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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Russia's last czar declared victim of repression |
| 2008-10-02 |
| Who? Putin? The last czar and his family were victims of political repression, Russia's Supreme Court ruled Wednesday, formally restoring the Romanov name and furthering a Kremlin effort to encourage patriotism by celebrating the country's czarist past. Nicholas II, his wife and five children were shot to death by a Bolshevik firing squad in 1918, a year after the revolution that led to the creation of the Soviet Union. For years, their descendants have sought rehabilitation in the courts claiming the executions were political repression. The argument was repeatedly denied until Wednesday when the country's highest court issued the final word, siding with the family. According to critics, earlier rulings reflected Vladimir Putin's reluctance to condemn the Soviet government's crimes, in part to justify his own retreat from democracy. But in recent years, Putin and his successor as president, Dmitry Medvedev, have evoked the majesty of the czarist era in Kremlin ceremonies. And they have given a place of prominence to the Russian Orthodox Church, which has canonized Nicholas II and his family. At the same time, Putin, now prime minister, and Medvedev also have continued to glorify the Soviet Union's achievements and celebrate the symbols of its power. Oleg Orlov, a member of the human rights group Memorial, said the aim was to give Russians pride in their country by emphasizing the positive aspects of their history while glossing over the bad. "In Russia, the tendency has been to say ... the czar was a good guy, Lenin was a good guy, Stalin was a good guy, the Bolsheviks weren't that bad," Orlov said. "The authorities are always right," he said. "What they're telling people now is 'we have a great history and therefore we have a great country.'" Wednesday's decision to "rehabilitate" the slain Romanovs won't change the minds of many Russians today. While Russian Orthodox believers share the church's veneration of the family as saints, die-hard communists see them as criminals and millions of other Russians place them somewhere in between. But it is a step in the direction of condemnation of the Bolsheviks who killed the family and, by extension, of the entire Soviet era. And it is likely to put the Romanov family in a more positive light for coming generations of Russians. Nikolai Romanov, a distant relative of the last czar, said the whole rehabilitation process was ridiculous. "It's as if you suddenly thought that it was necessary to rehabilitate St. Peter or St. Paul because the Romans had judged them and sentenced them to death," he said on NTV television. The ruling is also unlikely to have major legal ramifications, at least in the short to medium term, because there is no significant move to restore Russia's monarchy or compensate the imperial family for its losses. There has been no material compensation for others who have been formally rehabilitated, most of them victims of Stalin-era repressionist. Some historians had speculated that the Russian government was reluctant to reclassify the czar's killing out of fear that descendants would claim state property, such as the State Hermitage Museum, as compensation. The museum is housed in what used to be the Winter Palace. Prosecutors, lower courts and even the Supreme Court had rejected all appeals to rehabilitate the family. In its ruling in November, the Supreme Court said they were not eligible for rehabilitation because their execution had been a crime. In reversing that decision Wednesday, the Supreme Court's presidium recognized their "unfounded repression." |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #8 you need to rehab the last czar before you officially declare yourself as the new czar |
| Posted by: Abu do you love 2008-10-02 21:45 |
| #7 The next ice age will do them in. Unless Global Warming makes them the breadbasket of the world. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2008-10-02 19:40 |
| #6 Never count them out though. They have a way of hanging on and holding on through incredible hardships. The next ice age will do them in. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2008-10-02 16:09 |
| #5 Nicholas II was an inbred moron who probably had more to do with the start of World War I than anybody else. For all the people who died because of his stupidity he probably deserved what he got. For decades Russians tried to get the Romanov family to loosen their grip on that country and introduce democratic reforms. If they had followed the example of England and allowed their country to evolve into a constitutional monarchy they could be sitting pretty with the Windsors today and that whole bloody business with the Bolsheviks could have been avoided. Not to mention World War I, World War II, the Cold War, Afghanistan, etc...A "great history"? Russia has an interesting history. They won important victories against the likes of Napoleon and Hitler. But there was a lot of drunken, squalid, stupid, bloody foolishness. Never count them out though. They have a way of hanging on and holding on through incredible hardships. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2008-10-02 12:33 |
| #4 lol |
| Posted by: sinse 2008-10-02 10:53 |
| #3 Gee. Thanks. Does me a lotta good... |
| Posted by: The Ghost of Nicholas II 2008-10-02 09:35 |
| #2 Is this a translation error? Because I'd call the murder of the Romanovs an act of lese majeste. In order to be repressed, you have to be the member of a subject class, not an overthrown ruler. |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2008-10-02 08:40 |
| #1 Help! Help! I'm being repressed!! |
| Posted by: NIck II 2008-10-02 07:34 |