Anna Anderson

Anna Anderson (Tchaikovskaya, Manakhan, Shantskovskaya) is the most famous of the women who posed as Grand Duchess Anastasia, daughter of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. Let's try to figure out whether Anna Anderson was Princess Anastasia Romanova or is she just another swindler, an impostor, or just a sick person.

Unknown Russian, or Anastasia Romanova

The rumor that this woman was Grand Duchess Anastasia stirred up the world after a Berlin police report on February 17, 1920 registered a girl saved from a suicide attempt. She had no documents with her and refused to give her name. She had blond hair with a brown sheen and piercing gray eyes. She spoke with a pronounced Slavic accent, so her personal file was marked as “unknown Russian”.

Since the spring of 1922, dozens of articles and books have been written about her. Anastasia Chaikovskaya, Anna Anderson, later - Anna Manahan (by her husband's last name). These are the names of the same woman. The last name written on her gravestone is Anastasia Manahan. She died on February 12, 1984, but even after her death, her fate haunts neither her friends nor her enemies.

Family of Nicholas II

Why did the myth about the salvation of Princess Anastasia and the only son of Nicholas II, Tsarevich Alexei, exist for a century? After all, only in 1991 was a common grave with the remains of the royal family discovered, among which the bodies of the prince and Anastasia were absent. And only in August 2007, remains were discovered near Yekaterinburg, presumably belonging to Tsarevich Alexei and the Grand Duchess. However, foreign experts have not confirmed this fact.

Confirmation of the death of Anastasia Romanova

In addition, there are a number of reasons that do not allow Anastasia to be considered dead along with the entire Royal Family on the night of July 17, 1918:

• “1. There is an eyewitness account who saw the wounded but alive Anastasia in the house on Voskresensky Prospekt in Yekaterinburg (almost opposite the Ipatiev house) in the early morning of July 17, 1918; it was Heinrich Kleinbezetl, a tailor from Vienna, an Austrian prisoner of war, who in the summer of 1918 worked in Yekaterinburg as an apprentice to the tailor Baudin. He saw her at the Baudin house in the early morning of July 17, a few hours after the brutal massacre in the basement of the Ipatiev house. It was brought by one of the guards (probably from the former more liberal guards - Yurovsky did not replace all the former guards), one of those few young guys who had long sympathized with the girls, the royal daughters;
• 2. There is a lot of confusion in the testimonies, reports and stories of the participants in this bloody massacre - even in different versions of the stories of the same participants;
• 3. It is known that the "Reds" were looking for the missing Anastasia for several months after the murder of the Royal Family;
• 4. It is known that one (or two?) women's corsets were not found. None of the investigations of the "whites" answers all questions, including the investigation of the investigator of the Kolchak commission, Nikolai Sokolov;
• 5. Until now, the archives of the Cheka-KGB-FSB about the murder of the Royal Family and about what the Chekists led by Yurovsky did in 1919 (a year after the execution) and officers of the MGB (Beria department) in 1946 were not opened. All documents about the execution of the Imperial family known so far (including Yurovsky's "Note") were obtained from other state archives (not from the archives of the FSB)."

The story of Anastasia Romanova

And so back to the story of Anna Anderson. A woman who was rescued from a suicide attempt was placed in the Elizabethan Hospital on Lützowstrasse. She admitted that she tried to kill herself, but declined to give a reason or comment. During the examination, the doctors found that six months ago she had a childbirth. For a girl "under the age of twenty", this was an important circumstance. On the chest and abdomen of the patient, they saw numerous scars from lacerations. On the head behind the right ear was a scar 3.5 cm long, deep enough for a finger to enter, as well as a scar on the forehead at the very roots of the hair. There was a characteristic scar on the foot of the right leg from a penetrating wound. It fully corresponded to the shape and size of the wounds inflicted by the bayonet of the Russian rifle. There are cracks in the upper jaw.

The day after the examination, she admitted to the doctor that she was afraid for her life: “It makes it clear that she does not want to name herself, fearing persecution. An impression of restraint born of fear. More fear than restraint." In the medical history it is also recorded that the patient has a congenital orthopedic foot disease hallux valgus of the third degree.

“The disease discovered in the patient by the doctors of the Dahldorf clinic absolutely coincided with the congenital disease of Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova. As one podiatrist put it, "It's easier to find two girls of the same age with the same fingerprints than with signs of congenital hallux valgus." The girls we are talking about still had the same height, foot size, hair and eye color, and portrait resemblance. It can be seen from the data of the medical record that the traces of Anna Anderson's injuries fully correspond to those that, according to the forensic investigator Tomashevsky, were inflicted on Anastasia in the basement of the Ipatiev house. The scar on the forehead also matches. Anastasia Romanova had such a scar since childhood, so she is the only daughter of Nicholas II who always wore hairstyles with bangs.

Anna Anderson

Anna calls herself Anastasia

Later, Anna declared herself the daughter of Nikolai Romanov, Anastasia, and said that she had come to Berlin hoping to find her aunt, Princess Irene, the sister of Tsaritsa Alexandra, but they did not recognize her in the palace and did not even listen to her. According to ‘Anastasia’, she attempted suicide because of shame and humiliation.

It was not possible to establish the exact data, and even the name of the patient (she was called Anna Anderson) - the 'princess' answered the questions at random, and although she understood the questions in Russian, she answered them in some other Slavic language. However, someone later claimed that the patient spoke in perfect Russian.

Her manners, gait, communication with other people are not devoid of a certain nobility. In addition, in conversations, the girl slipped quite competent judgments about different areas of life. She was well versed in art, in music, knew geography well, could freely list all the reigning persons of European states. In her appearance, a breed was clearly visible, “blue blood”, inherent only in persons of reigning dynasties or noble gentlemen and ladies close to the throne.

The news that a woman appeared, posing as the tsar's daughter, reached the Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna (Aunt Anastasia) and her mother Empress Maria Feodorovna (Anastasia's grandmother). According to their instructions, people who knew the royal family and Anastasia well began to come to the patient. They looked closely at Anna, asked her questions about life in Russia, about her salvation, about the facts of Anastasia's life, known only to those closest to the tsar. The girl, confused and confused, told and amazed many with her awareness. Despite the correct, but confusing answers and a slight external resemblance, a verdict was issued - this is not Anastasia.

