TSAR SEARCH

As a former Soviet citizen, I have been curious about the mystery surrounding the lives and deaths of Russia’s so-called imperial family. “The Last Tsar” answered a few questions. However, no historian has brought out the fact that the post-Catherine II “Romanovs” had no legal claim to the throne. Why? Because the Romanov dynasty died with Peter III, the grandson of Peter I (the Great) and the husband of Catherine II.

It is well documented that Peter III was sterile because of a bout with measles in his teens. The marriage may not even have been consummated. Catherine II bore a son fathered by a commoner, Sergei Saltykov. Because Catherine II was not “royal” (she was from lesser nobility), nor was she Russian, her offspring with Saltykov, Paul I, and everyone else since then, had no legal claim to the Russian imperial throne, nor were they of the Romanov dynasty. From the time of Catherine II, all of Russia’s “monarchs” were Germans or Danes. . . .

JASMINE D’AVIGNON-LANE, LOS ANGELES