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A good deal of the article relies on Helen Rappaport's accounts, especially the book The Last Days of the Romanovs: Tragedy at Ekaterinburg. However, I must question her trustworthiness in the matter of the Romanov family.
First, the article is peppered with notes pointing to the exact pages of The Last Days... where each development is written. While such numerous noting would usually be laudable, they mean little in this case, as the book itself doesn't have notes at all, having only an alphabetically sorted bibliography at the end. This makes it virtually impossible to know which source(s) made which claim(s), and thus each individual development immediately has a shadow of doubt cst upon it. Further, the high number of notes in the article in the face of the complete lack of notes in the book does raise a suspicion of attempting to lend credence to Rappaport to divert from the severaly flawed historiography of her book.
Second, since virtually every claim made in The Last Days... can't be individually sourced and checked and thus are less-than-solid, we can't help but trust the claims that are echoed by the field of history at large. Meaning, claims made by Rappaport and uncorroborated by others are the flimsiest of all, and among them is her accusation that Lenin et al had foreknowledge of the Romanovs' execution, one has been levied time and again the past century. Thanks to her inexistant notation, we can't verify that event's sources either, whereas just a year after her book's publication, The Daily Telegraph reported categorically that there was " No proof Lenin ordered last Tsar's murder" according to a long-running criminal probe by the Russian government itself. Worthy of note is that the chief investigator himself suspected of Lenin's guilt, but conceded there was no evidence to that effect (this article is present in the Wiki article, but its note seems rather drowned by the numerous ones dedicated to Rappaport).
Third, I'm afraid Rappaport herself has displayed bias both against Vladimir Lenin and in favor of aristocracy in general. Most of her literary output narrates the lives of European royalty, with no small amount of relish and admiration. But probably most damning of all is a claim made in her book Conspirator: Lenin in Exile, echoing a rumor as long-lived as it is unproven, that Lenin died because of syphillis as opposed a stroke. I need hardly point out how carrying this disease casts clear aspersions on his character, and as polarizing as his figure is, it's all the more likely that the claim is made out of malice. Besides going against all authoritative historians and biographers (his personal life reveals an extremely prudish man), this conclusion itself lacks direct evidence, and in fact has very strong evidence against it. It has long been known that, during Lenin's autopsy, the various people in attendance testified to his brain arteries having calcified to the point tapping them with tweezers produced a sound akin to tapping stone. In a relatively recent study, physicians put forth the theory that his several strokes were caused by early and advanced atherosclerosis caused by a very specific genetic mutation, which could also neatly explain the sudden death of his father, of similar causes, at almost the same age.
So then, to sum up, I say that Rappaport's book The Last Days... is far too compromised to be a source on the events surrounding the Russian Revolution, and that the parts of the article that crib from it are stricken. 187.114.76.193 ( talk) 21:39, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
There are a lot of mistakes.
A full citation should be given the first time it is used in the 'References' section, not just "Rappaport." Two separate preferences are cited in the 'Further reading' section. Embram ( talk) 16:29, 26 July 2019 (UTC)
OMG... {facepalm} — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.87.139.174 ( talk) 18:00, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 12:22, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
The Lead is supposed to be a summary, not a detailed account of the article. Needs to be severely edited, as the article should also be. Parkwells ( talk) 20:46, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
"Execution"
The carrying out of a sentence of death on a condemned person. The killing of someone as a political act.
This was a murder and a massacre, not an execution. Russia was in a civil war for ten years (1917-1922) and was ruled by the Russian Republic during which the family was murdered by their captors the Reds (Bolsheviks) who where fighting both the Greens (Rival Socialists) and the whites (loosely allied forces). The entire family (children included) and their retainers where killed. There was also no 'official state' version of the 'execution' by the USSR as they didn't exist at the time (1922–1991) and when they came to power had denied it happened at first, the Russian Republic was in power and as such had no right to 'officially' execute anyone by law at the time ( execution was officially outlawed on March 12, 1917 by the Russian Republic after the abdication of the Emperor Nicholas II)).
