Czar Nicholas II remains identification
The identification of the remains of Czar Nicholas II and his family is a significant historical event tied to the tragic end of the Romanov dynasty following the 1917 Russian Revolution. In July 1991, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, nine bodies believed to be those of the czar, his wife Alexandra, their five children, and their retainers were discovered near Yekaterinburg, where they had been executed by Bolshevik forces in 1918. The identification process involved advanced forensic techniques, including DNA analysis conducted by researchers in England and the United States, which confirmed the familial relationship among several of the remains.
The results of the forensic investigation provided a high probability—over 98%—that the remains belonged to the Romanov family, resolving long-standing mysteries and conspiracy theories surrounding their fate. In 2007, the discovery of additional remains believed to belong to the two missing children, Crown Prince Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria, was announced, and subsequent DNA testing in 2018 confirmed their identities. This identification process not only holds substantial emotional significance for many Russians but also represents a poignant chapter in the broader narrative of Russia’s tumultuous history.
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Czar Nicholas II remains identification
DATE: Began in July, 1991
THE EVENT: After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the remains of nine bodies reported to be those of Czar Nicholas II, members of his family, and retainers were found north of the city of Yekaterinburg, Russia. The family and others had been executed in 1918 by Bolshevik revolutionaries. The Russians gave the bodies a state funeral, but they also took samples from the bodies, which they sent to researchers at the Forensic Science Service laboratory in England and Carnegie Mellon University in the United States for positive identification. Peter Gill of the Forensic Science Service was the lead researcher on the project.
SIGNIFICANCE: The positive identification of the body of the last Romanov ruler of Russia had substantial political and emotional meaning for Russian history. There had long been some mystery about the location of the body, and claims that some members of the royal family had escaped death had circulated during the course of the twentieth century. Forensic science was able to establish with certainty that the remains were those of the imperial family.
At the beginning of the Russian Revolution in early 1917, Czar Nicholas II of the Romanov dynasty was forced to abdicate his throne. Nicholas, his wife, Alexandra, and their children (four daughters and a son) were held under guard. After the Bolsheviks seized control of the government at the end of the year, civil war broke out in Russia, and the Bolsheviks moved their royal captives to the distant town of Yekaterinburg.
Vladimir Ilich Lenin, the new head of the Russian government, and other revolutionary leaders were afraid that the royal family would become a rallying point for the White Russian armies fighting against the Bolsheviks. On the morning of July 17, 1918, a group of Bolshevik soldiers herded the royal family as well as the family’s physician and three servants into a basement and shot and killed them all.
In 1991, when the Russian government first unearthed the bodies thought to belong to Nicholas II and his family members, investigators attempted to establish their identities by generating computer images of the reconstructed skulls and then superimposing these images on photographs of the imperial family. Although the results, as well as the location of the remains, made it seem likely that the last czar had been found, this technique could not establish identification with a high degree of confidence. In addition, only nine bodies were found in the grave; the bodies of two of those executed had not yet been located.
The English and American researchers to whom the Russians sent samples from the bodies used both nuclear (deoxyribonucleic acid) and mitochondrial DNA in their investigations. They began by extracting DNA from the nuclei of cells in bones. Using genetic fingerprinting, they were able to determine the sexes of the persons represented by the remains and to establish that five of the skeletons were from members of the same family.
For more positive identification, they then turned to mitochondrial DNA, which is transmitted only through mothers with almost no change over the course of generations. In particular, the D-loop portion of mitochondrial DNA tends to mutate little over the course of thousands of years. Members of European royal families who shared the maternal ancestry of Nicholas II donated blood samples, and the analysis established a probability of more than 98 percent that the last czar and his family had been located.
In 2007, Russian archaeologists announced that they believed they had found the remains of the two missing children of the imperial family, the Crown Prince Alexei and the Grand Duchess Maria, near the site where Nicholas, Alexandra, and the other three daughters were found. In early 2008, Russian forensic scientists who had performed analyses using teeth, bones, and other fragments from the remains noted that preliminary tests indicated a high degree of probability that the bodies were those of the Romanov children. Scientists in 2018 announced that additional DNA testing confirmed with certainty that the remains were those of Alexei and Maria.
Bibliography
Hubbard, Lauren. "Where Are the Romanovs Buried?" Town & Country, 19 Nov. 2022, www.townandcountrymag.com/society/tradition/a41780089/romanov-family-buried-true-story/. Accessed 19 Aug. 2024.
King, Greg, and Penny Wilson. The Fate of the Romanovs. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2003.
Klier, John, and Helen Mingay. Quest for Anastasia: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Romanovs. Secaucus, N.J.: Carol, 1997.
Lucchesi, Emilie Le Beau. "How Scientists Identified the Remains of the Romanovs." Discover, 15 Apr. 2022, www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/how-scientists-identified-the-remains-of-the-romanovs. Accessed 19 Aug. 2024.
Warth, Robert D. Nicholas II: The Life and Reign of Russia’s Last Monarch. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1997.