The Russian Imperial Romanov family (Emperor Nicholas II, his wife Empress Alexandra and their five children: Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei) were shot and bayoneted to death by Bolshevik revolutionaries under Yakov Yurovsky on the orders of the Ural Regional Soviet in Yekaterinburg on the night of 16–17 July 1918. Also killed that night were retainers who had accompanied them: notably Eugene Botkin, Anna Demidova, Alexei Trupp and Ivan Kharitonov. The bodies were taken to the Koptyaki forest, where they were stripped, buried and mutilated with grenades to prevent identification.

In 1981, the members of the family of Nicholas II were canonized as "martyrs"by the Russian Orthodox Church abroad. In 2000, after a long dispute that caused a significant resonance in Russia, they were canonized as " passion-bearers "by the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate; currently, they are revered by this church as"royal passion-bearers".