Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky (; Unless otherwise noted, all dates used in this article are of the

Gregorian Calendar The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most parts of the world. It was introduced in October 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian calendar. The principal change was to space leap years dif ...

, as opposed to the

Julian Calendar The Julian calendar, proposed by Roman consul Julius Caesar in 46 BC, was a reform of the Roman calendar. It took effect on , by edict. It was designed with the aid of Greek mathematicians and astronomers such as Sosigenes of Alexandr ...

which was used in Russia prior to . – 2 August 1938) was a Russian Old Bolshevik, revolutionary, and Soviet Chekist (secret policeman). He was best known as the chief executioner of

Emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...

Nicholas II of Russia Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov; spelled in pre-revolutionary script. ( 186817 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer,. was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Polan ...

, his family, and four

retainers Retainer may refer to: * Retainer (orthodontics), devices for teeth * RFA ''Retainer'' (A329), a ship * Retainers in early China, a social group in early China Employment * Retainer agreement, a contract in which an employer pays in advance for w ...

on the night of 17 July 1918.

Biography

Early life

Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky was the eighth of ten children born to Mikhail Yurovsky, a

glazier A glazier is a tradesman responsible for cutting, installing, and removing glass (and materials used as substitutes for glass, such as some plastics).Elizabeth H. Oakes, ''Ferguson Career Resource Guide to Apprenticeship Programs'' ( Infobase: ...

, and his wife Ester Moiseevna (1848–1919), a seamstress. He was born on in the

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive region, geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a ...

n city of

Tomsk Tomsk ( rus, Томск, p=tomsk, sty, Түң-тора) is a city and the administrative center of Tomsk Oblast in Russia, located on the Tom River. Population: Founded in 1604, Tomsk is one of the oldest cities in Siberia. The city is a n ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

. The Yurovsky family were

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

. The historian

Helen Rappaport Helen F. Rappaport (née Ware; born June 1947), is a British author and former actress. She specialises in the Victorian era and revolutionary Russia. Early life and education Rappaport was born Helen Ware in Bromley, grew up near the River Med ...

writes that the young Yurovsky studied the

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...

in his early youth, while the family seems to have later attempted to distance themselves from their Jewish roots; this may have been prompted by the prejudice toward Jews frequently exhibited in Russia at the time.Rappaport, Helen.
The Last Days of the Romanovs: Tragedy at Ekaterinburg
'. , . New York: St. Martin's Press, 2009. p. 32. Shortly before fully devoting himself to the cause of revolution, in the early twentieth century, Yurovsky converted to

Lutheranism Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...

. A

watchmaker A watchmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs watches. Since a majority of watches are now factory-made, most modern watchmakers only repair watches. However, originally they were master craftsmen who built watches, including all their part ...

by trade, he lived for a short time in the German Empire in 1904. After returning to Russia during the

Russian Revolution of 1905 The Russian Revolution of 1905,. also known as the First Russian Revolution,. occurred on 22 January 1905, and was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. The mass unrest was directed again ...

, he joined the

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

s. He received the party ticket no.1500 in the Krasnopresnenskaya organization. Arrested several times over the years, he became a devoted Marxist. He was a Chekist for a short period of time in 1917.

Execution of the imperial family

On the night of 16/17 July 1918, a squad of

secret police ( Cheka), led by Yurovsky, executed Russia's last

emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...

, Nicholas II, along with his wife Alexandra, their four daughters– Olga,

Tatiana Tatiana (or Tatianna, also romanized as Tatyana, Tatjana, Tatijana, etc.) is a female name of Sabine-Roman origin that became widespread in Eastern Europe. Variations * be, Тацця́на, Tatsiana * bg, Татяна, Tatyana * germ ...

Maria Maria may refer to: People * Mary, mother of Jesus * Maria (given name), a popular given name in many languages Place names Extraterrestrial * 170 Maria, a Main belt S-type asteroid discovered in 1877 * Lunar maria (plural of ''mare''), large, ...

, and Anastasia–and son Alexei. Along with the family, four members of the imperial household (court physician

Eugene Botkin Yevgeny Sergeyevich Botkin (russian: Евгений Сергеевич Боткин; 27 March 1865 – 17 July 1918), commonly known as Eugene Botkin, was the court physician since 1908 for Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra. He sometimes ...

, chambermaid

Anna Demidova Anna Stepanovna Demidova (26 January 1878 – 17 July 1918) was a lady-in-waiting in the service of Empress Alexandra of Russia. She stayed with the Romanov family when they were arrested, and was executed together with Alexandra and the Roman ...

