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| Skeleton №3 (Romanova Olga) |
I love Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia (OTMA). I often prefer only the good times seen in their private photographs and archive footage. But there's no ignoring the fact that these beautiful girls were murder victims. Whenever I read about the murders, I cannot help but think of Mary Jane Kelly, one of the victims of Jack the Ripper 129 years ago. The grisly photograph of her badly mutilated corpse is probably what OTMA looked like when the Bolsheviks mutilated them prior to disposing their bodies.
I sometimes imagine myself travelling in time to witness the disposal of the Romanov family and their servants, retrieving their bodies as soon as the monsters were done with their dirty work so they can be given a proper burial somewhere safe and far away from Russia (assuming rescue was not possible). But considering the mutilations, I never would've recognized OTMA even if I saw them. For instance, the bastard Yakov Yurovsky wanted to dispose of Alexandra and her son Alexei in a seperate grave, but claimed in his memoirs that he mistook Anna Demidova's body for the empress. In fact, the body was Maria's.
I compare the Romanov murders with the Ripper victim for the following reasons:
2) Their bodies were deliberately mutilated. I won't go into the gory details, only that the Ripper used a blade to mutilate his victims. For the Romanovs, the Bolsheviks used sulphuric acid, rifle butts and spades. Fire was also used to burn the bodies of Maria and Alexei, leaving only a few partial bone fragments for amateur archaeologists to find in 2007.
While the Ripper did it for sadistic pleasure, the Bolsheviks did it to disfigure the Romanovs beyond recognition. One could argue that since the Bolsheviks despised the imperial family, they were likely to have derived satisfaction from mutilating them. Their bodies were also "completely naked", as was Mary Jane Kelly. The Bolsheviks stripped the Romanovs to loot their belongings, burning their clothes in a bonfire, whereas Mary Jane Kelly's clothes were left folded on a chair.
Only photos of the Romanovs' skeletal remains after their exhumation in 1991 exist. But to have an idea of what they may have looked like at the time of their disposal, I look no further than the grisly photograph of Mary Jane Kelly's corpse. Obviously I won't post the photo here because it's far too graphic. It's somewhat less intense seeing a skeleton.
3) Both crimes remain unsolved to this very day. Unlike the Ripper victims, we know the individuals responsible for murdering the Romanov family. Except that the perpetrators were working for the Bolshevik regime, led by Vladimir Lenin. Lenin is still venerated in Russia today, so prosecuting him for the Romanov murders will likely never happen.
Some claim that prosecution is pointless because the perpetrators are long dead. But death of old age should not exempt them from guilt, nor should time diminish the severity of a crime. The purpose of an investigation is to determine criminal responsibility for the murders and, as far as I'm aware, there was never any formal inquiry into Lenin's role or anyone from the Bolshevik regime for that matter.
In 2012, the Kremlin conducted a posthumous trial of Sergei Magnitsky. If a dead lawyer can be prosecuted, then so can the Romanov murderers. However, as I've mentioned before, the Romanov family was murdered by the Bolsheviks. Although communism is no longer state ideology in Russia, they still refuse to acknowledge or expose atrocities committed during the Soviet era. For them it's better to deny and forget.
There are two differences between the crimes. One is the photographs of the victims. While there are many lovely photographs of the Romanov family, no photos of Mary Jane Kelly before she was murdered exists. Entering her name on Google Images will always return grisly results. And while the Romanovs are buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in Saint Petersburg, Mary Jane Kelly's grave has been lost to time. She was buried in St Patrick's Catholic Cemetery in Leytonstone, London. However, her gravestone does not mark her exact resting place.
Rest in peace, Mary Jane Kelly.
In 2012, the Kremlin conducted a posthumous trial of Sergei Magnitsky. If a dead lawyer can be prosecuted, then so can the Romanov murderers. However, as I've mentioned before, the Romanov family was murdered by the Bolsheviks. Although communism is no longer state ideology in Russia, they still refuse to acknowledge or expose atrocities committed during the Soviet era. For them it's better to deny and forget.
There are two differences between the crimes. One is the photographs of the victims. While there are many lovely photographs of the Romanov family, no photos of Mary Jane Kelly before she was murdered exists. Entering her name on Google Images will always return grisly results. And while the Romanovs are buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in Saint Petersburg, Mary Jane Kelly's grave has been lost to time. She was buried in St Patrick's Catholic Cemetery in Leytonstone, London. However, her gravestone does not mark her exact resting place.
Rest in peace, Mary Jane Kelly.
