Reign of Tsar Ivan IV, "The Terrible"

Ivan IV, the Terrible

Ivan IV (1533 - 1584), known as "The Terrible" completed the centralization of Russia that begun with his predecessors. Though his influence is unquestioned, it is difficult to determine which of his actions were motivated by the cool rationalism of a power politician raised in an age of intrigue and sudden death and which were the act of a paranoid who felt beset by traitors.

 Early life

Ivan ascended the throne at the age of three. When Ivan was just three years old his father died from a boil and inflammation on his leg which developed into blood poisoning. Ivan was proclaimed the Grand Prince of Moscow at his father's request. At first, his mother Elena Glinskaya acted as a regent, but she died of what many believe to be assassination by poison when Ivan was only eight years old. According to his own letters, Ivan and his younger brother Yuri often felt neglected and offended by the mighty boyars from the Shuisky and Belsky families. He was fortunate to survive his minority, as boyar families struggled to reassert their authority. In 1547 he became the first ruler to take formally the title Czar of all Russians, and he moved quickly thereafter to extend the authority and to destroy boyar independence.

The Romanov Mystery - Finally solved or endless crime story

Anastasia Romanov born June 18,1901 to the Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his wife Alexandra Fyodorvna was the youngest daughter of the four daughters the couple had. Anastasia was the younger sister of Grand Duchess Tatiana, Grand Duchess Maria, and Grand Duchess Olga her only brother was Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia. The claim is that on July 17, 1918 she was murdered with her entire family by the Bolshevik secret police.

Romanoy Royal family

Rumors continued to fly about the possibility of her survival due to nobody being able to clearly identify where her body had been located. The mass grave had been revealed in 1991 however only the mother, the father and three daughters had been located. The body of Alexei and one of his sisters had not been located.
In 2008 the Russians made claim that her possible survival had been disproved and that the remains of a young boy and a young girl's charred remains had been located near Ektarinburg in 2007 and that fact was they were the remains of Alexei and one of his four sisters. In March 2009 Michael Coble of the USAF DNA identification laboratory stated that all sister's had been accounted for and that nobody survived. Isn't this questionable? Did they run tests on the young boy to prove in fact that he was Alexei? Or was it a burial ground for two unidentified children?