Anna or Anastasia?

Interrogation of Anastasia Romanova

Another of the main arguments against Anderson being Anastasia was her categorical refusal to speak Russian. Many eyewitnesses also claimed that she generally understood very poorly when she was addressed in her native language. She herself, however, motivated her reluctance to speak Russian by the shock experienced while under arrest, when the guards forbade members of the emperor's family to communicate with each other in any other languages, since they could not understand them in this case. In addition, Anderson demonstrated an almost complete ignorance of Orthodox customs and rituals.

Why did the members of the House of Romanov in Europe and their relatives from the royal dynasties of Germany almost immediately, in the early 1920s, turn out to be opposed to it? “Firstly, Anna Anderson spoke sharply about Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich (“he is a traitor”) - the very one who, immediately after the abdication of Nicholas II, took his Guards carriage from Tsarskoye Selo and allegedly put on a red bow.

Secondly, she unintentionally revealed a big state secret, which concerned her mother's brother (Empress Alexandra Feodorovna), about the arrival of her uncle Ernie of Hesse to Russia in 1916. The visit was connected with the intentions to persuade Nicholas II to a separate peace with Germany. In the early twenties it was still a state secret

Thirdly, Anna-Anastasia herself was in such a difficult physical and psychological state (the consequences of severe injuries received in the basement of the Ipatiev house and the very difficult previous two years of wandering) that communication with her was not easy for any person. There is also an important fourth reason, but first things first.

Question of succession to the Russian throne

In 1922, in the Russian diaspora, the question of who would lead the dynasty was decided for the place of the "Emperor in Exile". The main contender was Kirill Vladimirovich Romanov. He, like most Russian emigrants, could not even imagine that the rule of the Bolsheviks would drag on for a long seven decades. The appearance of Anastasia caused confusion and division of opinion in the ranks of the monarchists. The following information about the physical and mental illness of the princess, and the presence of an heir to the throne, who was born in an unequal marriage (either from a soldier, or from a lieutenant of peasant origin), all this did not contribute to her immediate recognition, not to mention the consideration of her candidacy to the head of the dynasty.

“The Romanovs did not want to see in the role of God's anointed peasant son, who was either in Romania or in Soviet Russia. By the time she met her relatives in 1925, Anastasia was seriously ill with tuberculosis. Her weight barely reached 33 kg. The people surrounding Anastasia believed that her days were numbered. And who, besides her mother, needed her "bastard"? But she survived, and after meeting with Aunt Olya and other close people, she dreamed of meeting her grandmother, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna. She waited for the recognition of her relatives, and instead, in 1928, on the second day after the death of the Dowager Empress, several members of the Romanov family publicly disowned her, declaring that she was an impostor. The insult inflicted led to a break in relations.

Changeling or Princess Anastasia Romanova?

The fact that Anna Anderson was an impostor, and not Grand Duchess Anastasia, was immediately reported to Grand Duchess Olga. The Grand Duchess cannot calm down in any way, she is tormented by doubts, and in the fall of 1925, taking with her Alexandra Teglyova, the former nanny of Anastasia and Maria, and several ladies who are well acquainted with the royal family, she herself leaves for Berlin.

At the meeting, Anastasia's nanny did not recognize her ward in Anna, only the color of her eyes matched completely. Those eyes suddenly filled with tears of joy. Anna went up to Tyeglyova and, hugging her tightly, began to cry. Looking at this touching scene, the ladies who arrived were dumbfounded, but not the Grand Duchess. Seeing Anastasia for the last time in 1916, she determined at first glance that the girl standing in front of her had nothing to do with her niece.

Answering the questions of the ladies present, Anna Anderson discovered a good knowledge of the customs and orders of the imperial house. She even mentioned a finger injury, showing the scar on it to the arriving ladies. She also indicated the time - 1915, when the footman, slamming the carriage door hard, pinched the Grand Duchess's finger.

The girl affectionately called Teglyova Shura and told about several funny incidents from her childhood. They really took place, and the former nanny hesitated. The woman was already ready to recognize Anna Anderson as her pupil, when she suddenly remembered that case with the finger. It happened not to Anastasia, but to Maria - and not in a carriage, but in a train compartment. The charm, woven by a stranger from sweet memories, dissipated. But there was one more piece of evidence that needed to be verified.

Anastasia's big toes had a slight curvature. This does not happen often with young girls, and Tyeglyova, overcoming her awkwardness, asked Anna Anderson to take off her shoes. She, not embarrassed at all, took off her shoes. The above toes did indeed look crooked, but the feet themselves did not match Anastasia's. At the daughter of Nicholas II, they were elegant and small, but here they are wide and much larger. And another verdict - an impostor.

royal family

Life of Anastasia Romanova

The break in relations with most of the relatives forced Anna to defend her rights in court. So in the life of Anastasia appeared forensic experts. The first graphological examination was made in 1927. It was carried out by an employee of the Institute of Graphology in Prysna, Dr. Lucy Weizsäcker. Comparing the handwriting on the recently written samples with the handwriting on the samples written by Anastasia during the life of Nicholas II, Lucy Weizsacker came to the conclusion that the samples belong to the same person.

In 1938, at the insistence of Anna, the trial begins and ends only in 1977. It lasts 39 years and is one of the longest trials in modern human history. All this time, Anna lives in America, then in her own house in the village of the Black Forest, donated to her by the Prince of Saxe-Coburg.

In 1968, at the age of 70, Anderson marries a major industrialist John Manahan from Virginia, who dreamed of getting a real Russian princess as his wife, and becomes Anna Manahan. It is interesting that during her stay in the United States, Anna meets with Mikhail Golenevsky, who pretended to be the “miracle of the saved Tsarevich Alexei”, and publicly recognizes him as her brother.

In 1977, the trial finally put an end to it. The court denied Anna Manakhan the right to inherit the property of the royal family, as it considered the available evidence of her relationship with the Romanovs insufficient. Never having achieved her goal, the mysterious woman dies on February 12, 1984.

The opinions of experts about whether Anderson was the real daughter of the emperor, or a simple impostor, remained controversial. When in 1991 it was decided to exhume the remains of the royal family, a study was also carried out on Anna's relationship with the Romanov family. DNA examinations did not show Anderson's belonging to the Russian royal family.

