Another difference is where in source B Sir Charles Eliot said, “no corpses were discovered, nor any trace of them being burned.” Where in source c Sokolov said, “The bodies were chopped in to pieces and burned with the aid of petrol and sulphuric acid.”
A similarity between the sources is that both Sokolov and Sergeyev said that the murders took place in the basement.
In conclusion it seems that the source C differs a lot from sources A and B. This is because even the similarity between the 2 could have been because Sokolov felt that it would have made the murder seem even more gruesome, and would make the reds look worse. It is also evident that every thing else that Sergeyev and Eliot says compromise what Sokolov says.
1. (c) Just because source D is an eye-witness account it doesn’t mean that the source is very reliable. This is because the witness could be biased one way or the other.
In source D it says that Medvedev was probably tortured by Whites and that he gave himself up in strange circumstances. This could have easily had an affect on what he was saying, because although he was a red, he may have been telling the whites what they wanted to hear, i.e. all of the Romanov’s being brutally murdered by the reds. This may have been why he saw all of the members of the tsar’s family lying on the floor. I also think that in order to save himself, Medvedev pretended that he didn’t fire a shot at the family and that he was outside sound-checking.
Another reason that this account may be untrue is because when his wife was interviewed, she told the interviewers that Medvedev fired at the Romanov’s. This comment should be true because she would have no reason to lie about Medvedev, and as his wife, wouldn’t tell the whites that he murdered the tsar as an action of maliciousness against Medvedev. This means that what Medvedev has said has been contradicted by his wife who would hold no malicious intent against him, therefore part of his statement was highly likely to be untrue, which could mean he was telling a lie throughout the whole of his statement. This would make his account quite unreliable.
Although if he hadn’t felt threatened by the whites then the statement would have been true because he would have had no reason to say that the Reds killed all of the Romanov family and servants.
1. (d) I think that out of sources F, G, and H, source H is the most useful to a historian. I think this because it proves that none of the Romanov family or the servants had any means of escaping from the basement in which they were murdered in. This is because the doors giving access to the main hall were blocked off by 12 Bolsheviks and the only place for the Romanov’s to go was the storeroom. I feel this is hard evidence because it proves that the whole Romanov were trapped and killed, unless the Bolsheviks took mercy on some of the members of the family.
This source is also unreliable though, as it was written by Judge Sokolov who was taking out an investigation on behalf of the whites, and he was a firm believer that the whole Romanov family were killed, and this could have had a bearing on his diagram.
I think that source H is more reliable than source G because source g was drawn based on the investigation carried by the whites, which could have created a bias on the painting. As it is a painting it may also not be very accurate to the investigation due to human error, and it’s not like a photograph which is 100% accurate.
It also doesn’t seem like the painting has much hard evidence, and I think that the artist drew this in order to convey the tsar as heroic as it shows him holding his son in his arms.
I also think that source F wasn’t as reliable as source H, because although it is a real picture, it has been taken by the whites and they could have easily doctored the photo to make it look like a massacre took place. Also, as the scene of the “murders” was under control by the whites at the time, they could have trashed the murder scene and make holes in the wall themselves in order to make it look like the whole family was killed.
1. (e)In some ways I found source I surprising and in other ways I didn’t find it surprising.
One way in which I didn’t find this source surprising is that it said, “During the last days, Ekaterinburg was seriously threatened by the danger of counter-revolutionaries.” This is because in the background information it said that the whites had captured Ekaterinburg later in 1918, which means that there must have been a counter-revolution threat by the Whites around that time.
Another way in which source I does not surprise me is that they said that they would send the wife and son of the Tsar to a safe place. This is because they would have appeared immoral to the outside world if they revealed killing the Tsars family, and while they are fighting a civil war the last thing they need is every other country supporting the Whites and not wanting the Bolsheviks to gain power of Russia. Although this statement also surprises me, because various sources disagree with the statement. One of these is Source J which actually proves that the Tsarina was murdered, because they took DNA and dental tests to prove that she was murdered.
I also think that the letter is not surprising because a counter-revolution was taking place at the scene of the murder, and if the Whites would have got the first message across to the public and the outside world, they would have made the murders sound much more gruesome and make the Bolsheviks look bad to other countries. This would have decreased support for the Bolsheviks. Although the fact that they sent a letter also surprises me because they could have pretended that they had just moved the Romanov’s to a more secure place, and as they were buried in a swamp nobody would have known what had happened.
In conclusion, the fact that the Bolsheviks sent a letter out did not surprise me much. This is because they could have looked much worse outside of Russia if the Whites got the first description of the event. But I do also feel that the information in the letter was quite surprising as the Bolsheviks said that the Tsarina would not be killed, but she was later identified by DNA testing buried next to the Tsar in the swamp.
1. (f) In some ways source J confirms the other sources, and in other ways it seems to compromise them.
When comparing source J to source Ai noticed that in source J it read, “Dental records positively identified Nicholas 2, his wife and 3 of their children.” This is different to Sergeyev’s judgement which reads, “It is my belief that the empress, the tsars son and the four other children were not shot in that house.” This shows that what Sergeyev said was compromised by the British newspaper. Although the British newspaper did confirm Sergeyev’s statement, “I do not believe that all the people, the tsar, his family, and those with them, were shot there.” The British newspaper also confirmed Charles Eliot’s views on the fact that he didn’t believe that all the Romanov’s were killed. I only think that both Charles Eliot and Sergeyev agreed on this statement because it seemed like Charles Eliot was only seeing the bits of the evidence that Sergeyev wanted him to see, therefore producing a near identical verdict.
Source J also compromises Charles Eliot when it reads, “The bodies were driven to a mine and the mine blown up by grenades.” Charles Eliot said, “No corpses were discovered, nor any traces of them being burned.”
Sokolov’s view agrees with that of the newspaper report in that they both said that the bodies were taken to the mine, although the newspaper report didn’t agree with Sokolov’s statement that the bodies were chopped in to pieces. The newspaper also didn’t say that the bodies were burned, although did say that the bodies were blown up by grenades. Sokolov may have said theses things because he felt intimidated by the Whites, and he probably knew that Sergeyev was sacked and mysteriously disappeared when he came to the verdict that not the whole family was murdered. Sokolov also tried to make the murders sound more gruesome, i.e. “The bodies were chopped up in to little pieces and burned with the aid of petrol and sulphuric acid.”
The eyewitness account given by Medvedev is also compromised by the report as Medvedev said that the whole Romanov family were shot dead, where the report said that the tsar, tsarina, and the 3 daughters were killed. Although as with Sokolov’s report, the newspaper does agree that the bodies were taken in a lorry and buried. I think the reason why Medvedev’s comments disagreed with the newspaper article is because he was being tortured by the Whites, and therefore they could have manipulated him to say what they wanted him to hear.
To conclude I think that the British newspaper report (source J) seemed to both compromise and confirm what was said in the other sources. It did seem to sum up the other sources as some of the verdicts were very different, i.e. the views of Sokolov and Sergeyev. I think this because it seemed to strike a balance between the 2 extremes of only the Tsar being killed, and the whole family being killed. This is because the report suggested that 5 members of the family were killed which is in the middle of Sokolov and Sergeyev’s verdict. It is also between the 2 views of what happened after the murders took place, as Charles Eliot said, “No corpses were discovered, nor any trace of them being burned.” Where Sokolov said, “The bodies were chopped in to pieces and burned with the aid of petrol and sulphuric acid.” Source J goes in between again by saying that the bodies were buried in a bogged down swamp.