I Request help with the change of the title of this article appropriately and the review of content under the fact that the USSR where not in power at the time of the Romanov family Massacre. Reformation Society ( talk) 16:31, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
Proposal for discussion: change article name to Assassination of the Romanov family. -- SergeWoodzing ( talk) 12:05, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
100% agree, this was an extrajudicial or however they call it murder. There was no tribunal, no legal status to this, and execution is definitely not the right term to describe murder of literal children. I think it should be changed immediately. /info/en/?search=User:EmilePersaud 04:09, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
Proposal for discussion: change article name to Death of the Romanov family. This is the neutral position an encyclopedia should take. Article can state the facts and prominent opinion but it does seek to imply the legal status (murder/execution) of the deaths. Precedent on a similar historic event is the Death of Mussolini: /info/en/?search=Death_of_Benito_Mussolini /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Naming Shniken ( talk) 06:14, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
I don't understand reference number 9: "Pringle, p. 261.". I am not sure who the author is, not even talking about what book. All I could find remotely fitting was "The Murder of Nikolai Vavilov" by Peter Pringle. Is that the one? Would hate to buy this book just to find out it's the wrong one. Could someone who knows wikipedia better than I do improve the reference, actually naming the author and the book? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.79.46.134 ( talk) 00:31, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
This was not an execution, this was murder. Pyromilke ( talk) 12:50, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Did a Soviet guard or soldier sexually fondle Tsarina Alexandra's corpse after her death, according to at least two or three websites I've stumbled upon? Yourlocallordandsavior ( talk) 06:43, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Not moved. As pointed out below, WP:DEATHS doesn't apply because it has a common-sense common-name exemption, which applies in this case; some of the options suggested by the WP:DEATHS flowchart are clearly deficient due to how inappropriately euphemistic they are for a case of what was, after all, an extrajudicial execution. There is a case to be made for "Murder of…", but there isn't a consensus in this discussion yet. Sceptre ( talk) 19:14, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
Execution of the Romanov family → Death of the Romanov family – This nomination carries with it some of the experience gained from recent successful nominations Death of Osama bin Laden → Killing of Osama bin Laden at Talk:Killing of Osama bin Laden/Archive 5#Requested move 6 September 2020 and Death of Muammar Gaddafi → Killing of Muammar Gaddafi at Talk:Killing of Muammar Gaddafi#Requested move 18 September 2021 as well as the unsuccessful Death of Benito Mussolini → Killing of Benito Mussolini at Talk:Death of Benito Mussolini#Requested move 18 September 2021. The nominated header "Execution of..." is obviously unsatisfactory to a number of users, as evidenced by previous discussions on this talk page. There is clearly a difference between what happened at Trial of Saddam Hussein / Execution of Saddam Hussein and what happened to bin Laden, Gaddafi, Mussolini and the Romanov family. Based upon the discussion at Talk:Death of Benito Mussolini#Requested move 18 September 2021, Death of the Romanov family may have a greater probability of replacing the disliked Execution of the Romanov family than such other options as Assassination of the Romanov family, Killing of the Romanov family or Murder of the Romanov family. Having stated that, it should be noted that if consensus can be obtained for any among the latter three options, I would support each one. — Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 06:19, 6 January 2022 (UTC)— Relisting. -- Aervanath ( talk) 20:37, 14 January 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. Steel1943 ( talk) 17:50, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Moved to Murder of the Romanov family. ( closed by non-admin page mover) — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mello hi! ( 投稿) 01:17, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
Execution of the Romanov family → Killing of the Romanov family – The arguments were already presented a year ago in the related Execution of the Romanov family → Death of the Romanov family, above at Talk:Execution of the Romanov family#Requested move 6 January 2022. English Wikipedia main title headers "Execution of..." imply some form of judicial proceeding such as in the separate article headers Trial of Saddam Hussein and Execution of Saddam Hussein. There is likewise a good reason why English Wikipedia articles delineating the following events do not use headers " Execution of Osama bin Laden" (redirects to Killing of Osama bin Laden), " Execution of Benito Mussolini" (redirects to Death of Benito Mussolini) or " Execution of Muammar Gaddafi" (this potential redirect is currently a redlink, but it would be expected to flow to Killing of Muammar Gaddafi). — Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 22:46, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
One would normally use assassination rather than murder when it comes to people of this stature. Am I wrong? SergeWoodzing ( talk) 22:12, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
"A summary execution is an execution in which a person is accused of a crime and immediately killed without the benefit of a full and fair trial."- so even a summary execution is presumptively preceded by the accusation of a crime, of which, here, there is no evidence. Iskandar323 ( talk) 04:00, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
The paragraph starting "The reason for the lack of jewels in Maria's underwear" in the disposal section is completely nonsensical/unintelligible and seems to contain broken/non-matched quotation marks. 130.246.57.110 ( talk) 12:25, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Murder of the Romanov family article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1 |
A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on July 17, 2010, July 17, 2014, July 17, 2023, and July 17, 2024. |
This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to multiple WikiProjects. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This article has previously been nominated to be moved. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination.
