On July 17, 1918, Bolshevik forces execute the Romanov family of Russia. The Romanovs had been placed in the custody of the new Russian Provisional Government following the abdication of the throne by Tsar Nicholas II in 1917; however, the Bolsheviks (Communists) soon took control of the government and placed the family in strict isolation in the city of Yekaterinburg with plans to place Nicholas II on trial. During this period of isolation, Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra and their five children (Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei) had essentially no contact with the world beyond the Ipatiev House were they were guarded by Bolshevik forces and prohibited from so much as looking out the window. As anti-Bolshevik forces of the White Army, in particular the Czechoslovak Legion, advanced closer to the city, the decision was made to execute the family and hide or destroy any evidence so as to deny any forces opposing the Bolsheviks a symbol to rally around and to eliminate the royal family's claim to rule. Shortly after midnight on the morning of July 17, 1918, the family and several of their retainers were escorted into the basement of the house and were shortly thereafter read the sentence of death issued by Bolsheviks. Over the course of twenty minutes, the Romanov family and their servants were repeatedly shot and stabbed, including the children who had survived the initial volley. The bodies of the deceased were loaded into the back of a waiting truck and were later stripped, mutilated, and buried in Koptyaki Forest.

In 1979, a gravesite containing the remains of most of the Romanov family and their retainers was discovered, though the discovery was kept secret until 1991. In 1991, five members of the family, including the Tsar and his wife and three of their daughters, were exhumed from the site and positively identified through forensic investigation and DNA testing. In 1998, they were finally laid to rest with state honors in the Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg, Russia. In 2007, the remains of Alexei and the fourth daughter were finally discovered where they had been burned and buried by the Bolsheviks in 1918. The Romanov family were canonized as passion bearers by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000 and were declared the victims of political repression and politically rehabilitated by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in 2008.