FACT CHECK: Is This The Last Photo Of The Queen Of Mongolia Before She Was Executed?
An image shared on Instagram purportedly shows the last photo of Mongolian Queen Genepil before she was executed in 1938.
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Verdict: Misleading
Though the description of Queen Genepil’s death is mostly accurate, the image included in the post is a screen grab from a 2000 Mongolian film. It is not an authentic photograph of the queen.
Fact Check:
The Instagram post shows a woman in royal garb being led through a desert area by two uniformed soldiers with rifles. “The last photo taken of Genepil, the last Queen of Mongolia moments before she was executed by orders of Stalin during the cultural erasure of Soviet Mongolia and Stalinization,” reads the caption of the Instagram post, which goes on to claim the queen was five months pregnant at the time of her death.
The image featured in the Instagram post is not an actual photo of the queen, however. A reverse image search revealed the image is a screen grab of a Mongolian movie that’s title roughly translates to “The Last Queen of the King,” which is available online. The screen grab can be seen at the 1:55:10 mark in the film. The movie is described as a historical tragedy that focuses on the last emperor of Mongolia and “the Queen of the 8th Jebtsundamba, Genepil,” according to a translated page of the Mongolian website Mongol-kino.mn.
While the photo is not authentic, the post’s description of the queen’s death is mostly accurate. (RELATED: Do These Photos Show The Execution Of An Algerian Computer Hacker?)
Queen Genepil was the final wife of Mongolia’s last monarch, Bogd Khan, according to the Jetset Times. Following the death of Khan, Soviet-backed communists took over the country and subsequently arrested and executed the queen alongside her father and unborn child in 1938 on charges of conspiring with the Japanese, the outlet reported.
