In pictures: The Romanovs in colour
The deaths of the Romanovs – Russia’s last royal family – at the hands of Bolshevik guards in July 1918 brought an end to a dynasty that had ruled Russia for more than 300 years. A century on, a project to commemorate the family’s execution has collected together thousands of Romanov family photographs…
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Below, a number of family portraits from the Romanov100 project are shown, having been ‘coloured in’ by the youngest Romanov daughter, Anastasia…
The Russian Revolution of 1917, which brought the Bolsheviks to power and created the world’s first Marxist state, forced the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, and by July 1918 the family was imprisoned in a house in the city of Ekaterinburg. In the early hours of 17 July 1918, the family — Tsar Nicholas II, his empress and their five children — and their staff were marched down into a cellar by their Bolshevik guards, and shot and bayonetted to death.
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Anastasia, the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, has long been mythologised. Persistent rumours of her escape from the massacre circulated for many years after her death (fuelled by individuals including Anna Anderson, who in the 1920s became famous for her claim to be the tsar’s youngest daughter), though have since been disproven. The photographs below, taken from the private collections of the Romanov family and resurfaced by the Romanov100 project, show the young Anastasia’s enjoyment in painting over black and white photographs with watercolours.
Ahead of the 100th anniversary, History Extra spoke to Helen Rappaport, author of The Race to Save the Romanovs: The Truth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia’s Imperial Family, and contributor to the Romanov100 project. “For many years after their death, particularly during the Soviet Union, those in power attempted to systematically destroy any remnants of imperialism. Yet remembrance of the event lives on with a growing public interest,” she explained. “The #Romanovs100 Twitter project has honoured the family in an extraordinary way, opening up the personal photographic archives of the Romanovs and depicting the final years of their extraordinary lives through social media. This project has permitted this period of history to be accessible and exciting, while venerating such a tremendous loss.”
View more photos and find out more about the project, a collaboration between the Russian State Archive (GARF) and RT, at Romanovs100.com
Authors
Elinor Evans is the acting digital editor of HistoryExtra.com. She commissions and writes history articles for the website, and regularly interviews historians for the award-winning HistoryExtra podcast