Discussions:
|
Daily pageviews of this article
A graph should have been displayed here but
graphs are temporarily disabled. Until they are enabled again, visit the interactive graph at
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A good deal of the article relies on Helen Rappaport's accounts, especially the book The Last Days of the Romanovs: Tragedy at Ekaterinburg. However, I must question her trustworthiness in the matter of the Romanov family.
First, the article is peppered with notes pointing to the exact pages of The Last Days... where each development is written. While such numerous noting would usually be laudable, they mean little in this case, as the book itself doesn't have notes at all, having only an alphabetically sorted bibliography at the end. This makes it virtually impossible to know which source(s) made which claim(s), and thus each individual development immediately has a shadow of doubt cst upon it. Further, the high number of notes in the article in the face of the complete lack of notes in the book does raise a suspicion of attempting to lend credence to Rappaport to divert from the severaly flawed historiography of her book.
Second, since virtually every claim made in The Last Days... can't be individually sourced and checked and thus are less-than-solid, we can't help but trust the claims that are echoed by the field of history at large. Meaning, claims made by Rappaport and uncorroborated by others are the flimsiest of all, and among them is her accusation that Lenin et al had foreknowledge of the Romanovs' execution, one has been levied time and again the past century. Thanks to her inexistant notation, we can't verify that event's sources either, whereas just a year after her book's publication, The Daily Telegraph reported categorically that there was " No proof Lenin ordered last Tsar's murder" according to a long-running criminal probe by the Russian government itself. Worthy of note is that the chief investigator himself suspected of Lenin's guilt, but conceded there was no evidence to that effect (this article is present in the Wiki article, but its note seems rather drowned by the numerous ones dedicated to Rappaport).
Third, I'm afraid Rappaport herself has displayed bias both against Vladimir Lenin and in favor of aristocracy in general. Most of her literary output narrates the lives of European royalty, with no small amount of relish and admiration. But probably most damning of all is a claim made in her book Conspirator: Lenin in Exile, echoing a rumor as long-lived as it is unproven, that Lenin died because of syphillis as opposed a stroke. I need hardly point out how carrying this disease casts clear aspersions on his character, and as polarizing as his figure is, it's all the more likely that the claim is made out of malice. Besides going against all authoritative historians and biographers (his personal life reveals an extremely prudish man), this conclusion itself lacks direct evidence, and in fact has very strong evidence against it. It has long been known that, during Lenin's autopsy, the various people in attendance testified to his brain arteries having calcified to the point tapping them with tweezers produced a sound akin to tapping stone. In a relatively recent study, physicians put forth the theory that his several strokes were caused by early and advanced atherosclerosis caused by a very specific genetic mutation, which could also neatly explain the sudden death of his father, of similar causes, at almost the same age.
So then, to sum up, I say that Rappaport's book The Last Days... is far too compromised to be a source on the events surrounding the Russian Revolution, and that the parts of the article that crib from it are stricken. 187.114.76.193 ( talk) 21:39, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
There are a lot of mistakes.
A full citation should be given the first time it is used in the 'References' section, not just "Rappaport." Two separate preferences are cited in the 'Further reading' section. Embram ( talk) 16:29, 26 July 2019 (UTC)
OMG... {facepalm} — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.87.139.174 ( talk) 18:00, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 12:22, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
The Lead is supposed to be a summary, not a detailed account of the article. Needs to be severely edited, as the article should also be. Parkwells ( talk) 20:46, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
"Execution"
The carrying out of a sentence of death on a condemned person. The killing of someone as a political act.
This was a murder and a massacre, not an execution. Russia was in a civil war for ten years (1917-1922) and was ruled by the Russian Republic during which the family was murdered by their captors the Reds (Bolsheviks) who where fighting both the Greens (Rival Socialists) and the whites (loosely allied forces). The entire family (children included) and their retainers where killed. There was also no 'official state' version of the 'execution' by the USSR as they didn't exist at the time (1922–1991) and when they came to power had denied it happened at first, the Russian Republic was in power and as such had no right to 'officially' execute anyone by law at the time ( execution was officially outlawed on March 12, 1917 by the Russian Republic after the abdication of the Emperor Nicholas II)).
