Leonid Ivanovich Sednev | |
Birth Date: | 1903 |
Death Date: | c. 30 September 1941 — 7 January 1942 or 17 July 1942 (aged 37/38/39) |
Relatives: | Ivan Dmitriyevich Sednev |
Occupation: | Chef's Assistant |
Leonid Ivanovich Sednev (Russian: Леонид Иванович Седнев) (1903 – 1941 or 1942[1]) was a chef's assistant who, together with his uncle Ivan Dmitriyevich Sednev,[2] served former Emperor Nicholas II of Russia and his family during their exile in Siberian villages of Tobolsk and Yekaterinburg from 1917 to 1918.[3] Six hours before the Imperial family and their four retainers were murdered in the cellar of the Ipatiev House on the night of July 16/17, 1918, Sednev was taken to a neighboring house,[4] where he was held until July 20. Officials from the Ural Regional Soviet then shipped him off to live with relatives in Kaluga.[5]
Sednev is alleged to have written a brief set of memoirs of his time in the Ipatiev House, though its existence is disputed. There are conflicting accounts of his ultimate fate; according to one report, he was shot in 1929 in Yaroslavl on charges of participating in a counter-revolutionary conspiracy, while other evidence suggests that he was killed during the Battle of Moscow in 1941; according to the obd-memorial.ru (CAMO) he was executed on the verdict of the tribunal of the Bryansk Front for an unspecified crime on 17 July 1942, exactly 24 years to the day the Romanovs were executed.[6]
On October 1, 2008, the Presidium of the Russian Supreme Court approved a petition to recognize the Imperial Family and many of their servants, including Sednev, as victims of political repression.[7] However, of those listed on the original petition only Nicholas, his wife and their five children received mention in the verdict.