did the children have the right to leave russia after the revolution?

[Clemence]

if there were to be a way out to england but only for the children, could they ask to leave the country? do you think england would accept them or would they insist on financial independence?

[Sarushka]

It may have been possible. Technically the children weren't prisoners -- at least not in the same capacity that NII and AF were. Prior to the Bolshevik takeover, OTMAA probably would have been allowed to accept an offer of asylum. However, they would have had to have been willing to leave their parents, so the question is somewhat moot.

[Rodney_G.]

Sarushka is largely right.  How England ( whether the Government or the Crown(George V)) might have acted with the children is a separate matter. But in terms of the children having a "right" to leave Russia after the revolution, there were no formal "rights" for the Romanovs who were no longer the ruling family. The only "right" they had was what the Provisional Government or later, the Bolsheviks, chose to allow them. The PG were willing , even eager, for the Romanovs to leave Russia, certainly at first. The children's leaving would ultimately have been more a Romanov family decision than the exercise of any right.

[TimM]

They might have had a chance had the Provisional Government lasted longer.  Once the Bolsheviks got in, it was game over.  Those murdering thugs wanted Romanov blood, and they didn't care whose blood.

[RealAnastasia]

Even if those blood would come from innocent teens and young people...

RealAnastasia.

[LisaDavidson]

At the risk of seeming like a wet blanket here, I don't think it's either fair or accurate to characterize the revolutionaries as blood thirsty pseudo vampires.

Studying the stories of the execution of the Imperial Family, it is obvious that the Emperor was a political target, and the primary one, for those following the orders to kill. Every shooter in that room wanted to have the distinction of being his killer. And, to a lesser degree, there was a desire to kill the Empress. I also think that those who killed Michael and Johnson wanted them dead, not doubt about it.

But I never saw any evidence that there was a particular murderous intent towards the children. I tend to think they were collateral victims - killed because they had stayed with their parents - not because anyone lusted for their blood.

[TimM]

First of all, it was a murder, not an execution.  There was nothing legal about what happened that horrible night in 1918.  The Romanovs were given no trial, no chance to speak in their own defence.  It bothers me when people use the term execution because that gives what happened a hint of legality, when their wasn't.  The murder of the Romanovs was just as much a crime as the St. Valentine's Day massecre in Chicago in 1929.

Second of all, if the children were not targets, why were they murdered.  The Bolsheviks could have taken them and separated them from their parents.  The fact that they didn't shows that they wanted to kill all the Romanovs, adults and children.  The Bolsheviks were blood thirsty murderers, all of them.

[Kalafrana]

Going back to whether the British would have accepted Alexei and the girls (they were all a bit old to be called children by then), I think they would have expected them to be financially self-supporting. Reading John van der Kiste's book on Xenia, and other more general books about the period, there was a definite reluctance on the part of the British authorities to take in refugees who could not support themselves or did not have people supporting them financially. The Kindertransports of the late 1930s were very much reliant on voluntary organisations, whose members were prepared to provide homes for the children until they were adult. At the same time there was another scheme which offered refuge to young men, but only if they could support themselves immediately or within a short time. I read an interesting article by one of these young men, who was a 17-year-old gymnasium student when he came here. A family from one of these voluntary organisations kept an eye on him, and he was given lodgings, but he was expected to find a job as soon as possible.

Ann

[TimM]

they were all a bit old to be called children by then

You're right, Ann.  I should have said OTMAA.

[Rodney_G.]

First of all, it was a murder, not an execution.  There was nothing legal about what happened that horrible night in 1918.  The Romanovs were given no trial, no chance to speak in their own defence.  It bothers me when people use the term execution because that gives what happened a hint of legality, when their wasn't.  The murder of the Romanovs was just as much a crime as the St. Valentine's Day massecre in Chicago in 1929.

Second of all, if the children were not targets, why were they murdered.  The Bolsheviks could have taken them and separated them from their parents.  The fact that they didn't shows that they wanted to kill all the Romanovs, adults and children.  The Bolsheviks were blood thirsty murderers, all of them.

You are right, my friend. The murder of OTMAA was obviously intentional, that is, knowing, willful murder. I'm totally not buying the notion that the Bolsheviks  HAD to kill them. That's simply not true.  No one " made "them do it. Not even as some form of instrumentality did they need to kill the children (and yes, most of them were children). They wouldn't even have been witnesses if they had been separated from Nicholas and/or Alexandra. And in any case murdering witnesses is no justification for anyone's murder, includimg OTMAA's .

Their murder was carried out in a spirit of hatred and revenge, and as part of a Bolshevik desire to wipe out the Romanov line. I'd say that was almost literally bloodthirsty.

[Sarushka]

Getting off topic, folks.

If you'd like to discuss the murder/execution issue, you're welcome to do so on these threads:
Murder or Execution?
Should Anastasia and her siblings have died?

[Rodney_G.]

You are correct, though in these matters one thought naturally leads to another.

[Sarushka]

You are correct, though in these matters one thought naturally leads to another.

Of course. The question is always how long to let a conversation take its natural course before nudging it back in the original direction -- mostly for the sake of organization. :^)

[Selencia]

Its a little weird how Alexandra and Nicholas essentially babied their children all the time. Olga and Tatiana were in their 20s yet they were treated like girls in their early teens. Of course somebody who is heartbroken about what happened to the family would wish Nicholas had alllowed the family to be separated, giving the children a better chance at survival. I do wonder why if he and his wife were under arrest but not the children, why they would not allow them to be sent to safety. Would the kids have been happy about it, no; but a parent could be insistent for the safety of their child.
It's sad to see how dependent the entire family was on each other and how if they weren't so dependent, perhaps some of the family could have gotten out.

[Kalafrana]

We could draw a parallel with Prince and Princess Mikhail Cantacuzene, who saw the writing on the wall in the summer of 1917 and sent their three children out of the country. Princess C was American (a granddaughter of President Grant), and their 16-year-old son and two rather younger daughters went to San Francisco via the Trans-Siberian Railway and a ship from Vladivostock, accompanied by a tutor and a couple of servants. It is clear from Princess C's account that the parents had very mixed feelings, but decided that it was for the best. The journey went without a hitch - the difficult part, apparently, was getting all the documentation beforehand.

I think the Provisional Government might well have allowed the girls to depart (though possibly not Alexei, since he was the heir), and finding a country prepared to take them would have been less difficult than it was in the case of Nicholas and Alexandra. Of course, the girls themselves may have insisted on staying!

Ann