Alexis reaction...

[Alexa]

I've read so much about how Nicky, Alix and OTMA reacted when they heard they were to be shot, but I can't recall ever reading what Alexis's reaction was.  Maybe I have read what it was, but just can't remember (heck, I'm lucky if I remember to put my shoes on before I leave the house).  Anyway, does anyone happen to know this?

Alexa

[Pravoslavnaya]

The poor, long suffering Tsarevich-Martyr has been described as simply petrified while the shooting was going on according to Yurovsky's accounts.   Consider how tired the boy was, what kind of reaction time he would have had...  but I am curious as well if anyone other than the Bolsheviks would ever have passed down what Alexei might have said or done.   They did spend more time from day to day during the imprisonment with a man inclined to resign himself to God's will, a woman who struggled with herself in order to do so, and four distractingly attractive young ladies than a boy 'not long for this world', whose silent tongue and big, sad eyes did not reveal much of him to them.

[Annie]

I always thought it was sweet how he kissed his Daddy goodbye in N & A but I don't know if that really happened.

[Alexa]

I always thought it was sweet how he kissed his Daddy goodbye in N & A but I don't know if that really happened.

I's been so long since I've read N&A, I had forgotton that.

Thanks Annie and Pavosloavnaya for your insight.

Alexa

[Louise]

Alexa, if want to read about what happened that horrible night, then I highly recommend Fate of the Romanovs, by Penny Wilson and Greg King. Also read Massie's The Final Chapter.

Penny and Greg through their research, construct the massacre in vivid detail. The book is a must read for Romanov students.

Louise

[bookworm]

I imagine he was screaming. How else do you think a 13-year-old child is going to react to men pointing guns at him?

[bookworm]

Alexei apparently survived the initial round of firing, like at least three of his sisters. The accounts I've read say that he lay moaning on the floor until one of the SOBs kicked him and shot him in the head. I've never read any account of what he said initially but witnesses report hearing screams. I'm sure the child was either frozen with shock or screaming in terror. He knew he was going to die. He wrote in his diary a prayer that he wouldn't suffer long if he had to die.

[Annie]

I'm sorry I meant he kissed him in the movie version, which does not have as much credibility as the book.

[Abby]

Poor Alexei, I think he was just in shock the whole time, probably in a daze. It must have happened so fast. I read he was just sitting in the chair, stock-still like a statue. He must have been in great pain before they finally were able to kill him.
Oh it is so hard to think about!

[Janet_W.]

I believe that would be the film, Nicholas and Alexandra, rather than Robert Massie's book, depicting Alexei giving his father a very quick hug.

We only can go by what was observed by actual witnesses. And that would be, as far as we know, the  assassins, plus (if I recall correctly, from FOTR), a guard who was peering through one of the room's windows. (The basement being only partially subterranean.)

What was reported by these sources was that Alexei was frozen with fear. However, given Alexei's love for his father, it was not unreasonable--in my opinion--for the Nicholas and Alexandra screenwriters to have him quickly hugging his father. (This is why I generally prefer scripted programming to the new, so-called "reality" shows . . . Truth can be portrayed through fiction, whereas reality shows are so often . . . well, banal!)

[Lisa]

What a sad sad topic, girls!    

[Vive_HIH_Aleksey]

Bookworm,
I've never seen this diary entry, would you mind posting it, or sending it to me somehow?

I would love to see it.

thanks,
angie

p.s. I will be posting stuff for Aleksey's birthday, hehe.

[Maria_Vanya]

Bookworm,
I've never seen this diary entry, would you mind posting it, or sending it to me somehow?

I would love to see it.

thanks,
angie

p.s. I will be posting stuff for Aleksey's birthday, hehe.

I look forward to seeing what you post for Alexei's birthday!

[Pravoslavnaya]

I do remember this from Alexei Nikolaevich's diary:  'If we are to die, I pray that at least we are not tortured'.  He was said to have a way of predicting things, and like any child may have been afraid of the worst.  His mother the Empress wrote to Anna Vyrubova that not long after sliding down the stairs at Tobolsk, he made that troubling admission:  'Mama, I would like to die.  I am not greatly afraid of death, but I am afraid of what they might do to us here.'

Was a thirteen year old boy, even one so patient whenever he faced his usual pain, in fact capable of the sort of resignation typical of his father?  Or just plain too scared to do anything but freeze when confronted with a firing squad?  It is terrible even to think about the horrific murder of this dear child.   Yet certainly he was brave:  at least I think so.

[Annie]

Was a thirteen year old boy, even one so patient whenever he faced his usual pain, in fact capable of the sort of resignation typical of his father?

I think so. He was only days away from 14, and he was a very smart and introspective person. I had plenty of deep thoughts of doom at his age, it's possible. He and Olga seemed to be the ones who were the most fatalistic about their futures, from what I've seen.