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The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion and the Fall of Imperial Russia
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Chapters 16-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 16 Summary: “The House of Special Purpose, May-June 2018”
On May 3, Yakovlev telegrams the younger Romanovs, telling them that their parents have arrived in Ekaterinburg, in the Ural Mountains, a change from their original plan to hold Nicholas in Moscow. Ekaterinburg, with its “fierce anti-tsarist sentiments” (215), has urged the Bolsheviks to bring the Romanovs there, and the town hopes to “’finish […] off the butcher [Nicholas II]’” (215).
A few days later, the daughters receive a letter from Alexandra telling them that their “‘medicines’” (216)—a code word for jewels—have been searched. As a result, the younger Romanovs now sew their own “medicine”—nearly 14 million dollars’ worth of jewels, and all that remains of the family’s wealth—into skirt hems, under hat rims, in pillows and undergarments. While Alexandra continues to write of the “‘nasty surprises’” in Ekaterinburg (216), a new commissar also arrives in Tobolsk: Nicholas Rodionov, a “‘right snake of a man’” (216), as one courtier puts it. His duty is to escort the remaining Romanovs to Ekaterinburg, once Alexei can be moved. In the meantime, he takes pleasure in “humiliat[ing]” the grand duchesses (216).
Finally Alexei is well enough to travel, and on May 23, the young Romanovs reach Ekaterinburg, where they’re greeted by a mob crying, “‘Hang them! Drown them in the lake!’” (218). Gilliard watches the Romanovs disembark their train, and “‘suspect[s] that [he] was never to see them again’” (219).
In Ekaterinburg, the Romanovs live in the house of wealthy engineer, N.N. Ipatiev; with its tall fence and whitewashed windows, the home has become a prison, known as the “House of Special Purpose” (220). The family and servants, including Dr. Botkin, are confined into five rooms on the upper floor, while the tutors, Gibbes and Gilliard, are sent away. Most of the Romanovs’ belongings are dumped into a shed behind the house, so the Romanovs make do with increasingly “threadbare” clothes and not enough silverware (221).
Also on the top floor is the office of Commandant Alexander Avdeev, who is in charge of the Romanovs’ incarceration. While Avdeev is a dedicated Bolshevik, most of the Romanovs’ guards are inexperienced factory workers who make “‘all kinds of mistakes’” (222), such as discharging their guns by accident. The grand duchesses spend their time with chores, eventually receiving both laundry and bread-baking instructors, while the family is allowed only an hour a day outside. Alexei, who can no longer walk, accompanies the family in a wheelchair. Anastasia and Marie flirt with the guards. On June 27, Marie turns 19, and one of the guards brings her a cake; on this day, however, Bolsheviks also inspect the house, and the smuggled cake becomes the impetus for a “clampdown” (226).
Chapter 17 Summary: “Deadly Intent, July 1918”
On July 4, the Romanovs are appointed a new commandant, Yakov Yurovsky, a man raised in suffering and “deprivation,” who now “burned with hatred” for the former royals (227). Yurovsky replaces the young guards with “war-hardened” ones full of “the Red Fire’” (227). The new commandant even places a machine gun in the tower of a nearby cathedral “aimed directly at the prisoners’ rooms” (228). The White Army is marching toward Ekaterinburg, and with their superior strength over the Red Army, Bolsheviks know the Romanovs might soon be rescued.
By July 12, the imperial family can hear the sounds of fighting from their one open window, and the Bolsheviks are hoping to “‘liquidate’” Nicholas (229), but Lenin still wants to keep Nicholas alive until he can undergo a public trial. The rest of the royal family will be spared execution, only to ensure Russia doesn’t appear “barbaric” to the outside world (227). Yurovsky and the local leaders, however, don’t agree with Lenin’s plan and decide to murder all the Romanovs, along with their servants.
On July 13, Alexandra has “a rare moment of joy” (230)—perhaps her last—as Alexei climbs out of bed and takes a bath on his own for the first time in months. Nicholas, meanwhile, writes in his diary for the last time: “‘Today, we have absolutely no news from the outside’” (230). On Sunday July 14, Father Ivan Storozhev is called to the House of Special Purpose to lead Mass for the Romanovs; it is, as both the Father and Yurovsky realize, the family’s Last Rites.
On July 15, maids arrive to clean the floors of the Romanovs’ chambers; Yurovsky has arranged the cleaning “to create a sense of normality” (232). The grand duchesses help the women, even scrubbing the floor on hands and knees, and one of the maids later states that the family “‘were not gods, but…ordinary people like us, simple mortals’” (232).