Now I will give the floor to the American author Peter Kurt, whose book “Anastasia. The Mystery of Anna Anderson" (in Russian translation "Anastasia. The Mystery of the Grand Duchess") is considered by many to be the best in the historiography of this riddle (and wonderfully written). Peter Kurt was personally acquainted with Anna Anderson. Here is what he wrote in the afterword to the Russian edition of his book:

Stories about Anastasia Romanova

“Truth is a trap; it cannot be possessed without being caught. She can't be caught, she catches the man."
Soren Kierkegaard

“Fiction must remain within the bounds of the possible. The truth is no."
Mark Twain

These quotes were sent to me by a friend in 1995, shortly after the Department of Forensic Medicine at the British Home Office announced that mitochondrial DNA testing of "Anna Anderson" had conclusively proven that she was not Grand Duchess Anastasia, the youngest daughter of Czar Nicholas II. According to a group of British geneticists at Aldermaston, led by Dr. Peter Gill, Ms Anderson's DNA does not match either the DNA of female skeletons recovered from a grave near Yekaterinburg in 1991 and presumably belonged to the Tsarina and her three daughters, nor the DNA of Anastasia's maternal relatives. and paternal line living in England and elsewhere. At the same time, a blood test of Karl Mauger, the great-nephew of the disappeared factory worker Franziska Schanzkowska, found a mitochondrial match, suggesting that Franziska and Anna Anderson are the same person. Subsequent tests in other laboratories looking at the same DNA led to the same conclusion.

… I have known Anna Anderson for more than a decade and have known virtually everyone who has been involved in her struggle for recognition over the past quarter of a century: friends, lawyers, neighbors, journalists, historians, representatives of the Russian royal family and the royal families of Europe, Russian and European aristocracy - a wide range of competent witnesses, who did not hesitate to recognize her as the royal daughter. My knowledge of her character, all the details of her case, and, it seems to me, probability and common sense, all convince me that she was a Russian Grand Duchess.

This belief of mine, although disputed (by DNA research), remains unshakable. Not being an expert, I cannot question Dr. Gill's results; if these results only revealed that Mrs. Anderson was not a member of the Romanov family, I might perhaps be able to accept them, if not easily now, then at least in time. However, no amount of scientific evidence or forensic evidence will convince me that Ms. Anderson and Franziska Shantskowska are the same person.

I categorically affirm that those who knew Anna Anderson, who lived next to her for months and years, treated her and looked after her during her many illnesses, whether they were a doctor or a nurse, who observed her behavior, posture, demeanor, — cannot believe that she was born in a village in East Prussia in 1896 and was the daughter and sister of beetroot farmers.”

So, in the case of Anastasia Romanova, we can state the following

• "one. Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova had a congenital deformity of both feet “Hallux Valgus” (bunions of the big toe). This can be seen not only in some photographs of the young Grand Duchess, but was confirmed after 1920 even by those close to her (to Anastasia) people who did not believe in the identity of Anna Anderson (for example, the younger sister of the tsar, Olga Alexandrovna - and she knew the imperial children from their birth; this was also confirmed by Pierre Gilliard, the teacher of the royal children, who had been at court since 1905). It was just a congenital case of the disease. (little Anastasia's) nanny, Alexandra (Shura) Teglev, also confirmed Anastasia's congenital bursitis of the big toes.
• 2. Anna Anderson also had a congenital deformity of both feet “Hallux Valgus” (bunions of the big toe).
  In addition to the diagnosis of German doctors (in Dahldorf in 1920), the diagnosis of congenital "Hallux Valgus" was made to Anna Anderson (Anna Tchaikovskaya) also by the Russian doctor Sergei Mikhailovich Rudnev at the St. Maria in the summer of 1925 (Anna Chaikovskaya-Anderson was there in a serious condition, with tuberculosis infections): “On her right leg, I noticed a severe deformity, obviously congenital: the thumb bends to the right, forming a tumor.”
  Rudnev also noted that "Hallux Valgus" was on her both legs. (see Peter Kurt. - Anastasia. The mystery of the Grand Duchess. M., Zakharova publishing house, p. 99). Dr. Sergei Rudnev cured and saved her life in 1925. Anna Anderson called him "my kind Russian professor who saved my life."
• 3. On July 27, 1925, the Gilliards arrived in Berlin. Once again: Shura Gilliard-Tegleva was Anastasia's nanny in Russia. They visited the very ill Anna Anderson at the clinic. Shura Tegleva asked me to show her the patient's legs (feet). The blanket was carefully turned away, Shura exclaimed: "With her [with Anastasia] it was the same as here: the right leg was worse than the left" (see Peter Kurt's book, p. 121)
  Now, I will give once again the data of medical statistics "Hallux Valgus" (bursitis of the big toe) in Russia:
  - "Hallux valgus" (HV) is 0.95% of the women surveyed;
  - 89% of them have the first degree of HV (= 0.85% of the examined women);
  - the third degree of HV has 1.6% of them (= 0.0152% of the examined women or 1: 6580);
  - the statistics of a congenital case of hallux valgus (in modern Russia) is 8:142,000,000, or approximately 1:17,750,000!

We can assume that the statistics of the congenital case of "hallux valgus" in former Russia did not differ too much (even if by several times, 1: 10,000,000, or 1: 5,000,000). Thus, the probability that Anna Anderson was not Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova is between 1:5 million and 1:17 million.

Evidence of Anna's relationship to the Romanov dynasty

It is also known that the statistics of a congenital case of this orthopedic disease in the West in the first half of the 20th century was also calculated in single cases for the entire orthopedic medical practice.
Thus, the very rare congenital deformity of the legs "hallux valgus" of Grand Duchess Anastasia and Anna Anderson puts an end to the tough (and sometimes cruel) disputes between supporters and opponents of Anna Anderson.

Vladimir Momot published his article ("Gone with the Wind") in February 2007 in the American newspaper "Panorama" (Los-Angeles, newspaper "Panorama"). He did a great deed to restore the truth about Anna Anderson and the royal daughter Anastasia. It's amazing how for more than 80 years no one thought to know the medical statistics of hallux valgus foot deformity! Truly, this story is reminiscent of the tale of the crystal slipper!

