What Happened To The Romanov Family?

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What Happened To The Romanov Family?

Question A

        Source A is a report from an American newspaper dated December 1918. It tells us an account of what Judge Sergeyev did while investigating the house and what he found. Source B is from Sir Charles Eliot's report to the British government, dated October 1918. He was sent by the British government to find out what had happened and this source is his account of his findings. When studying sources A and B, they both give similar accounts to what happened. These similarities in turn show the reliability of the sources. First and foremost, both sources are from the same source person which is Judge Sergeyev, this meaning that the source is reliable in the fact that both include Judge Sergeyev's findings. Another similarity is the number of victims there supposedly was. They both agree that there were five; the Tsar, Dr Botkin, the empress's maid and two servants. This is the only point that both sources agree on.

        The differences between the Sources A and B will in turn show how the sources are not reliable. Firstly, source A is written by an American newspaper. At the time the Americans were strongly against the Bolsheviks and therefore anti-red. Source B is written by Sir Charles Eliot whom is on the 'White' side as he is British. Both sources are written by different people however they are both anti-Bolshevik and so their points of view could be biased. However, both sources are actually attained from Judge Sergeyev’s findings. Sergeyev in his own right is not the most reliable source as his findings are known only from comments of people who spoke to him or read his report. This can be further examined by in Source A, Sergeyev continually uses the words 'supposed' and in some way or other the word believe; "my belief," "I do not believe" and "I believe" all figure in his comments. In my opinion, this suggests that the evidence is not hard or strong enough. Source B also uses the word 'supposed' but not repeatedly. Source B also includes many points that are different to that of A and that A does not include such as, "the marks showing where Sergeyev had removed the bullets" and vital information such as the way "the victims had been shot while kneeling and that other shots had been fired into them when they had fallen on the floor. It also includes other information stating 'no corpses were discovered, nor any trace of them having been burned." It also includes vital information by stating what happened after the incident saying how "on 17 July, a train left Ekaterinburg...surviving members of royal family were in it."

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        In conclusion, Sources A and B do give similar accounts to an extent but the differences between them outweigh the similarities which suggests the sources are not that reliable and that just because they are similar to an extent it does not mean they have to be reliable. Both sources very in a large amount and the fact that they are both constructed using Sergeyev’s comments, a poor source in terms of reliability in his own right means that both differ to a large extent considering Sergeyev’s input. Source B also contains additional information, which could improve its reliability but ...

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