Romanovs Traces
In the autumn of 2023, Seraphina was prompted to look into the Romanovs disappearance case. At first, she was reluctant to approach the subject, as she felt that the officially fabricated storyline was an unpleasant reminder of her own real life experience. Overcoming her initial fear and reluctance, Seraphina dived into the maze of ‘official’ story lines, available pieces of information and scattered across different archives Soviet documentation. Using available material, her reading between the lines and psychological skills to reconstruct certain events leading to Romanovs’ disappearance, Seraphina was able to start demonstrating that a 100 year 'murder mystery' of the Russian Imperial Family was a carefully fabricated official version that stemmed from demanding political pressure on the Soviet government in 1918.
The astounding results of her private investigation Seraphina revealed in a series of articles published on Medium platform under the common title ‘The In-Famous Romanovs’.
Born into a world of secrets and divided loyalties, herself being a ‘disappeared’ child with changed identity, Seraphina naturally felt inclined to similar real life, historical and fictional events. With the time, the inclination grew into actions translated into a specific historical detective investigation.
I'n October last year (2023), I received an email from a certain ‘Georgyi Velmogin', a Russian man, who approached me in regards to my mother's side Family Tree on Geni.com which displays some connections to Russian aristocratic families.
Not wasting any time on pleasantries, Georgyi, in an assertive and determined manner, presented himself to me as a descendant of Maria Nikolaevna — the third daughter of Nicolas II and Alexandra Feodorovna, the last Emperor and Empress of the Russian Empire. I was taken aback. Not that I am not open towards any possibilities or outcomes of a hundred or so year mystery but his approach was way too blunt.'
'When I started looking into the case of the disappearance of the Romanov Family including Nicholas II, Alexandra Fedorovna, OTMA and Aleksei, I noticed that it was not so much about what exactly happened but what was written about what had happened or, rather had not happened, by the press and in the press. Books, newspapers, journals, diaries, and articles included.
Soon, it became obvious that it was the written word that ruled the case, not facts, evidence, truth, or even detective work. It was opinions, emotions, subjective perspectives, and twisted views of others not directly involved or connected to the case that determined the degree of what was intentionally revealed and what intentionally stayed hidden.'
'Researching and writing my recent article ‘The In-Famous Romanovs: One Hundred Years Old Media Bubble’ helped me see the mystery of the disappearance of the Romanovs in a new light. The light in which, perhaps, it has not been seen before.
This specific ‘light’ has been prompted by my favourite ‘whodunnit’ detective genre:
‘A whodunit follows the paradigm of the traditional detective story in the sense that it presents crime as a puzzle to be solved through a chain of questions that the detective poses. A defining feature of the whodunit narrative is the so-called double narrative. Here, one narrative is hidden and gradually revealed while the other is the open narrative, which often transpires in the present time of the story. The former involves the narrative presented to the reader by the author or the actual story as it happened in chronological order, while the latter focuses on the underlying substance or material of the narrative.’ — an excerpt from WIKI
As it happens the double narrative approach is the perfect one when it comes to solving a puzzle of the disappearance of the Romanov Family.
In case of the Romanovs story, the open narrative is the narrative told via the Russian and international press and skilfully revealed or withdrawn information. Tightly intertwined and intersected they present an ever unfolding and ongoing narrative. The narrative that everyone has been following for a century, since July 1918.
The hidden narrative, in contrast to the classical whodunnit genre, stays intentionally hidden. The clues to solving it are there but to do it one must be inquisitive enough to decode them. Interestingly enough, even though the Romanovs puzzle bothers many, few really bother to solve it, preferring to stick with the open narrative.'
'The Hidden Narrative
Unlike in ‘whodunnit’ classic stories, the hidden narrative of the mystery of the disappearance of the Romanovs has two parts.
The first part concerns ‘the underlying substance or material of the narrative’ such as deflections, false fronts, and deliberately planted clues and ‘reconstructions’ via official post factum documentations and recordings of the ‘crime’. Similar to the open narrative of the Romanovs puzzle, this part of the hidden narrative does not deal with what really happened. It is the second part — the hidden part of the hidden narrative which does.
Both the open narrative and the open narrative part of the hidden narrative are the stories that run in parallel and also intertwine and reinforce each other. Whilst the hidden part of the hidden narrative is a story that stands apart. Although it can be detected from the two previous ones via hints, unspoken but present clues and impressions this story line stays hidden and is not perpetuated. Yet it is there to be discovered.'
The Hidden Part of The Hidden Narrative
In the Romanovs mystery the golden nuggets of truth are not that easily spotted. For the evidence that points at them is mainly of unspoken nature, diminished in its importance or deflected attention from. Therefore, to find them one has to look at what was not magnified, not presented, and not drawn attention to. In other words, have an inverted look at it.'
'While thinking of my next article on the infamous case of the Romanovs, I was undecided which topic to highlight in it. Although there were a few interesting angles, I could not quite choose between them until recently, when it sort of dawned on me.
The fact is there were numerous stories and hypothesis written on the officially fabricated story circa 1918 which has been added to and perpetuated for a century. Yet, there have not been any stories at all about how really it all happened. So far, readers have been engaged with a phantom, a sort of Frankenstein creation that was cut out of the true historical events and relations.
The evidence, facts and pieces of the true and real story are all out there, and have always been. The truth of the matter is that no one managed to put them together in the right way. And this, I decided, would be the focus of my next article — putting the pieces and facts together in a linear and clear way to present the unfolding of the events as they really were.'