Now we can be completely and irrevocably sure that Anna Anderson and Grand Duchess Anastasia are one and the same person.”

So who is Anna Anderson really, an impostor or Anastasia Romanova? If Anna Anderson and Grand Duchess Anastasia are one and the same person, then it remains to be clarified whose remains were buried under the name of Grand Duchess Anastasia in St. Petersburg in July 1998 (however, there are doubts about other remains buried then), and whose the remains were found in the summer of 2007 in the Koptyakovsky forest.

Anastasia

And finally, an excerpt from the story of S. Sadalsky "The Mystery of the Princess": Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova - June 5, 1901 - Peterhof - July 17, 1918, Yekaterinburg. “In the early 80s, when by the will of fate I began to visit the FRG quite often, I showed great interest in the old Russian emigrants, who, like fragments of Russian culture, were still preserved there. I reached out to them, and they - to me. The Soviets at that time were afraid of them like the devil incense.

My curiosity was rewarded by my acquaintance with Princess Anastasia, who, before her death, came to Hanover to say goodbye to her friends and her youth.

Naturally, I told her in Russian (she answered in German) that I saw the Ipatiev house in Sverdlovsk during my tour with the Sovremennik Theater, that the inhabitants of the city revere this place extraordinarily and bring flowers to it.

Then, on the orders of the first secretary of the regional committee of the Yeltsin party, the house was demolished overnight, but the residents took everything brick by brick home and keep it as a shrine.

The princess listened and wept and asked me to bow to that place. She died in America in 1984."

P.S.: "Holy Princess Anastasia The youngest daughter, Anastasia, was born in 1901. At first, she was a tomboy and family jester. She was shorter than the others; she had a straight nose and beautiful gray eyes. Later, she was distinguished by good manners and subtlety of mind, had the talent of a comedian and loved to make everyone laugh. She was also extremely kind and loved animals. Anastasia had a small dog of the Japanese breed, the favorite of the whole family. Anastasia carried this dog in her arms when she went down to the Yekaterinburg basement on the fateful night of July 4/17, and the little dog was killed along with her.”

Based on the article by Boris Romanov "Crystal Slippers of Princess Anastasia"

Comments

Vitaly Pavlovich Romanov

I am also convinced that Toska interfered a lot
Cyril and his pack to warm themselves from the royal treasury, and
Olya dreamed of taking over the throne. The greed of it
family is palpable to me.

The Grand Duke himself is at your service.
Romanov Vitaly Pavlovich

Romanov Vitaly Pavlovich

My surname is Romanov. I have never been interested in my origin. Now I've become an old man and
I really want to know who am I? Maybe also a charlatan like Anderson? And Anastasia lived for 17 years
in Russia, but did not know the language of her homeland. The conclusion suggests itself - your Anderson is
scammer. Romanov V.P. is at your service…

Victoria

You know, I was never interested in the Second World War or any kind of revolution. I was always interested in the Romanovs, the Romanov clan, where they were born, how they celebrated 300 years of the throne. But most of all I was interested in Anastasia. Did she survive, or did she escape? This question I’ve been interested in me for many years. I just can’t believe that she, like everyone else, was shot in the basement. She suffered for so many years, proving that she was the one, Anastasia Romanova. Do you know? I believe that “Anna Anderson” was that Anastasia to her. After all, while she was in the forest, or where she had been walking for 2 years, she had a curvature of her toes. And earlier, as Tyegleva said, she had soft, tender legs. !!No, it was Anastasia!

Ural historians found the remains of the royal family back in 1976, but the excavations themselves were carried out only in 1991. Then, with the help of many examinations, scientists managed to prove that the body fragments found belong to Tsar Nicholas, Empress Alexandra, three daughters - Olga, Tatiana and Anastasia, as well as their servants. Only the bodies of Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria, who were not found in the general burial, remained mysterious. http://ura.ru/content/svrd/16-09-2011/news/1052134206.html .

This news shocked humanity. The Bolshevik regime shot and killed the Russian Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, their four children and four servants with bayonets in the basement of a small house in the Urals.

After the revolution and the abdication of the king from the throne, the Russian Empire lost its former power, and, as a result, the royal family was sent into exile and then shot.

Since then, many assumptions have been put forward about their death. They say that the youngest of the daughters of the Tsar, Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, escaped the tragic fate of the rest of the family. She was saved by a Russian soldier, who was subsequently shot. Thus was born the legend of Anastasia, which historians and scientists have studied for many decades.

According to the official version, after the February Revolution of 1917, Nicholas abdicated on March 2. The struggle for power between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks ended with the victory of the latter, and they seized power in the state, headed by Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin).

They created the Red Army and established communist rule. The arrested royal family was sent to Yekaterinburg (Urals), but a few months later, fearing that the White Guards would try to free the tsar, the Bolshevik government in July 1918 ordered the execution of the royal family, which was carried out in the basement of the house of the merchant Ipatiev by a group of Red Guards under commanded by Yakov Yurovsky.

The whole family and servants were gathered in the basement, saying that they would be photographed now. But instead of the photographer, a group of soldiers entered, and Yurovsky turned to the tsar, saying that the Russian people had sentenced him to death. Shots were heard immediately. Then the executioners examined the bodies and finished off with bayonets those who still showed signs of life.

They wanted to take the bodies to a safer place, but the car broke down, and it was decided to bury them in the nearby Ganina Pit. They dug a grave there, put the dead in it and poured sulfuric acid and lime on it. But, as one of the soldiers who participated in the execution said, Anastasia and her younger brother Tsarevich Alexei were buried elsewhere.

On the basis of this episode, the legend was born that Anastasia remained alive. In a memorandum that Yurovsky sent to his superiors in Moscow in 1918, nothing was said about the episode with Anastasia.

The White Guard troops, who fought for the restoration of the monarchy with the Reds, soon occupied Yekaterinburg and did not find any traces of the tsar and his family, who were secretly buried in Ganina Yama.

Since then, there have been many stories that to this day pass from mouth to mouth. They are told by various monarchists and "witnesses", based on an event that shocked the world: Anastasia Romanova, the youngest of the four daughters of the tsar, apparently remained alive and, after a series of ups and downs, appeared in public under the name Anna Anderson, demanding to recognize herself as the Grand Duchess Romanova, the legitimate daughter of the Tsar.