On July 16, the local Bolsheviks determine the Romanovs’ execution must take place that night, and they even telegram Moscow, informing Lenin of their decision. It’s not known whether Lenin actually authorized the murders; he never admitted to doing so himself, although many historians believe he did. That night, after emptying out the cellar where the execution will take place, Yurovsky appoints an “execution squad” (234) from among his guards and sends away servants he does not want to be killed.
At 1:30 a.m. on July 17, 1918, Yurovsky knocks on the Romanovs’ door and says they must be immediately moved to the cellar, in case of an artillery attack. The Romanovs, believing they will be evacuated, take their time dressing in outfits sewn with hidden jewels. The family dogs attempt to join the Romanovs in the cellar, and Yurovsky refuses to allow them. However, Anastasia picks up her King Charles spaniel, Jemmy, and Yurovsky lets her take the dog, rather than make a scene.
Yurovsky leads the Romanovs, along with Dr. Botkin, footman Alexei Trupp, cook Ivan Kharitonov, and maid Anna Demidova, across the yard, into the cellar, and through hallways, to a storeroom of just eleven-by-thirteen feet. Alexandra demands chairs for herself and Alexei; Yurovsky agrees, and orders the others to stand in two rows. According to Yurovsky, the Romanovs still “‘[have] no idea what [is] taking place’” (238) as Yurovsky reads a decree that as “‘your relatives in Europe [are] continuing their aggression against Soviet Russia [it] has been decreed that [you are] to be shot’” (239). The shooting begins, and Nicholas, Alexandra, and most of the servants die—but bullets bounce off of the children’s chests, as the jewels sewn into their undergarments act as “bulletproof vests” (239). Yurovsky shoots Alexei in the head, and the girls crawl across the floor, where they’re all fatally shot. Anna Demidova is “the last to die” (240). The guards gather all the bodies into a waiting truck—even the corpse of Anastasia’s dog—and they head off to dispose of the bodies in Koptyaki Forest.
Chapter 18 Summary: “The World Will Never Know What Has Become of Them, July 1918”
Three days after the Romanovs are assassinated, an official announcement states that Nicholas has been executed, but that the remaining Romanovs have been “‘sent to a safe place’” (241). Yurovsky flees the city, taking with him many of the imperial family’s jewels, as well as Nicholas’s diaries and photo albums.
A few days later, on July 25, 1918, the White Army takes Ekaterinburg and hurries to rescue the tsar’s family, but they discover the house is empty. They search the house and discover that the cellar, though now “scrubbed clean” (241), still reveals bullet holes and bloodstains that show “something awful had happened [there]” (241). The army puts detective Nicholas Sokolov in charge of an investigation, but not until nearly a year later, in the spring of 1919, does Sokolov search the Koptyaki Forest. Finding evidence that bodies were buried in an old mine shaft, he enlists the aid of tutors Gibbes and Gilliard. They do find family objects, including Alexei’s military belt buckle, as well as bone fragments, but no bodies. Rumors that the Romanovs have escaped “swirl” (243) across continents, and over 200 people claim to be the Romanov children themselves.
While the Romanov bodies are missing, Russia is moving forward into a new communist government. By 1920, Russians are forced to work wherever the government assigns them, food and electricity are closely rationed, and poverty still reigns, leaving the people like “‘living corpses’” (245). One professor, Vasily Vodovoz, recounts a normal day under Lenin’s rule: he spends most of the day starving, hurrying from one closed or overcrowded canteen to another, “‘running around for meals, bread, or cabbage’” (248).
In March 1921, thousands of sailors launch a protest against the communists, and Lenin counters with a “bloody attack” (245). Despite his action, Lenin himself is concerned with the power of the totalitarian government, which he had expected to “‘wither […] away’” (246) as power returned to the people themselves. Lenin is particularly worried about Joseph Stalin, and when Lenin dies in 1924, Stalin does in fact take control. Stalin is “ruthlessly bent on making his country a global power” (246), regardless of the cost to Russian citizens, and the Russians will suffer, “politically voiceless” (246), under his legacy until communism is abolished in 1991.
In 1976, historian Alexander Avdonin and filmmaker Geli Ryabov launch a search for the Romanov’s remains, and in May 1979, they find a grave only four-and-a-half miles from the mine shaft that was searched in 1919. Uncovering nine bodies, they are unable to share their discovery because of the oppressive government. In 1991, after the fall of communism, their find is made public and DNA tests confirm the bodies belong to the Romanovs and their servants. However, both Alexei’s body and either Anastasia or Marie’s bodies are missing, again sparking rumors that the children escaped. On July 17, 1998, the eightieth anniversary of the assassinations, the bodies of the servants, Nicholas, Alexandra, Olga, Tatiana, and what Russians claim are Anastasia’s remains are buried in the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in St. Petersburg.
