Yakov Yurovsky - For those who are following The Executioner of the Romanovs - by Greg King - Alexander Palace Yurovsky was back in Russia in 1912, working in the underground Bolshevik movement when Okhrana agents arrested him; the evidence against him, however, was minimal, and he was simply exiled to Ekaterinburg, where he set up his own photographic studio. In 1915 he was drafted into the Russian Army; rather than join the ranks of ordinary soldiers, he signed up for medical training and was assigned to the 198th Perm Infantry Regiment as a field hospital orderly. He took part in the disastrous Carpathian campaign, one of the most bloody and destructive misadventures in the War. The carnage hardened Yurovsky. He lost his decency in the Army, remembered one man who knew him well. With the outbreak of the February Revolution, he deserted the Army, returning to Ekaterinburg where in the fall of 1917 he became one of the founding members of the Ural Regional Soviet. He was appointed Deputy Regional Commissar of Justice, and joined the Regional Cheka. Yurovsky turned forty just two weeks before he was appointed Commandant of the Ipatiev House. A tall, sturdy man, with dark hair and eyes, he sported a small, neatly trimmed beard and habitually wore a pair of pince-nez eyeglasses. At the time of the murders, he shared a small apartment with his wife, two sons, daughter, and widowed mother. He cut a wide swath through the city, friendly with some and reviled by others. Sister Agnes, Mistress of Novices at the citys Novotikhvinsky Convent, knew him well, and commented that he was very intelligent and very active. He did not drink, not even wine. He did not make unnecessary conversation and he was close to no one. Her nuns, who regularly delivered provisions to the Ipatiev House, considered him dangerous, and an unwelcome and ominous change from the generally agreeable Alexander Avdayev, whom he had replaced. Yurovsky assumed his new post charged with two instructions: reorganization of the guards and security at the Ipatiev House, which had completely broken down under Avdayev, and ultimately to pave the way for the prisoners execution. When he entered the Ipatiev House on July 4, 1918, he bore only a faint resemblance to the thirteen-year-old boy who had waved so enthusiastically at Tsesarevich Nicholas when he visited Tomsk in 1891, or even to the idealistic young man who in 1905 had joined the Bolshevik Party in an attempt to secure a better future for his children. Now the man who controlled the destiny of the Imperial Family was hardened by prison, exile, and war, determined - as he later wrote - to settle the Revolutions score with the Imperial House for centuries of suffering.
Posted on: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 22:34:30 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015