Anne Anderson, who declared that she was the daughter of the king, excited the world community, dividing it into two opposing camps. Her story sounded very convincing to the press and the salon public, as well as to ordinary people on all continents.

Although not only Anna demanded recognition as the daughter of Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra, she soon became the only contender, since for more than half a century she insistently claimed that she was the real Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanova.

Thorough investigations were carried out against Anna, because if it had been proved that she was the real Anastasia, then the tsar’s vast fortune would have passed to her, which was completely not in the interests of the closest relatives of Nicholas II, who forfeited all rights to the inheritance.

It all started on February 27, 1920 in Berlin, when a young girl tried to commit suicide by jumping from a bridge into the Landwehrkanal. She was rescued by a police sergeant and taken to a psychiatric hospital. Since she did not have any documents with her, she was recorded as Fräulein Unbekannt, that is, an unknown girl. She began to call herself Anna Chaikovskaya and stayed there for two years.

Clara Peuthert, one of the residents of the psychiatric hospital, assured that Anne was one of the daughters of the king - Tatyana or Anastasia. After leaving the hospital, Peitert spread the news, and it gained great notoriety. Anna was visited by journalists, Russian emigrants and even people close to the royal family. History began to gain momentum.

Some accepted her, while others called her an impostor. Upon leaving the hospital, she was received by many who believed in her, including representatives of the nobility who found themselves in exile. They sheltered her and helped financially.

Anna had a difficult character, which was explained by her difficult fate. She was invited to Switzerland and various German cities between 1922 and 1927. One of the queen's relatives even placed her in Seeon Castle. Maria, the mother of the king, was convinced that Anna was Anastasia, while other relatives denied this, which added even more mystery to the whole story.

American journalist Gleb Botkin wrote a number of articles on this topic. Anastasia's childhood friend, Princess Xenia Leeds, who was married to an American industrial magnate, lived in the United States. She became interested in Anna and invited her to visit her in the United States, where Anna met many Russian emigrants who believed in Botkin's articles. There, Anne took the name Anderson.

Together with lawyer Edward Fallows, the journalist founded the Grand Russian Duchess Anastasia Corporation (Grandanor), which handled the sale of Romanov property when it was handed over to Anna/Anastasia by the British royal court, who was in the know.

Anne Anderson returned to Germany in 1931, but returned to the United States in 1968, where Botkin resided. She lived there until her death in 1984. Died of pneumonia. A few months earlier, she married Jack Manahan, who was 20 years younger and called himself "the king's son-in-law."

In the 1970s, the litigation ended, and neither side was able to establish whether Anne Anderson was the real Anastasia or simply pretended to be the daughter of Nicholas II. The fascinating legend has remained a mystery.

The materials of InoSMI contain only assessments of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the editors of InoSMI.

“At about 3 o’clock, Alix began to experience severe pain. At 4 o'clock I got up and went to my room and got dressed. Daughter was born at exactly 6 am Anastasia. Everything happened under excellent conditions quickly and, thank God, without complications. Because it all started and ended while everyone was still sleeping, we both had a sense of calm and solitude! After that, he sat down to write telegrams and notify relatives in all parts of the world. Luckily Alix is ​​doing well. The baby weighs 11½ pounds and is 55 cm tall."

This is how the last Russian emperor described in his diary the birth of his youngest, fourth daughter, which took place on June 18, 1901.

The birth of little Anastasia did not cause delight among the Romanovs. Sister of Nicholas, Grand Duchess Xenia, wrote about it like this: “What a disappointment! 4th girl! ... Mom telegraphed me about the same and writes: “Alix again gave birth to a daughter!”

According to the laws in force at that time in the Russian Empire, introduced even Paul I, women could inherit the throne only in the event of the suppression of all male lines of the family. This meant that the heir of the father of four daughters Nicholas II should be his younger brother Michael.

This prospect did not please the Romanov clan too much, but Emperor's wife Alexander Feodorovna and completely infuriated. The empress had high hopes for the fourth birth, but a girl reappeared. Alexandra Fedorovna managed to give birth to an heir only on the fifth attempt.

"Kubyshka", who did not like arithmetic

Grand Duchess Anastasia did not face the prospect of taking the throne. Like her sisters, she was educated at home, which began at the age of eight. The program included French, English and German, history, geography, the Law of God, natural sciences, drawing, grammar, arithmetic, as well as dance and music.

While studying, “Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess of Russia Anastasia Nikolaevna” had a special dislike for arithmetic and grammar. Anastasia loved games, dances, charades.

For mobility and hooligan disposition in the family, she was called "shvybzik", and for her small stature and a figure prone to fullness - "pod".

In accordance with the traditions of the imperial family, at the age of 14, each of the daughters of the emperor became an honorary commander of one of the Russian regiments. In 1915, Anastasia became the honorary commander of the 148th Caspian Infantry Regiment.

Maria and Anastasia in the hospital in Tsarskoye Selo. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

During the First World War, Anastasia, together with her sister Maria, arranged concerts for wounded soldiers in hospitals, read to them, and helped them write letters home.

In the spring of 1917, the daughters of Nicholas II, who had already abdicated, fell ill with measles. Because of the high temperature and strong drugs, the girls began to lose their hair, and they were shaved bald. Their brother Alexei, who was spared by illness, insisted that he be tonsured in the same way as his sisters. In memory of this, a photo was taken - the shaved heads of the emperor's children, protruding from behind the black drapery. Today, some see this image as a grim omen.

Anastasia, Olga, Alexei, Maria and Tatyana after measles (June 1917) Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

Life under house arrest for the daughters of Nicholas II was not too burdensome - the girls were not spoiled even in the palace, where they grew up, if not in Spartan, then very harsh conditions.

During her stay in Tobolsk, Anastasia was enthusiastically engaged in sewing and preparing firewood.

Birthday at the Ipatiev House

In May 1918, the Romanov family was taken to Yekaterinburg, to the house engineer Ipatiev. On June 18, Anastasia celebrated her 17th birthday.

From left to right - Olga, Nikolai, Anastasia, Tatyana. Tobolsk (winter 1917) Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

By this time, she was almost no longer interested in children's fun - Anastasia, like all girls at her age, was worried about the relatively imaginary and real shortcomings of her own figure. With the outbreak of the war, she, along with her sisters, became addicted to smoking. In the last period before the abdication of her father, Anastasia was fond of photography and loved to chat on the phone.

