historicalsplendour:

history meme - (1/5) assassinations

The execution of the Romanovs (17 July 1918). Tsar Nicholas II of Russia was forced to abdicate in March 1917, and following his abdication, he and his family were put in house arrest at the Alexander Palace in St Petersburg. As civil war broke out in Russia, it was decided in August 1917 that the Romanovs should be moved from St Petersburg to Tobolsk in Siberia citing protection of the family as the reason for the move. As the Bolsheviks continued to gather strength, the Romanovs were to be moved once more - this time to the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg in the Urals in April/May 1918. In July 1918, the advancing White Army made the Bolsheviks anxious and they eventually decided to murder the family and their servants.

In the early hours of 17 July 1918, the family was awakened, told to get dressed, and was led down into a half-basement room at the back of the Ipatiev House (“The House of Special Purpose”). The Romanovs were told that there was commotion in the streets of Ekaterinburg and the move was made for safety reasons. A firing squad had been assembled and was waiting in an adjoining room. Once the family had settled in the room, the Bolshevik officer Yarov Yurovsky announced to them that had been condemned to death by the Ural Soviet of Workers’ Deputies. Nicholas managed to ask “What? What?” before the family was showered in gun shots and eventually all eleven people had been killed. It is said that the four grand duchesses had to be finished off with bayonets as they had sewn their remaining jewellery in their blouses which deflected the bullets (+more).