(.) (..)©1999 Museum of Romanov, Perm. All Rights Reserved
Interview with Prince A.K.Golitsyn
Given specially for the website of Russian Assembly of Nobility,
a short while before the final session of the State Commission
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Question: This year sees the 130 anniversary of the birth of Nicholas II and 80 years
since his tragic death. What do these two dates connected with the life and death of the
Russian Sovereign mean to the Russian Assembly of the Nobility?
The two dates this year remind us of the senseless fate of our Majesty. In 1918 the
criminal deeds of the bolsheviks not only cut short the personal life of Nikolai
Aleksandrovich Romanov but also started the ruin of the whole of Russia. The evil murder
of the Tsar family opened the door to the consequent terror, which to start with was even
consciously advertised ( it is enough to be reminded of the publication of the execution
lists during the first years of Soviet leadership as a general deterrent not only .
Question: What is the current situation within the Commission?
From the very beginning, the Commission has concentrated its attention solely on the
medical- biological side of the affair. The commission of experts for genetics had already
reached a conclusion which gave positive results: it was established that part of the
remains belong to one family, related by a row of most important genetical features to
Queen Victoria. However, the question has also arisen in the commission about the carrying
out of a second expert opinion.
Question: To what extent has the authenticity of the remains been established? Is there
still any room for doubt?
Up until now the Commission has not seen any documents, which have revealed the substance
and methods of the carrying out of the panel of experts, nor even clearly established all
the fragments involved in the investigation, not even the very smallest fragments of the
identified remains. This cannot lead one to any decisive thoughts.
Secondly, the combined panel of experts, which should unite the graphological, historical
and criminalist investigations in order to get the fullest most complete and objective
picture of the crime of the century, has not followed each other at all.
Besides this, the early investigative documents have never been presented to the
Commission, not even Yurovskii's notorious notes.
In 1993 in an official appeal to the Commission I asked a question concerning the special
investigation into the authenticity of the documents about this matter, as collected by
the Bolsheviks and also about the additional examination of the facts as put forward so
differently by both the participants of the barbaric execution of the Tsar family and of
the posthumous outrage about its remains in 1918 and by the first two to open the
Ekatarinburg grave in 1978. Besides this, the documented evidence by Ryabov and Advonin
about the opening of the grave with the remains of the Tsar family as the history of the
search and excavation is orally narrated by both of them with substantial differences
about details concerning the time, place and technique.
In other words, there is a whole chain of events needed for the clarification. However,
for the time being there are still a great number of silent figures.
Question: If the Commission admits that the remains found in Yekatarinburg really do
belong to the family of the Emperor Nicholas II, when and where will the funeral take
place?
There is no doubt about it in our minds. Every Romanov from PeterI has found eternal rest
in the Peter Paul Cathedral in Saint Petersburg. It wasn't chance that Nicholas II spent
time during his life on the building for members of the House of Romanov, the so-called
Crypt of the Grand Dukes. Therefore it is both logical and natural that the Tsar, who was
forcibly taken to Yekatarinburg and executed there after all his toil should finally be
lain to eternal rest in the place he had planned for himself and his family.
If these remains prove to be those of the Tsar, then after the canonization of the Tsar
family in the Pomestom Cathedral in the year 2000 particles of the holy relics can then be
distributed to both the Moscow and Ekatarinburg Cathedrals. The Church is already prepared
for this. For two years, the ecclesiastical way of the Tsar has been carefully studied and
it is now acknowledged that he is worthy to be counted amongst the images of the saints.
Rank and canon are already prepared.
Question: Over the last few months opinion has grown as to the need to spread the ashes of
Lenin to the earth- otherwise as one often talks about now, Russia will never find the
desired peace and welfare. What is your opinion of this?
It is of course blasphemous that the whole institute has worked for so many years with
this mummy, which has not deserved the attention or space. However, removing Lenin from
the mausoleum is not the most important matter. Even the removal of Stalin did not evoke
any counteraction in its time, inasmuch as the “hero” had already fallen from favour.
Because of this, it is important to point out from the historical and moral position, that
it is none other than a criminal resting there on the Red Square, a person for whom there
is no room.
An international tribunal should really conduct the proceedings, on documented grounds,
with the expert opinion of historians, lawyers, witnesses and descendants of those who
suffered. Such an initiative of the Russian assembly of Nobility is opportunely going to
be introduced in 1998, the eightieth year since the murder of the Tsar family, which was
to be the start of the massive red terror and refined genocide in Soviet Russia under the
leadership of Lenin.
In such a situation, the question of the body stops being the subject of a political fight
between adversaries and worshipers of this figure.
The Assembly of Nobility with its position and program could act as initiator of similar
proceedings together with other similar organizations, the church, the Intelligentsia.
This could turn out to be an essential contribution to the reform of the Russian society,
freeing it from the dogma and delusions of the soviet period.