In the Romanov family, there were generally few people with good health, and Anastasia was not among the elect. Doctors believed that she, like her mother, was a carrier of hemophilia. Since childhood, she suffered from pain in her feet - a consequence of a congenital curvature of her big toes. Anastasia had a weak back, but she avoided special exercises and massages aimed at correcting this shortcoming.

On the night of July 16-17, 1918, Anastasia Romanova was shot in the basement of the house of engineer Ipatiev, along with her sisters, brother, parents and close associates.

A short life with a sad ending. But surprisingly, after her death, Anastasia became the most famous representative of the family of Nicholas II in the world, eclipsing, perhaps, the emperor himself.

Berlin clinic girl

The story of the “miraculous salvation” of Grand Duchess Anastasia has been exciting minds for almost a century now. Books have been written about her, films have been made, and in 1997 the full-length cartoon Anastasia was released, which grossed $140 million worldwide. For the best song "Anastasia" was even nominated for an Oscar.

Anastasia. Photo: Frame from the cartoon

Why, of the entire imperial family, was it Anastasia who gained such fame?

It happened thanks to a woman named Anna Anderson, who declared herself a Grand Duchess, who escaped execution.

In February 1920 in Berlin, a policeman rescued a young woman who tried to commit suicide by jumping from a bridge. From the confused explanations of the lady, it followed that in the capital of Germany she was looking for royal relatives, but they allegedly rejected her, after which the woman decided to commit suicide.

Anna Anderson. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

The failed suicide was sent to a psychiatric clinic, where, upon examination, numerous scars from gunshot wounds were found on her body. The patient understood Russian, but the doctors still believed that her native language was Polish. In the clinic, she did not give her name and was generally reluctant to enter into conversations.

In 1921, rumors began to circulate especially actively in Europe that one of the daughters of Nicholas II could have survived the execution in Yekaterinburg.

Looking at photographs of the daughters of the Russian emperor, published in newspapers, one of the patients of the clinic found that her neighbor was extremely similar to one of them.

With this, the epic of Anna Anderson - Anastasia began.

“I hid behind my sister Tatyana”

Russian emigrants began to visit the clinic, trying to understand whether the unknown, suffering from memory loss, is really the daughter of the emperor.

At the same time, they initially said that the patient of the psychiatric hospital was not Anastasia, but Tatiana.

Most of the visitors from among those who knew the royal daughters were convinced that the unknown lady had nothing to do with the children of Nicholas II.

But they paid attention to the fact that the “princess” grasps everything on the fly - after one visitor, trying to remind her of the “royal past”, told her episodes from the life of the royal daughters, she passed these words to the next as her own “memories”.

Anna Anderson. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

In 1922, Anna Anderson openly declared herself to be Anastasia Romanova for the first time.

“I was with everyone on the night of the murder, and when the massacre began, I hid behind my sister Tatyana, who was shot dead. I lost consciousness from several blows. When I came to my senses, I found that I was in the house of some soldier who had saved me. By the way, I went to Romania with his wife, and when she died, I decided to make my way to Germany alone, ”the woman said about her“ miraculous salvation ”.

The stories of Anna Anderson, who left the clinic and found support from those who believed her, changed over time and were full of inconsistencies. Despite this, opinion was divided on her account: some were convinced that Anna Anderson was an impostor, others also firmly insisted that she was really Anastasia.

"Anna Anderson vs. Romanovs"

In 1928, Anna Anderson moved to the United States, where she began to actively fight for the recognition of herself as Anastasia. At the same time, the "Romanov Declaration" appeared, in which the surviving members of the Russian imperial house resolutely denied any relationship with her.

The problem, however, was that less than half of the 44 Romanovs signed this document. Some Romanovs stubbornly supported Anna Anderson, they were joined by Tatyana and Gleb Botkins, children of the last life physician of the court, killed along with the royal family.

In 1928, Gleb Botkin stood at the origins of the creation of the joint-stock company Grandanor (Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia) - that is, the Russian Grand Duchess Anastasia.

The company intended to defend the interests of Anna Anderson in the courts, seeking her recognition by Anastasia. At stake was "royal gold" - the foreign treasures of the Romanovs, which were estimated at tens of millions of dollars. If successful, Anna Anderson was to be their sole heir.

The trial "Anna Anderson v. Romanovs" started in Berlin in 1938, stretching for several decades. It was a series of lawsuits, which in 1977 ended in nothing. The court considered the available evidence of Anna Anderson's relationship with the Romanovs insufficient, although her opponents failed to prove that Anderson was not really Anastasia.

Opponents of "Anastasia" from among the Romanovs, having spent a lot of money on paying private detectives, provided evidence that Anna Anderson is in fact a Pole Franciska Shantskovskaya, a worker at the Berlin explosives factory. The wounds on her body, according to this version, were received during an explosion at the enterprise.

Anna Anderson even arranged a confrontation with the Shantskovskys, at which they identified her as their relative.

However, not everyone believed their testimonies, especially since the Shantskovskys themselves sometimes recognized Anna Francis, sometimes they refused their words.

"Alas, it wasn't her"

The long lawsuit made the alleged "Anastasia" very famous in the West, inspiring writers and directors to create works about her fate.

At the end of her life, Anna Anderson again found herself in a psychiatric clinic, this time in Charlottesville, in the US state of Virginia. On February 12, 1984, she died of pneumonia. Her body, according to the will, was cremated, and the ashes were buried in the chapel of Zeon Castle in Bavaria.

By 2008, numerous DNA analyzes of the alleged remains of the royal family, found in 1991, carried out by experts in several laboratories in different countries, gave an unambiguous conclusion - we are really talking about the family of Nicholas II, and all of its representatives really died in the Ipatiev house.

An analysis of Anna Anderson's tissue samples taken from her during her lifetime and preserved in the Charlottesville clinic showed that she had nothing to do with the Romanovs. But two independent DNA tests confirmed her genetic closeness to the Shantskovsky family.

