Description:

Pyotr Voykov
n.p., May 16, 1921
Pyotr Voykov Autograph Document, Romanov Family Assassination Plotter & Bolshevik Hero - Utmost Rarity!
AES
Very rare autograph endorsement penned on a document from the Ministry of Foreign trade authorizing an agent to make a trip to a paper manufacturing facility abroad. [Moscow], May 16, 1921, with numerous indelible pencil notations throughout. File holes at left margin and two staple holes thereat, as well as irregularly trimmed edges. Still in good condition. 1p. 5.75" x 6.5".

In part:

"… To the People's Commissar of Foreign Trade from Efrem Vladimirovich Kurlyand, living in Moscow…Being familiar with the business of newspaper and writing paper, I ask you to accept me into service to work in my specialty and send me to a production site abroad. May 16, 1921. E. Kurlyand."

Voykov approves the request for Kurlyand's travel at the right edge in bold purple ink: "To P. F. Gorchakov / Send him on business / Voykov."

Pyotr Voykov (1888-1927) was a Ukrainian-born Russian diplomat and revolutionary who played a key role in the plot to assassinate tsar Nicholas II and family. He was shot and killed at the Warsaw Central Train Station by Boris Kowerda, the 18-year-old son of a White Russian monarchist on June 7, 1927. When asked why he killed Voykov, Kowerda replied: "I avenged Russia, for millions of people." The killing was later justified as vengeance for Voykov's role in the killing of the Tsar and his family, and many people in Poland regarded Kowerda as a hero. In the Soviet Union, Voykov became a "secular martyr,", a hero of Soviet diplomacy who had laid down his life for the revolution.

In March 1917, Nicholas II was deposed as tsar of Russia and placed under house arrest. He and his family were taken to Tobolsk, Siberia in August 1917 -- the same month that Voykov joined the Bolsheviks. Three months later after the Bolsheviks came to power after the October Revolution, Nicholas' imprisonment grew stricter, and, when the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed in March 1918, the fanily was moved to Yekaterinburg in the Ural Region Soviet.

At the time of this decision, Voykov was acting as Commissar for Supply in the Ural Region Soviet. He and other local Bolsheviks were directed to "…decide for yourself whether to arrange [Nicholas II] in prison or to accommodate any mansion." They chose the house owner by military engineer Nikolai Nikolaevich Ipatiev (1869-1938), a highly secure mansion-turned prison which became known as the "House of Special Purpose." Voykov knew Nicholas Ipatiev, and had visited him before it was selected as the final residence of the imperial Family. It was apparently on information provided by Voykov that this particular house was chosen.

While Nicholas II and family were imprisoned, Voykov became more closely embroiled in the murder plot. According to some historians, he dictated letters written in French to the Ipatiev House that claimed to be from a monarchist officer seeking to rescue the family, but were actually the contrivances of the Soviet Secret Police (Cheka). It has been determined that the letters were not written by Voykov himself, but Chekist memoirs indicate that he was the translator.

This systematic strategy of disinformation, along with the Romanov responses to them (written either on blank spaces of the letters or on the envelopes), were ultimately used by Lenin's government to justify murdering the imperial family on the grounds that Nicholas II was guilty of unforgivable crimes against the nation. The assassination took place on the night of July 16-17, 1918.

Voykov was party to the decision to execute the royal family, and given the specific task of arranging for the disposal of their remains, which were brought to a nearby woodland to be searched and burned. Voykov allegedly dismembered the bodies himself, and personally took an expensive ring from the hand of the murdered empress before soaking the bodies in sulfuric acid, and throwing them down an abandoned mineshaft. "We hid them so well that the world will never find them," Voykov is quoted as boasting about the location of the murdered remains. In fact, it was more than half a century before the bodies were discovered and identified.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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