How Did Jemmy Die?

[Sarushka]

An interesting question would be was Jemmy killed at the same time as the IF. We can presume Ortipo was. I remember reading years ago in File on the Tsar that Jemmy was too well preserved to have been killed at the same time as the Romanovs. Would this be true or not though, and if true, what was the real reason behind killing Jemmy at a later date?

Check my reply #9 -- I posted King & Wilson's theory plus some thoughts of my own.

[Lady Macduff]

Sarushka, your theory seems plausible, but consider this: If Jemmy was adopted and killed by a guard, why did he take the trouble to go back and bury her with the rest of the family? Why not just dig a hole and toss her in? Wouldn't bringing her to the mass grave be incredibly dangerous if he were found? And how might he have found it in the first place?

[Sarushka]

Sarushka, your theory seems plausible, but consider this: If Jemmy was adopted and killed by a guard, why did he take the trouble to go back and bury her with the rest of the family?

To make his part in the crime more anonymous? If I were in this position, I wouldn't want to dig a fresh hole that might somehow be connected back to me by the White investigators. Better to toss the dog in with some other evidence that was bound to be discovered anyway.

And how might he have found it in the first place?

Jemmy was found at the Four Brothers mine shaft where the bodies were initially dumped, not at the final grave in Pig's Meadow where the imperial family's remains were eventually discovered. The location of the initial dumping spot was no secret among the locals -- that's why Yurovsky had to move the corpses.

[Tsarfan]

Was there anyone among the White investigators who would have had such intimate knowledge of the imperial family that they would have recognized the corpse of a dog as one belonging to the Romanovs?

[Sarushka]

Was there anyone among the White investigators who would have had such intimate knowledge of the imperial family that they would have recognized the corpse of a dog as one belonging to the Romanovs?

It was identified at the mine shaft by Gibbes.

[Tsarfan]

Thanks.  I had forgotten he was with the investigators.

[Neeosine]

I found more in one of the books I was reading:

Finally, mangled but unburned, the little corpse of the spaniel Jimmy was found at the bottom of the pit. For some reason, the murderers had taken great care to destroy the bodies of the owners, but had ignored the still recognizable body of their pet.

I wonder why exactly they had done this....

[Lady Macduff]

I was just reading Yurovsky's account of the murders. I know he's hardly a reliable source, but he does in fact mention that Jemmy was in the room.

"Although I told [the victims] through Botkin that they did not have to take anything with them they collected various small things - pillows, bags and so on and, it seems to me, a small dog."

[Georgiy]

I should update to say that 'Jemmy' was in fact 'Jimmy' - or more regularly 'my Jim' going by Anastasia's own letters. It shows though, the extent of Anna Anderson's influence - Jemmy was the name that she used for the dog, and the name has been accepted without question by  many for a very long time. Primary sourced material though, such as Anastasia's letters to Katya Zborovskaya, show the real name.

[Nictionary]

Not even animals were safe from those Bolshevik butchers.

A little of topic, but Borzois were also killed during the Revolution simply because they were owned by aristocrats.

That is similar to how, during the Cultural Revolution, tens of thousands of "sleeve dogs" - dogs small enough to fit in the sleeves of traditional Chinese robes - were killed by the Red Guards as symbols of bourgeois "decadence and a criminal extravagance at a time of food shortages."