Grand Duchess Anastasia, circa 1912. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

Anna Anderson was the most famous, but far from the only false Anastasia. Great-great-grandson of Emperor Nicholas I, Prince Dmitry Romanov said: “In my memory there were from 12 to 19 self-proclaimed Anastasius. In the conditions of the post-war depression, many went crazy. We, the Romanovs, would be happy if Anastasia, even in the person of this very Anna Anderson, turned out to be alive. But alas, it wasn't her.

"Children of the Emperor" as "Children of Lieutenant Schmidt"

The prince turned out to be wrong only in one thing - there were much more false Anastasius. To date, 34 “miraculously saved Anastasias” are known. Most of them did not show such activity as Anna Anderson, some of the "royal origin" was attributed posthumously by all sorts of lovers of historical secrets.

Who was not among the "Anastasias" - and peasant women who revealed the "secret" to their children before their death, and patients in psychiatric clinics, and clever swindlers, sometimes having nothing to do with Russia at all. The last of the false Anastasias passed away in 2000, but some of their heirs, these women, are still fighting to recognize themselves as Romanovs.

“But why exactly Anastasia?” - a logical question of an inquisitive reader will be heard.

In fact, not only Anastasia. The “miraculously saved children of Nicholas II” are no less than the famous “children of Lieutenant Schmidt” from the Golden Calf. Researchers of this phenomenon counted 28 false Olgas, 33 false Tatyanas, 53 false Marys. But all the records were broken by the false Alexei - there are more than 80 of them today. And each has its own history of salvation, its supporters, confident in the truth of the applicant.

All this has nothing to do with the tragic fate of Alexei, Anastasia, Maria, Tatiana and Olga Romanov, as history False Dmitry has nothing to do with the fate of the unfortunate junior son of Ivan the Terrible.

But in history it sometimes happens that impostors leave a more vivid mark on it than those whose name turned out to be appropriated.

She signed her letters to freedom in the name of Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanova.

This story has haunted me for nearly twenty years now. Ever since the history of Nadezhda Vladimirovna Ivanova-Vasilyeva, who pretended to be Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanova, turned yellow with time, was discovered in the archives of the Kazan Psychiatric Hospital with intensive surveillance. There were many false princesses, but none of them were treated so cruelly by the authorities. Her life has become a series of ongoing torments in camps and prison mental hospitals.

And here is another call from the past. More recently, in the archives of Pompolit (“E.P. Peshkova. Help for political prisoners”), her letters to Stalin and Ekaterina Peshkova were discovered.

Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanova.

Moscow. Kremlin. Red Square. Joseph Vissarionovich personally to Stalin. Urgently.

“Dear Joseph Vissarionovich! Forgive me for disturbing you, but I want to speak to you urgently. I'll be waiting. This is written to you by the former daughter of Nicholas II, the youngest Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova. Then I must inform you that my relative, the former King of England Edward Georgievich, is to come to me. I wrote him a letter and am waiting for his arrival. I warn you, Iosif Vissarionovich, that I have been arrested, I have been suffering for 20 years in prisons, in concentration camps, in exile. I was in Solovki and now I am in the special corps of the NKVD. However, all my life, from the age of 15, as a girl, as I was saved from death by a Red Guard commander, wounded, since then I have been suffering only for my origin. And so I wrote to my relatives and I want an end to my suffering and they take me away from the borders of the Soviet Union. I am sending this letter through Ekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova, Maxim Gorky's wife. Respectfully yours, A. Romanova. June 22, 1938, Kazan.

Moscow, Kuznetsky Most, 24. Help for political prisoners. Ekaterina Pavlovna personally Peshkova.

“Hello, beloved, dear Ekaterina Pavlovna! I send you my heartfelt greetings. Forgive me for disturbing you, but I decided to make a small request. I beg you, do not refuse, if you can, help me in view of the fact that some things were stolen from me in the clothing warehouse where I am, and there is no one to ask from ... When I was in Moscow in 1934, I received foreign things through the Swedish embassy from my friend Gretty Janson... Kindly send me, if you can, a coat and a stocking as soon as possible, for which I will be sincerely grateful and will try to thank you at the first opportunity...

The daughter of the former Nicholas II is writing to you, 20 years ago I was saved from death, wounded, a 15-year-old girl ... Now I am 36 years old. I personally suffered a lot, I experienced horror. And now I'm glad that my relatives found out about me, and we should be together. I don't know if they'll give me up or not. I am sitting for only one of my origins, I am not to blame for anything else. I had a fake passport in the name of Ivanova-Vasilyeva, but for this I left ...

These letters were found in Pompolit's archive by Leah Dolzhanskaya, a historian, archivist, employee of the Memorial research and information and educational center and author of a book about the life of Ekaterina Peshkova, Maxim Gorky's first wife.

Nadezhda Vladimirovna Ivanova-Vasilyeva wrote dozens of letters and petitions. All of them are filed in her medical history and, of course, did not go beyond the closed institution. She, of course, guessed that she was writing to nowhere, because she never received an answer. The prisoner tried to smuggle her letters through the nurses, as evidenced by the entry in the medical history, and once miraculously succeeded. There was a man who believed in the story of the “queen” so much that he was not afraid to violate the strict rules of the special corps and take letters out of the regime institution, and then deliver them to Moscow. It was a courageous act, fraught with enormous risk. The leaflets from the dungeons, written in flying handwriting, reached the addressee - Ekaterina Peshkova. And they went to the archive.

The strange patient, who stood out from the surrounding friends in misfortune and appearance, and manners, and stories about royal life, was believed. As, however, in the short period of her life outside the prison and hospital walls, when, according to the investigation, a counter-revolutionary group of monarchist-minded believers formed around her.

Nun Valeria Makeeva, who shared a ward with Ivanova-Vasilyeva, told me that Nadezhda Vladimirovna was not considered an impostor in the hospital, and every year on her name day, January 4, tea was even arranged in the building. Nurses and nannies brought pastries from home with the words: “Today the queen is celebrating!” The head physician once asked Valeria: “What do you think, maybe our patient is Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna?”

