Theories Behind Anastasia Nicholaievna Romanov's Death

He experienced the brutal losses of his family, along with everything he owns, his faith, and almost his sanity. Many hundreds of miles away in 1570, a Russian tzar named Ivan IV Vasilyevich, better known now as Ivan the Terrible from an arguably more accurate mistranslation of his title “The Severe”, waged a massacre on the independently-minded city of Novgorod, lasting only five weeks yet leaving thousands dead; though the city’s population could not have been more than 100,000, around 30,000 were murdered, leaving 20,000 more to perish from the aftermath (Erenow, “ Massacre- Ivan The Terrible”).

Throughout Russia’s history, there have been many rulers that tried to manage their country in different ways. Even though, all of these rulers had their own unique ways of ruling, all of them were seen as terrible by the people. This eventually led to a tipping point for the Russian citizens and the Russian Revolution took place. The goal for these people was to gain freedom from their oppressive czar but instead, they got an even worse leader. Joseph Stalin was a leader of the Soviet Union from 1929 to 1953 and he was known for his ability to strike fear into people.

Due to Nicholas’s failure to please the citizens, he was abdicated on March 15th and he brother refused the throne, ending the Romanov dynasty (“Russian Revolution of

Rasputin was first introduced into the Romanov family when he supposedly demonstrated his ability to heal the Tsarevich, Alexei of his hemophilia. Rasputin was well known as a peasant, a womanizer, a spiritualist and a healer and it was even thought that Rasputin was sleeping with Tsarina Alexandra and possibly her daughters as well. He was eventually murdered through means of poison, stabbing, beating, shooting and eventually drowning in a bag on December 30 1916 , for fear that he would further ruin the Royal family’s reputation. Rasputin proved to be a key part of the downfall of the Romanovs but not only that, his judgment also lead to the amplification of the issues during the war which further destroyed the

Tolstoy’s ability to interweave the environment with themes of materialism and death makes The Death of Ivan Ilych stand out as a piece that criticizes societal values. In his article “Tolstoy and the Moran Instructions of Death,” Dennis Sansom focuses on the influence of fighting chaos in Ivan’s eventual acceptance of his own death. Socrates wrote, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” and Ivan’s life mirrored this until the end (qtd. in Sansom 417) .

Post WWl, Russia was still not industrialized, suffering economically and politically and in no doubt in need of a leader after Lenin’s death. “His successor, Joseph Stalin, a ruthless dictator, seized power and turned Russia into a totalitarian state where the government controls all aspects of private and public life.” Stalin showed these traits by using methods of enforcement, state control of individuals and state control of society. The journey of Stalin begins now.

The man that was killed was on record as a person of interest, he had been recorded as abnormal to society so it had turned out for the government that he was out walking at night. An innocent man was killed as a political stunt. Stalin at the end of WWII and during the Cold War had lied to his people about how amazing communism is. Anyone who had opposed Stalin’s way of life was sent to a place called the “Gulag” a forced labor camp where

As we have seen even before the death of Marmeladov, his family was suffering and even Sonya had to resort to prostitution in order to make some money. Raskolnikov’s guilt and the actions that he takes due to the crime cause many lives to be

During the 20th century, Russia was experiencing turmoil in war and the country was deeply affected with Tsar Nicholas’s wrong decisions and lack of experience in politics. After the 1917 revolution in Russia, Lenin became the ruler of Russia and the USSR and proved to be the best Russian ruler of the 20th century. Before then, Tsarism dominated and Nicholas II was in power until he foresaw many revolutions against his methods of ruling. He remained as the supreme ruler and did not take actions for reforms. However, after the 1917 revolution, which Lenin masterminded, the Tsar was overthrown and the Bolsheviks established a stable government which took control in Russia.

With no signs of the czar’s attempt to solve the complications, Russia banded together and filled the streets with strikes and riots. A revolution was peaking among the peasants. The uprising brought Nicholas ll no choice but to abdicate his throne. This was an opportunity

Although Russia was once again in a terrible position for war the fought in the first World War and their country and its people faced further hardships. The people began to revolt and took over the government and then assassinated Nicholas II’s entire

In analysis of Vera Figner’s Memoirs of a Revolutionist, Figner expressed a few political goals that led her to assume violence as the only answer to the economic, political, and social injustices forced upon the peasants, by the government authority and Russian traditions. All of Figner’s energy was spent in effort to achieve these goals at any cost. These goals were to use influential propaganda, to educate the peasants1, and to kill the Tsar. All of which, were used to motivate a peasant uprising, to remove2 the suppressive Tsarist regime and to give birth to democratically3 free institutions4. To justify her violent means, she used her personal belief that there were no other peaceful ways, that they had not tried, to provide liberty and justice for the peasants.5

The Russians did not hate the Tsar at first as they blamed their troubles on the government, however an event called Bloody Sunday changed their minds. Citizens began to protest outside of Tsar’s palace where many were shot and killed by soldiers. This turned them against the man they once trusted. World War I also occurred during Tsar’s reign and ultimately killed many unskilled and unequipped Russian soldiers. This caused the citizens to dislike Tsar even

“Is what you want? A miserable little bourgeois republic? In the name of the great Soviet republic of labour we declare war to the death on such a government!” (Bukharin, 1917) . The Russians were fed up of being poorly treated by their own country, so they decided to take a stance.

Liberation After Death: Akhmatova’s Shifting Tone in “Requiem” Written between 1935 and 1940, Anna Akhmatova’s “Requiem” follows a grieving mother as she endures the Great Purge. Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union’s General Secretary, unabatedly pursued eliminating dissenters and, consequently, accused or killed hundreds of thousands who allegedly perpetrated political transgressions (“Repression and Terror: Kirov Murder and Purges”). Despite the fifteen-year censorship, Akhmatova avoided physical persecution, though she saw her son jailed for seventeen months (Bailey 324). The first-person speaker in “Requiem,” assumed to be Akhmatova due to the speaker’s identical experience of crying aloud “for seventeen months” (Section 5, Line 1), changes her sentiments towards deaths as reflected in the poem’s tone shifts.