"The Highlander" <micheil@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:60ce0233-3f27-45f6-b56e-21115e14157e@w1g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
On Apr 30, 2:49 pm, "Peter Jason" <p...@jostle.com> wrote:
Official: DNA tests link bones to
czar's kids
MOSCOW (AP)
- For nine decades after Bolshevik
executioners cut down Czar Nicholas II and
his family, there were no traces of the
remains of Czarevich Alexei, the hemophiliac
heir to Russia's throne.
Some said the delicate 13-year-old had
escaped; a few men even appeared over the
decades claiming to be him. Others believed
his bones were lost somewhere in Russia's
vastness, buried in secret amid fear and
chaos as Russia lurched into civil war.
But an official said Wednesday that DNA tests
have solved the mystery by identifying bone
shards found in a forest as those of Alexei
and his sister, Grand Duchess Maria.
The remains of their parents - Czar Nicholas
II and Empress Alexandra - and three siblings
were unearthed in 1991 and reburied in the
imperial resting place in St. Petersburg. The
Russian Orthodox Church made all seven of
them saints in 2000.
Despite the earlier discoveries and
ceremonies, the absence of Alexei's and
Maria's remains gnawed at descendants of the
Romanov dynasty, history buffs and royalists.
Even if Wednesday's announcement is confirmed
and widely accepted, many descendants are
unlikely to be fully assuaged - they seek
formal "rehabilitation" by the government.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: United States | Moscow
St. Petersburg | Communist | Russian
Orthodox Church | Yekaterinburg | Anastasia |
University of Massachusetts Medical School |
Rasputin | Bolshevik | Czar Nicholas II |
Romanov
"The tragedy of the czar's family will only
end when the family is declared victims of
political repression," said German Lukyanov,
a lawyer for royal descendants.
Researchers last summer unearthed bone shards
in a forest near Yekaterinburg, where the
royal family was killed, and enlisted Russian
and U.S. laboratories to conduct DNA tests.
Eduard Rossel, governor of the region 900
miles east of Moscow, told reporters that
tests done by a U.S. laboratory had
identified the shards as those of Alexei and
Maria.
"This has confirmed that indeed it is the
children," he said. "We have now found the
entire family."
"The main genetic laboratory in the United
States has concluded its work with a full
confirmation of our own laboratories' work,"
Rossel said.
He did not specify which laboratory he was
referring to, but a genetic research team
working at the University of Massachusetts
Medical School has been involved in the
process.
Evgeny Rogaev, the professor who heads the
research team, could not be immediately
reached for comment.
Nicholas abdicated in 1917 as revolutionary
fervor swept Russia, and he and his family
were detained. The czar, his wife Alexandra,
and their son and four daughters were shot by
a firing squad on July 17, 1918, in the
basement of the Yekaterinburg house where
they were being held.
Rumors persisted that some of the family had
survived and escaped. Claims by women to be
Alexei's sister Anastasia were particularly
prominent, although there were also
pretenders to Alexei's and Maria's
identities.
"It was 99.9% clear they had all been killed;
now with these shards it's 100%," said Nadia
Kizenko, a Russian scholar at State
University of New York-Albany. "Those who
regret this news will be those who liked the
royal pretender myth."
Alexei was one of the more compelling of the
victims, exciting sympathy because of his
fragility. He suffered from hemophilia. His
mother's terror of the disease and fear that
he would not live to succeed to the throne
were key to her falling under the thrall of
the hypnotic and sexually ravenous
self-declared holy man Rasputin, who exerted
vast influence on the royal family.
The next step in what happens to the remains
will likely be up to the Russian Orthodox
Church and whether it chooses to recognize
them as genuine. The church's media service
said no one could comment on Wednesday's
announcement.
It also was unclear whether the descendants
of the royal family would accept the
identification. Lukyanov, the lawyer, said
neither he nor his clients had received
confirmation.
Lukyanov's efforts to get the government to
declare the royal family victims of political
repression have been repeatedly rejected by
Russian courts, which have said the family's
killing was premeditated murder, not a
political reprisal.
Regardless of the fragments' identity, he
said the country had much to do to overcome
its tortured past.
"They say that as long as the last soldier
remains unburied, the war continues,"
Lukyanov told The Associated Press. "So long
as the last victim of Bolshevik terror and
the Communist regime remains unrehabilitated,
the repression will continue."
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All
rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten or used to
bore posters in s.c.s.
By the way, did you know that Queen Anne is dead?
I didn't realise she'd come to the throne yet - was there a recent
'Yekaterinburg' at Windsor?
