Vintage

The last Russian Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family should be recognized as victims of political reprisals, said the prominent Russian writer and historian Edward Radzinsky.

The contemporary Russia needs Nicholas II and his family members to be recognized as victims of political reprisals, and the fact that this has still not happened cannot be understood or justified, Radzinsky told Interfax.

"Not the Romanovs need this - this no longer matters to them. This is necessary for those who live now. The Romanovs were not victims of a judicial error. They were not victims of some bandits. They were victims of the new authorities, who executed them in line with their new laws," Radzinsky said.

"Why should obvious things be subjected to heated debates?" Radzinsky said.

"Now a court of the country, which is the successor of the USSR, should rule that either executing them was the right thing to do, or that this was a result of political repression. This was surely political repression in relation to the tsar's family, his doctor, and his servants," he said.

In Radzinsky's view, there are enough documents confirming that the tsar's family were executed at the new government's decision.

"Who are those who were executed by the official Soviet authorities? Are they victims of a judicial error? Or are they victims of bandits? No, they are victims of the new Soviet authorities. This seems obvious, but at the same time this looks incredible. It is incredible because we fail to understand who are those eleven people whom the Soviet power executed without a trial," he said.

"It would be very important to declare that the tsar's family was a victim of the state. This would be a verdict on decisions of the past," Radzinsky said.

The leadership of the international historical, educational, and human rights protection society Memorial, which, among other things, deals with the rehabilitation of victims of political reprisals, shares Radzinsky's view on the matter.

"We believe that Nicholas Romanov, members of his family, and his retinue, who were assassinated along with him in Yekaterinburg, are victims of political reprisals," Arseny Roginsky, chairman of the Memorial board, told Interfax.

"We don't see any reasons to deny their rehabilitation. We deem unconvincing the arguments that some documents are missing. All materials available show that this was repression based on political motives," he said.

The Prosecutor General's office is supposed to make a decision by September 25 regarding a petition from Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna seeking to recognize members of the last Russian tsar's family as victims of political reprisals. German Lukyanov, a lawyer for the grand duchess, told Interfax that Moscow's Tverskoy Court had issued corresponding explanations on Friday.

He said that, in line with the law on the rehabilitation of victims of political reprisals, the Prosecutor General's Office should complete its probe, draw conclusions and, in case of a negative decision, send the case to court by September 25.

The Prosecutor General's Office earlier refused to rehabilitate the last Russian emperor and his family. It recognized that they had been victims of repression but found no legal grounds for seeking their rehabilitation through the courts.

"The prosecutor's office does not have the slightest doubt that Emperor Nicholas II, his family and closest entourage, were repressed. If the prosecutor's office had the slightest legal grounds for taking the matter to court, this would have been done long ago," a spokesman for the office said earlier.