THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, MAY 1, 2008
NEWS
9A
HISTORY
Remains of last Romanov family members discovered
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ANASTASIA Girgorenko, a post doctoral student, works with DNA samples in a laboratory at the Irving and Betty Brudnick Neuropsychiatric Research Institute in Worcester, Mass. Remains found last year were announced to be those of Alexei and Maria Romanov.
BY MIKE ECKEL ASSOCIATED PRESS
MOSCOW — For nine decades after Bolshevik executioners gunned down Czar Nicholas II and his family, there were no traces of the remains of Crown Prince Alexei, the hemophiliac heir to Russia's throne.
Some said the delicate 13-year-old had somehow survived and escaped; others believed his bones were lost in Russia's vastness, buried in secret amid fear and chaos as the country lurched into civil war.
Now an official says DNA tests have solved the mystery by identifying bone shards found in a forest as those of Alexei and his sister, Grand Duchess Maria.
The remains of their parents — Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra — and three siblings, including the czar's youngest daughter, Anastasia, were unearthed in 1991 and reburied in the imperial resting place in St. Petersburg. The Russian Orthodox Church made all seven of their saints in 2000.
Despite the earlier discoveries and ceremonies, the absence of Alexel's and Maria's remains gnawed at descendants of the Romanov dynasty, history buffs and royalists. Even if Wednesday's announcement is confirmed and widely accepted, many descendants of the royal family are unlikely to be fully assuaged; they seek formal "rehabilitation" by the government.
"The tragedy of the czar's family will only end when the family is declared victims of political repression," said German Lukyanov, a lawyer for royal descendants.
Nicholas abdicated in 1917 as revolutionary fervor swept Russia, and he and his family were detained. They were shot by a firing squad on July 17, 1918, in the basement of the Yekaterinburg house where they were being held.
Rumors persisted that some of the family had survived and escaped. Claims by women to be Anastasia were particularly prominent, although there were also pretenders to Alexei's and Maria's identities.
"It was 99.9 percent clear they had all been killed; now with these shards, it's 100 percent," said Nadia Kizenko, a Russian scholar at the university at Albany, State University of New York. "Those who regret this news will be those who liked the royal pretender myth."
Alexei was one of the more compelling of the victims, drawing sympathy because of his hemophilia. His mother's terror of the disease and fear that he would not live to gain the throne were key to her falling under the thrall of the hypnotic and sexually ravenous self-declared
holy man Rasputin, who exerted vast influence on the royal family.
Researchers unearthed the bone shards last summer in a forest near Yekaterinburg, where the royal family was killed, and enlisted Russian and U.S. laboratories to conduct DNA tests.
Eduard Rossel, governor of the region 900 miles east of Moscow, said tests done by a U.S. laboratory had identified the shards as those of Alexei and Maria.
"This has confirmed that indeed it is the children," he said. "We have now found the entire family."
He did not specify the laboratory, but a genetic research team working at the University of Massachusetts Medical School has been involved in the process. Eugeny Rogaev, who headed the team that tested the remains in Moscow and at the medical school in Worcester, Mass., was called into the case by the Russian Federation Prosecutor's Office.
He told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he delivered the results to Russian authorities, but said it was up to the prosecutor's office — not him or his team — to disclose the findings.
The test results were based on analysis of mitochondrial DNA, the genetic material passed down only from mothers to children. That DNA is more stable than nuclear DNA — the material inherited from
the father's side — especially when remains are badly damaged.
In this case, the bone fragments were so shattered and burned that Rogaev's team first had to determine whether enough uncontaminated genetic material still existed for testing.
The delicate work proved that, indeed, useful DNA could be extracted from a very small amount of the material - a critical fact, since they wanted to preserve as much of the bone fragments as possible out of respect for the victims.
With the mitochondrial analysis completed, the team is working on the nuclear DNA analysis and comparing the samples to paternal relatives of the czar's family.
It was unclear if the Russian Orthodox Church will recognize them as genuine. The church's press service said no one could comment on Wednesday's announcement.
It was also unclear whether the descendents of the royal family would accept the identification. Lukyanov said neither he nor his clients had received confirmation.
Lukyanov's efforts to get the government to declare the royal family victims of political repression have been repeatedly rejected by Russian courts, which have said the family's killing was premeditated murder, not a political reprisal.
NATION
White House regrets flying 'Mission Accomplished' banner
BY TERENCE HUNT ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — The White House said Wednesday that President Bush has paid a price for the "Mission Accomplished" banner that was flown in triumph five years ago but later became a symbol of U.S. misjudgments and mistakes in the long and costly war in Iraq.
Thursday is the fifth anniversary of Bush's dramatic landing in a Navy jet on an aircraft carrier homebound from the war. The USS Abraham Lincoln had launched thousands of airstrikes on Iraq.
"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended," Bush said at the time. "The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001, and still goes
on." The "Mission Accomplished" banner was prominently displayed above him — a move the White House came to regret as the display was mocked and became a source of controversy.
After shifting explanations, the White House eventually said the "Mission Accomplished" phrase referred to the carrier's crew completing its 10-month mission, not the military completing its mission in Iraq.
"President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said 'mission accomplished' for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission." White House press secretary Dana Perino said Wednesday.
She said what is important now is "how the president would describe the fight today, It's been a very tough month in Iraq, but we are taking the fight to the enemy."
At least 49 U.S. troops died in Iraq in April, making it the deadliest month since September when 65 U.S. troops died.
Now in its sixth year, the war in Iraq has claimed the lives of at least 4,061 members of the U.S. military. Only the Vietnam War (August 1964 to January 1973), the war in Afghanistan (October 2001 to present) and the Revolutionary War (July 1776 to April 1783) have engaged America longer.