, cook

Ivan Kharitonov Ivan Mikhailovich Kharitonov (russian: Иван Михайлович Харитонов; 1872 – 17 July 1918) was the Head Cook at the court of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. He followed the Romanov family into internal exile following the Russi ...

and footman

Alexei Trupp Aloise "Alexei" Yegorovich Trupp (russian: Алоизий Егорович Трупп, lv, Aloizs Lauris Trūps, i=no; 8 April 1856 – 17 July 1918) was the Latvian head footman in the household of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. Trupp was ...

) were also killed. All were shot in a half-cellar room (measured to be x ) of the

Ipatiev House Ipatiev House (russian: Дом Ипатьева) was a merchant's house in Yekaterinburg (later renamed Sverdlovsk in 1924, renamed back to Yekaterinburg in 1991) where the former Emperor Nicholas II of Russia (1868–1918, reigned 1894–1917), h ...

Yekaterinburg Yekaterinburg ( ; rus, Екатеринбург, p=jɪkətʲɪrʲɪnˈburk), alternatively romanized as Ekaterinburg and formerly known as Sverdlovsk ( rus, Свердло́вск, , svʲɪrˈdlofsk, 1924–1991), is a city and the administra ...

, a city in the

Ural Mountains The Ural Mountains ( ; rus, Ура́льские го́ры, r=Uralskiye gory, p=ʊˈralʲskʲɪjə ˈɡorɨ; ba, Урал тауҙары) or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western ...

region, where they were being held prisoner. The firing squad comprised three local Bolsheviks and seven soldiers. It has been documented that the order to assassinate the imperial family came from

Yakov Sverdlov Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov (russian: Яков Михайлович Свердлов; 3 June Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O._S._22_May.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O. S ...

in Moscow. According to

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...

's diaries, Lenin supported and decided upon the killing of the Tsar and his family. After Trotsky returned from the front (of the Russian Civil War) he had the following dialogue with Sverdlov:Лев Троцкий, "Дневники и письма", Эрмитаж, 1986, pp. 100–101 To prevent the development of a

personality cult A cult of personality, or a cult of the leader, Mudde, Cas and Kaltwasser, Cristóbal Rovira (2017) ''Populism: A Very Short Introduction''. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 63. is the result of an effort which is made to create an id ...

of the former imperial family, the corpses were stripped and dismembered; then taken to the countryside, where they were initially thrown into an abandoned mineshaft. The following morning, when rumours spread in

regarding the disposal site, Yurovsky removed the bodies. When the vehicle carrying the bodies broke down on the way to the next chosen site, he made new arrangements and threw the bodies into a pit on Koptyaki Road, a since-abandoned cart track north of Yekaterinburg, and doused the dismembered remains with sulfuric acid before burying them and sealing the pit with wooden railroad ties.

Post-Civil War

During and after the

Russian Civil War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Russian Civil War , partof = the Russian Revolution and the aftermath of World War I , image = , caption = Clockwise from top left: {{flatlist, *Soldiers ...

, Yurovsky worked as a head of local Cheka in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

, then a member of Vyatka Cheka, head of

Cheka (1919). In 1921, he worked in the

Rabkrin The People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection, also known as Rabkrin (; РКИ, RKI; Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, WPI) was a governmental establishment in the Soviet Union of ministerial level (people's commissariat) re ...

and became Chief of the Gold Department of the Soviet State Treasury. Yurovsky achieved a solid reputation by combating corruption and theft. He also worked in management at the

Polytechnical Museum The Polytechnic Museum (russian: Политехнический музей) is one of the oldest science museums in the world and is located in Moscow. It showcases Russian and Soviet technology and science, as well as modern inventions. It was fo ...

starting in 1928 and became its director in 1930. He died in 1938 of a

peptic ulcer Peptic ulcer disease (PUD) is a break in the inner lining of the stomach, the first part of the small intestine, or sometimes the lower esophagus. An ulcer in the stomach is called a gastric ulcer, while one in the first part of the intestines ...

. Yurovsky was survived by a wife, two sons, and a daughter. In 1920, a British officer who met Yurovsky alleged he felt "remorse and horror" over his role in the execution of the Romanovs.Yakov Yurovsky
a biographical sketch adapted from

Notes

References

Sources

External links

* ttp://www.alexanderpalace.org/palace/yurovski_bio.html ''Yakov Yurovski, Executioner of the Romanovs''br>Юровский Я. М. Анкета для вступления в Общество старых большевиков
(Yurovsky Old Bolshevik Society questionnaire) {{DEFAULTSORT:Yurovsky, Yakov Mikhaylovich 1878 births 1938 deaths People from Tomsk People from Tomsk Governorate Old Bolsheviks Cheka Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Converts to Lutheranism from Judaism Russian executioners Emigrants from the Russian Empire to Germany Russian Lutherans People of the Russian Civil War People of the Russian Revolution Execution of the Romanov family Regicides of Nicholas II Soviet executioners Russian mass murderers Russian murderers of children Russian people of Jewish descent Deaths from ulcers Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery