and "two of her daughters" (looks to me like Olga [or Tatiana] and Marie).

It doesn't say whether it was in Tobolsk or Ekaterinburg, but does say 1918. It certainly looks like it was towards the end of their lives ...
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Katharine »

Abby

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Re: Captivity photo's
« Reply #57 on: May 20, 2005, 11:03:20 PM »
I beleive that photo was taken on the balcony of the Governor's Mansion in Tobolsk in 1918 and is the last known picture of the Empress. With her are Tatiana (left) and Olga.

grandduchess_sofia

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Re: Captivity photo's
« Reply #58 on: May 21, 2005, 02:31:03 PM »
I agree its Tatiana but the girl on the right looks a lot more like Maria. The features are much stronger

Elisabeth

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Re: Captivity photo's
« Reply #59 on: May 21, 2005, 03:02:09 PM »
No, Abby is correct, it is definitely Olga on the right, you can tell from her profile and the way she holds herself. This picture was, as Abby says, taken in Tobolsk in the late summer or early autumn of 1917 (the grand duchesses' hair is still very short and they are wearing turbans). There were later photos taken of Olga and Tatiana but not, so far as we know, of the Empress (unless an identification photo taken in Ekaterinburg turns up).
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Elisabeth »