Death at Ekaterinburg

THE MURDER OF THE ROMANOVS--Paul Bulygin--McBride ($3).

Though all the world knows that the late Tsar Nicholas II of All the Russias and his family were shot to death in a cellar in Ekaterinburg, few U. S. readers have heard the whole story. Though The Murder of the Romanovs embodies two strictly partisan points of view--its co-authors are Alexander Kerensky and Paul Bulygin, a onetime captain of the Imperial Life Guards--even Bolsheviks would probably admit that the main facts of the story are true.* Less because some of the details are gruesome than because the end is inevitably tragic, most readers will want to hear this retelling of old news that is now history.

Author Kerensky's part in this book is to tell, from the point of view of a one-time Provisional Prime Minister of revolutionary Russia, the events following the Tsar's abdication that led to the royal family's removal to Tobolsk and thence to Ekaterinburg. Naturally he defends himself, excuses his powerlessness to save the Romanovs by putting the blame on England. Kerensky says he did everything he could to get the Tsar and his family out of Russia while there was still time, says that England offered them asylum and then, when everything was arranged, withdrew the invitation.

Author Bulygin, no statesman but a soldier, also tried vainly to save the Tsar. After his White leader, General Kornilov, was killed and the decimated army was being reorganized. Bulygin made his way to Moscow in disguise, to organize a rescue for the Tsar. He got to Ekaterinburg, but was recognized as an officer, put in prison and would probably have been shot if he had not escaped. When he rejoined the Whites he was assigned to assist the late N. A. Sokolov, the official investigator of the Tsar's death. The White armies got to Ekaterinburg only nine days after the executions, and two preliminary investigations had already been made before Sokolov was given the job, some six months later. Bulygin gives his superior all credit for the findings, says he is merely popularizing them.

When the Tsar and his family were moved from their quarters at Tobolsk to a more heavily guarded house in Ekaterinburg, says Bulygin. Moscow had already drawn up the plan for their deaths. As "Superintendent of the House of Special Purpose" came one Yurovsky. a "practical expert"; with him he brought ten Cheka gunmen (most of them Hungarian prisoners of war). At midnight. July 16. 1918 Yurovsky woke the Tsar and his household, asked them to come downstairs. Escorting them into a basement room, he told them that because of the approaching White armies it had been decided to move them farther away; the cars would soon be there. Besides the Tsar, the Tsaritsa, the Tsarevich and the four Grand Duchesses, there were a doctor, a valet, a chef and a parlormaid (holding a pillow that contained the Imperial jewels).

Soon the executioners entered. Yurovsky announced the sentence of death, cut short the Tsar's agonized protest with a bullet from his revolver. The Cheka gunmen opened fire. Last to fall was the parlormaid, who shielded herself with the jewel-packed pillow, ran screaming back & forth. She was killed with bayonets. When they examined the bodies they found that the Grand Duchess Anastasia had merely fainted. When she had been shot, the executioners wrapped the bodies in cloth, loaded them on a truck and carried them ten miles to an abandoned mine, where they were dismembered, burnt on gasoline-soaked pyres.

Twenty-four hours later, at Alapayevsk, six more captive Romanovs and two of their faithful followers met an even harder death. Grand Dukes Sergius, Ivan, Constantine and Igor, Grand Duchess Elisabeth, Prince Vladimir Paley, Secretary Romez, Nun Barbara Yakovleva were taken to an abandoned mine and thrown down a shaft. According to Investigator Sokolov, all were still alive after the fall except Sergius. The hand-grenades that were thrown down after them killed Romez; the rest died more lingeringly.

When Sokolov's findings became known, many a White would have given his right hand to lay his other on Yurovsky. the Russian who had killed the Little Father of all Russians. Two of Yurovsky's brothers were later captured by the Whites, but what became of Yurovsky himself Bulygin does not say. Sokolov's published report raised a storm among the Whites, because some of them still hoped the royal family were still alive somewhere, and because some were backing fakes. But Author Bulygin smiles bitterly at the hopes, laughs bitterly at the pretenders.

*But they might not recognize the existence of Ekaterinburg, whose name they changed to Sverdlovsk in honor of Jacob Sverdlov. chair-man of the Central Executive Committee, who arranged the executions.

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