02 October 2023

2023-09-30 The 15th Anniversary of the Rehabilitation of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers by the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation

October 1, 2023, marks 15 years to the day that the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation issued a historic and well-founded legal ruling on the petition of the Head of the Russian Imperial House, H.I.H. The Grand Duchess Maria of Russia, to recognize the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers—Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, Tsesarevich and Grand Duke Aleksei Nikolaevich, and Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia—as victims of political repression and as politically rehabilitated in accordance with Russian statute No. 1761-I: “Concerning the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression.” The ruling brought to a close a three-year effort by the Grand Duchess to obtain justice for her relatives.

View the embedded image gallery online at:
https://imperialhouse.ru/en/allnews-en/news/2023-09-30-the-15th-anniversary-of-the-rehabilitation-of-the-holy-royal-passion-bearers-by-the-presidium-of-the-supreme-court-of-the-russian-federation.html#sigProIdf827007dbb

This ruling was followed by others that rehabilitated other executed members of the Imperial House of Russia, as well as the many faithful servants who shared their grisly fate.

The legal battle for justice and legality in this matter was initiated in 2002 by H.I.H. Grand Duchess Leonida Georgievna (1914-2010). The Imperial House of Russia was represented in this case by the attorney German Yurievich Lukyanov (1961-2022).

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See: A. N. Zakatov, “Pravovye i istoricheskie aspekty reabilitatsii kaznennykh chlenov Rossiiskogo imperatorskogo doma Romanovykh i ikh priblizhennykh (1995-2008 gg.)” [Legal and Historical Aspects of the Rehabilitation of the Executed Members of the Russian Imperial House of Romanoff and Their Servants (1995-2008)], in Istoriko-pravovoi ezhegodnik (2022), ed. D. A. Pashentsev, A. A. Dorskaya, M. V. Zaloilo, et al. (Moscow: Infotropik Media, 2023), 176-85 (ISBN: 978-5-9998-0440-2).

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Materialy sudebnykh protesessov i obshchestvennogo obsuzhdeniia reabilitatsii Sviatykh Tsarstvennykh Strastoterptsev, drugikh kaznennykh chlenov Rossiiskogo Imperatorskogo Doma i ikh vernykh sluzhitelei [Materials from the Legal Cases and Public Discussion of the Rehabilitation of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers and of Other Executed Members of the Imperial House of Russia and their loyal servitors], at http://imperialhouse.ru/rus/extra/vin1.html.

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See also:

A. N. Zakatov and G. Iu. Lukianov, In the Basement of the Ipatiev House

A. N. Zakatov and G. Iu. Lukianov, V podvale Ipatievskogo doma. Reabilitatsiia sviatykh tsarstvennykh strastoterptsev i zashchita prav i zakonnykh interesov Rossiiskogo imperatorskogo doma v 1995-2008 gg. Dokumenty i materialy [In the Basement of the Ipatiev House. The Rehabilitation of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers and the Defense of the Rights and Legal Interests of the Russian Imperial House, 1995-2008] (Moscow, 2009).

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“It is necessary to examine all aspects—moral, legal, and political—of the Ekaterinburg crimes. This is necessary not only to establish the historical truth, but also so that the governmental authorities may condemn formally and legally the crime that was committed, and thereby restore the rule of law to our nation.” (From the Epistle of Patriarch Aleksei II of Moscow and All Russia and the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church on the Occasion of the 75^th Anniversary of the murders of Emperor Nicholas II and his family, July 17, 1993.)

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“Of course, in such a complex process, all the legal formalities must be carefully observed, which will probably take time. But the process of rehabilitation must be completed as soon as possible. It is not clear what fundamental obstacles there might be to achieving it. Are there really people in our country who still believe that Emperor Nicholas II and his Family were actually criminals worthy of death?” (From an interview with His Holiness Patriarch Aleksei II of Moscow and All Russia in the newspaper “The News” [Gazeta], April 25, 2003.)

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“The rehabilitation of the Imperial Family will signify the triumph of law, justice and legality. It is important, first and foremost, for the modern Russian state. Until such time that the Royal Martyrs are rehabilitated, the state will be accepting the lawfulness of their execution and therefore must accept responsibility for it. Rehabilitation will help expand Russia’s moral authority throughout the world and will become a clear sign that a dark chapter in our history filled with arbitrariness, lawlessness and terror has truly come to a close.” (Interview with the Head of the Russian Imperial House, H.I.H. The Grand Duchess Maria of Russia, in the journal “Itogi” [Outcomes], December 2005.)