The Russian Orthodox Church deliberates over whether Nicholas and his family deserve sainthood, and because the Romanovs’ actions are interpreted “‘in a very ambivalent way’” (252), the Church declares them only passion bearers, the lowest level of saints.
In July 2007, amateur historian Sergei Plotnikov discovers the remains of Alexei and one sister near the main gravesite. At the time The Family Romanov is published, Fleming explains, these two last bodies aren’t yet buried—they are awaiting the day when the Romanovs will once more become, as Nicholas put it, “‘a small family circle’” (253).
Chapters 16-18 Analysis
These chapters mark the Romanovs’ final days, from May to July 1918, which are spent in the “House of Special Purpose” in Ekaterinburg. The family is now embarking on a “‘tragic symphony’” (218) that will end with the loss of their lives.
Here, the tsar’s formerly ruthless rule as “Bloody Nicholas” damns him again, as the family is sent to a community with “fierce anti-tsarist sentiments” (215). The second commandant to guard the Romanovs there, Yakov Yurovsky, despises the rulers, who exiled his father to Siberia, and who caused “‘centuries of suffering’” for Russia (227). The theme of the gulf between wealthy and poor in Russia also plays into the Romanovs’ fate: though the Romanovs’ retain only vestiges of their great wealth, Ekaterinburg officials still “resent” the Romanovs’ lives of “relative comfort” under imprisonment (229), and desire to destroy every remnant of the family’s privilege. Thus Yurovsky and the officials develop and carry out a plan to murder all the Romanovs.
In contrast to the idea of the Romanovs as privileged nobles, Fleming paints a sympathetic portrait of the grand duchesses, in particular in their final days. One guard remembers, “‘You could look at [the grand duchesses] in their old and tattered clothes…like any poor girls, but yet there was something especially sweet about them’” (225). When maids arrive to clean the floors just days before the family’s assassination, the girls are eager to help, even scrubbing the floor on hands and knees along with the cleaning women. One of these maids describes the girls as “spirited’” with “‘a love of life’” (232)—traits that will make their untimely end even more tragic.
On the other hand, Nicholas, Alexandra and the now-ill Alexei have failed to thrive in their imprisonment, and their symbolic decline ends in death. The same cleaning women see the tsar as a “‘drab man,’” his wife as “‘tired and sick,’” and his son—once heir to the royal throne—as so sickly he has turned “‘the color of wax’” (232). The same flaw that defined Nicholas’s reign—his refusal to see what is actually occurring around him—follows him to the final moments of his life. According to Yurovsky, Nicholas and his family believe up to the end that they are being evacuated, “‘not imagin[ing] anything of what was in store for them’” (236). Once Yurovsky reads the decree that Nicholas is to be executed, Nicholas’s last statement is to say, “‘I can’t understand you’” (239) before he is fatally shot. Thus Nicholas’s death brings echoes of his life and his reign, as he constantly refused to “understand” his people’s discontent and the inevitable change sweeping over Russia.
While the tsar and empress die quickly, the Romanov children appear temporarily bulletproof. In an echo of Rasputin’s earlier murder, where he seemed to survive poisoning and gunshots, the young Romanovs also prove difficult to kill; because of the jewels sewn into their clothing, bullets bounce off their chests. While Rasputin’s demise adds to his sinister image, here the children’s brief moment of invulnerability—followed, of course, by their deaths—lends an additional sense of tragedy and poignancy to their murder.
In the final chapter of The Family Romanov, Fleming illustrates the Romanovs’ enduring legacy. While efforts are made throughout the 20th century to recover the royals’ bodies, rumors of the Romanov children’s escape also spread, and some people actually claim to be the Romanovs. The family is even canonized as saints by the Orthodox Church.
In this last chapter, Fleming also explores the fate of the Russian people after their years of struggle for equality, basic rights, and a political voice. In Lenin’s communist Russia, most citizens find their situation hasn’t improved from the days of the tsar: poverty is still so severe the people are like “‘living corpses’” (245), and the government now controls every aspect of Russians’ lives. Even Lenin acknowledges that this government control, rather than “‘withering away’” (246), as originally intended, has only grown stronger. In this culmination of the themes of revolution and unequal distribution of wealth, most Russians find themselves in the same position as before the revolution. The only difference is that now a Soviet government, rather than the nobles, controls Russia’s resources and power.
The Family Romanov ends with the discovery of the final two Romanov children’s bodies in 2007. When the book is published in 2014, these last bodies have not yet been buried; still, Fleming ends with an assertion that “all seven Romanovs will once again be together; as Nicholas called them, ‘a small family circle’” (253). Thus the author ends not with a reminder that Nicholas failed to fulfill his duty to Russia, but rather an affirmation that the tsar was, to the end, loyal and devoted to his family.
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