I Request help with the change of the title of this article appropriately and the review of content under the fact that the USSR where not in power at the time of the Romanov family Massacre. Reformation Society ( talk) 16:31, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
Proposal for discussion: change article name to Assassination of the Romanov family. -- SergeWoodzing ( talk) 12:05, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
100% agree, this was an extrajudicial or however they call it murder. There was no tribunal, no legal status to this, and execution is definitely not the right term to describe murder of literal children. I think it should be changed immediately. /info/en/?search=User:EmilePersaud 04:09, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
Proposal for discussion: change article name to Death of the Romanov family. This is the neutral position an encyclopedia should take. Article can state the facts and prominent opinion but it does seek to imply the legal status (murder/execution) of the deaths. Precedent on a similar historic event is the Death of Mussolini: /info/en/?search=Death_of_Benito_Mussolini /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Naming Shniken ( talk) 06:14, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
I don't understand reference number 9: "Pringle, p. 261.". I am not sure who the author is, not even talking about what book. All I could find remotely fitting was "The Murder of Nikolai Vavilov" by Peter Pringle. Is that the one? Would hate to buy this book just to find out it's the wrong one. Could someone who knows wikipedia better than I do improve the reference, actually naming the author and the book? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.79.46.134 ( talk) 00:31, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
This was not an execution, this was murder. Pyromilke ( talk) 12:50, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Did a Soviet guard or soldier sexually fondle Tsarina Alexandra's corpse after her death, according to at least two or three websites I've stumbled upon? Yourlocallordandsavior ( talk) 06:43, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Not moved. As pointed out below, WP:DEATHS doesn't apply because it has a common-sense common-name exemption, which applies in this case; some of the options suggested by the WP:DEATHS flowchart are clearly deficient due to how inappropriately euphemistic they are for a case of what was, after all, an extrajudicial execution. There is a case to be made for "Murder of…", but there isn't a consensus in this discussion yet. Sceptre ( talk) 19:14, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
Execution of the Romanov family → Death of the Romanov family – This nomination carries with it some of the experience gained from recent successful nominations Death of Osama bin Laden → Killing of Osama bin Laden at Talk:Killing of Osama bin Laden/Archive 5#Requested move 6 September 2020 and Death of Muammar Gaddafi → Killing of Muammar Gaddafi at Talk:Killing of Muammar Gaddafi#Requested move 18 September 2021 as well as the unsuccessful Death of Benito Mussolini → Killing of Benito Mussolini at Talk:Death of Benito Mussolini#Requested move 18 September 2021. The nominated header "Execution of..." is obviously unsatisfactory to a number of users, as evidenced by previous discussions on this talk page. There is clearly a difference between what happened at Trial of Saddam Hussein / Execution of Saddam Hussein and what happened to bin Laden, Gaddafi, Mussolini and the Romanov family. Based upon the discussion at Talk:Death of Benito Mussolini#Requested move 18 September 2021, Death of the Romanov family may have a greater probability of replacing the disliked Execution of the Romanov family than such other options as Assassination of the Romanov family, Killing of the Romanov family or Murder of the Romanov family. Having stated that, it should be noted that if consensus can be obtained for any among the latter three options, I would support each one. — Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 06:19, 6 January 2022 (UTC)— Relisting. -- Aervanath ( talk) 20:37, 14 January 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. Steel1943 ( talk) 17:50, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Moved to Murder of the Romanov family. ( closed by non-admin page mover) — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mello hi! ( 投稿) 01:17, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
Execution of the Romanov family → Killing of the Romanov family – The arguments were already presented a year ago in the related Execution of the Romanov family → Death of the Romanov family, above at Talk:Execution of the Romanov family#Requested move 6 January 2022. English Wikipedia main title headers "Execution of..." imply some form of judicial proceeding such as in the separate article headers Trial of Saddam Hussein and Execution of Saddam Hussein. There is likewise a good reason why English Wikipedia articles delineating the following events do not use headers " Execution of Osama bin Laden" (redirects to Killing of Osama bin Laden), " Execution of Benito Mussolini" (redirects to Death of Benito Mussolini) or " Execution of Muammar Gaddafi" (this potential redirect is currently a redlink, but it would be expected to flow to Killing of Muammar Gaddafi). — Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 22:46, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
One would normally use assassination rather than murder when it comes to people of this stature. Am I wrong? SergeWoodzing ( talk) 22:12, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
"A summary execution is an execution in which a person is accused of a crime and immediately killed without the benefit of a full and fair trial."- so even a summary execution is presumptively preceded by the accusation of a crime, of which, here, there is no evidence. Iskandar323 ( talk) 04:00, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
The paragraph starting "The reason for the lack of jewels in Maria's underwear" in the disposal section is completely nonsensical/unintelligible and seems to contain broken/non-matched quotation marks. 130.246.57.110 ( talk) 12:25, 17 July 2023 (UTC)