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“All historical and legal documents have demonstrated that the totalitarian state and its atheistic regime were directly responsible for the detention and then the execution—the execution of the Imperial Family. To ignore these facts will only mean that the state’s illegal actions in relation to the Imperial Family are ongoing. We are still in the basement of the Ipatiev House, where laws do not apply.” (From the speech of G. Iu. Lukianov at the Tver District Court in Moscow, May 24, 2006.)

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Foreword by the Academician of the Russian Academy of Science and participant on the Victory Parade on Red Square in 1945, Evgenii Petrovich Chelyshev (1921-2020) to the book by A. N. Zakatov and G. Iu. Lukianov, V podvale Ipatievskogo doma. Reabilitatsiia sviatykh tsarstvennykh strastoterptsev i zashchita prav i zakonnykh interesov Rossiiskogo imperatorskogo doma v 1995-2008 gg. Dokumenty i materialy [In the Basement of the Ipatiev House. The Rehabilitation of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers and the Defense of the Rights and Legal Interests of the Russian Imperial House, 1995-2008] (Moscow, 2009), pp. 7-8:

“The book In the Basement of the Ipatiev House. The Rehabilitation of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers and the Defense of the Rights and Legal Interests of the Russian Imperial House, 1995-2008 seeks to restore historical justice.

“The tragedy that took place on July 17, 1918, in Ekaterinburg left no one indifferent. Some mourned and were horrified, some celebrated, some condemned the cruelty of the Bolsheviks but conceded that, in the conditions of that moment, the regicide was a foregone conclusion... A similar range of opinions has existed right up to today. But throughout the entire Soviet period of our history, no one doubted that the Imperial Family was executed for political reasons by the state authorities of Soviet Russia and that this happened with the approval of the highest levels of the country’s leadership.

“The wave of rehabilitations of the victims of political repression that began in the 1950s could not include members of the Romanoff Dynasty, not, at least, until much later. They rehabilitated many of the murdered representatives of the ‘old regime.’ They rehabilitated revolutionaries who fell into the millstones of the system they created. They even rehabilitated some of the planners of the execution in Ekaterinburg. But the Imperial Family, for obvious political reasons, was outside of this process. And it has only been recently, after many years of studying the issue from a legal and historical point of view, that the Head of the Russian Imperial House of Romanoff, Grand Duchess Maria of Russia, petitioned the Prosecutor-General’s Office to rehabilitate her relatives. Its decision to refuse to rehabilitate the Imperial Family gave rise to a new surge of interest in the fate of the last Emperor and his family, in reappraising the history of our country in the twentieth century, and in assessing the place of the House of Romanoff in modern Russia.

“The idea of rehabilitation had both opponents and supporters. Moreover, attitudes toward this question, especially as new evidence comes to light, does not always align with reductionist political orientations. Unfortunately, many who participate in this discussion speak out without having at their disposal many of the most important sources of information, without which the question cannot be considered systematically and comprehensively. The book ‘In the Basement of the Ipatiev House’ is intended to fill this gap inasmuch as it is a collection of laws, historical documents, materials from the legal case on the rehabilitation of the Imperial Family, and articles published in the Russian press.

“The compilers of the collection have, in my opinion, adopted the right approach when they decided to present to the reader’s attention not their own interpretation, but only the main primary sources. Though they certainly have their own interpretation of the sources, which they do not at all try overly to conceal, they nevertheless present the arguments on the opposite side without distortion; and as a result, they do not deprive anyone, including their opponents, of the opportunity to come to an independent conclusion to the topic at hand.

“Some arguments and quotations in the book are repeated more than once. This shortcoming is obviously dictated not so much by the desire of the compilers to draw the reader’s special attention to the evidence that is most important for substantiating their own position, but by the nature of the publication itself. It was impossible to avoid repetitions without violating the internal logic of each individual document.

“To be sure, the book contains some highly polemical texts. The title of one of the sections even uses the word ‘battle.’ But on careful and thoughtful reading of the whole book, it becomes clear that the emotionality of some supporters of the rehabilitation of the Imperial Family is essentially constructive. These supporters are motivated by a desire to get to the Truth in the highest sense of the word, and they fight not ‘against’ something, but ‘for’ it.

“The title chosen for the book, ‘In the basement of the Ipatiev House,’ at first glance may seem somewhat paradoxical and not directly related to the content. However, it has a deeper meaning than may seem at first glance. We remember the catchphrase that a war is not over until the last soldier who fell in it is buried. Similarly, we might say that the Terror is not over until justice is restored to its last victim. Until the Ekaterinburg crime is condemned by the law, the specter of the blood-stained basement of the house of the engineer named Ipatiev will remain a silent reproach to his countrymen.

“I believe that the final decision of our government in this matter will in the end be absolutely legal and just. The analysis of the arguments presented in this book by supporters and opponents of the rehabilitation of the Royal Family should play a key role in making it so.”