All Things Romanov

Today, I opened up my files for class, and realized that something had disappeared. I don't go right from WWI into WWII. I mean, stuff happened in between, major stuff! So I spent the majority of the day organizing myself and creating a presentation about Marxism and the Russian Revolution.

I love this subject. Well, the Russian part, anyway. While I've never been into royal lines, I am fascinated with the Romanov's in general, but more specifically the last Tsar, his family, and their unfortuate demise. And I'm fascinated with another part of their story--Raputin. If there had been rock stars back then, Rasputin would have been Elvis. (I know what you're thinking, but remember grunge?) From his life to his death, there seemed to never be a dull moment.

I felt like a storyteller today, such great characters and legends to talk about. I did stop short of showing them the one piece of Rasputin that reportedly made it into the 21st century. His woo-hoo. But if you MUST. As for the royal family, their remains were discovered in 1991, and underwent DNA testing against contemporary royal relatives (including Prince Charles). The Tsar and Tsarina along with three of the five children were identified, but missing were the remains of the Tsarivich, Alexei, and one daughter, alternately believed to be either Maria or Anastasia. The family was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000 as passion bearers.