A participant in the Great Patriotic War, Antonina Mikhailovna Belova, who ended up in a prison hospital for “seditious diary entries” and from 1952 to 1956 was also in the same ward with the “queen”, wrote in a letter to the editor: “Knowing a lot about “treatment”, I silent on leaving the hospital about everything. But, having heard about your article, I decided to tell about my face-to-face meeting with Anastasia. I was driven by the duty of being a Christian. She was the true youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II. She had an almost non-Russian face: almost oval in shape, her nose was longer than usual, with a slight hump. Dark eyebrows are shifted to the bridge of the nose, eyes are large, sharp. What amazed me most of all was the out-of-date, beautiful, high hairstyle... Anastasia told me about her miraculous salvation, about the fact that an earring with diamonds had been torn out of her ear. She lifted a strand of her hair: her ear was half ugly torn off from below ... I was numb. There was no doubt left in me that there was a great prisoner in section 9.”

Anastasia said: “I lost consciousness and then I don’t remember anything. I woke up in a basement. In such a tragic way, one of the entire House of Romanov, to my sorrow, I survived; more than once, envying the members of the executed family, she asked for death.

Moscow, Kuznetsky Most, 24, - Pompolit's address, like a password, was passed from hand to hand. It was the last hope for the "enemies of the people" and their families.

For fifteen years, until July 1938, a service legally operated in the USSR, which tried in every possible way to alleviate the fate of people who fell under the millstones of repression! Of course, unlike the political Red Cross, which existed until 1922, Pompolit could not provide legal protection, but still his help was invaluable. He supported the prisoners and their families with money, food, clothes, medicines, petitioned for a review of the case, reducing the term of imprisonment. For the past six months, the organization has practically not worked. In 1937, Ekaterina Pavlovna's assistant Mikhail Vinaver was given 25 years, and Peshkova was powerless. She couldn't help anyone anymore.

On the letter of Ivanova-Vasilyeva there is a handwritten note by Ekaterina Pavlovna: “Mentally ill. E.P.” This meant that the letters would not be given a go and they would remain under wraps. But was it possible to do anything at all at that time without risking, at best, being branded crazy?

I first met the name of Ivanova-Vasilyeva in the investigation file of A.F. Ivanshin. This is the case of the underground church-monarchist organization of 1934, - says Leah Dolzhanskaya. - Several letters from Ivanova-Vasilyeva were found in Pompolit's archive. Thus, a letter from “Romanova Anastasia Nikolaevna” from the Vishera concentration camp (1933) has been preserved, where she asks to inform her aunt Ksenia Alexandrovna Dolgorukova, who lives in Germany, so that she would provide her with material support. Why did Ekaterina Pavlovna make a note "mentally ill"? There may be two options. Perhaps it seemed to her, and it is very likely that the author of the letters really suffers from a mental illness (after all, the royal family was shot, and this is a well-known fact). At the same time, Ekaterina Pavlovna understood that it was possible to save the life of a long-suffering prisoner only by declaring her "mentally ill." This note is only on the last letters, dated 1938, when Pompolit had almost finished his work.

Who was this strange Ivanova-Vasilyeva? Why did she carry, like a cross, someone else's name, realizing that she would never be released?

Sick impostor or Grand Duchess?

Only last year in the State Archives of the Russian Federation (GARF) I was first issued case No. 15977. Previously, all my attempts to break through to the case of a political prisoner ended in a constant refusal.

I flip through the pages. Records of interrogations, testimonies of witnesses. In the column “place of service and position”, the arrested woman indicated that she was a teacher of a foreign language, when asked about her property status she answered “no”, and refused to give information about her father’s property. In the paragraph "social origin" it says "from the nobility." The interrogation was signed succinctly: "A. Romanova."

It is amazing and inexplicable that the investigators, having established the fact that the prisoner lives on a false passport, did not even try to find out her real name.

In the case, a thick paper envelope with the inscription "Confidential" is hemmed. What is there: photographs, secret documents? The criminal case is nearly 80 years old...

Journalistic curiosity makes you look at the envelope in the light, but, alas, nothing is visible. It remains only to write an official letter to the leadership of the GARF with a request to reveal the secret contained in the envelope. The answer is disappointing: there is a medical certificate in the envelope.

I have already seen this document in the archives of the Kazan Psychiatric Hospital. Here are some fragments: “The test subject is of medium height, asthenic build, looks much older than the indicated age ... In the lower third of both bones of the shoulder there are extensive soft scars, according to the conclusion of a specialist, of gunshot origin ... In the upper jaw, most of the teeth are missing.” The act also noted that “communication is possible only within the framework of a conversation about her supposedly royal origin. She is completely filled with delusional thoughts about her origin from the Romanov family ... This nonsense cannot be corrected in any way.

Combined portrait. On the right - Grand Duchess Anastasia, on the left - Nadezhda Ivanova-Vasilyeva.

After rehabilitation, Nadezhda Vladimirovna Ivanova-Vasilyeva was transferred to a clinical psychiatric hospital, and then out of sight - to a boarding school for psychochronics on the island of Sviyazhsk, where she ended her days. She was buried as ownerless. It is only known in which part of the village cemetery.

Could the Grand Duchess have survived? An eyewitness account is described who allegedly saw the wounded but alive Anastasia in the house on Voskresensky Prospekt in Yekaterinburg (almost opposite the Ipatiev house) in the early morning of July 17, 1918. It was a certain Heinrich Kleinbezetl, a tailor from Vienna, an Austrian prisoner of war, who in the summer of 1918 worked in Yekaterinburg as an apprentice with the tailor Baudin. In the early morning of July 17, a few hours after the brutal massacre in the basement of the Ipatiev house, the princess was brought to this house by one of the guards, who probably sympathized with the family.

Of course, it cannot be ruled out that the Viennese tailor's testimony is just a figment of the imagination. And this is quite understandable. A murder committed under mysterious circumstances always generates rumors. Especially when the victims are famous people, especially crowned persons. Different people claimed their rights to the role of members of the royal family. Most of all there were false Alekseev and pseudo-Anastasy. When the remains of two people were missing in a burial near Yekaterinburg, rumors of a miraculous rescue began to spread with renewed vigor.

But, as you know, only in 2007, half a kilometer from the main burial place, were the remains of Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria. Experts confirmed their authenticity back in 2008, but these fragments still remain unburied and await their final resting place in the safe of the State Archives of Russia.

The official point of view: all members of the family of Nicholas II and he himself were shot in Yekaterinburg in 1918, and no one managed to escape. And all the contenders for the role of Anastasia and Alexei who survived are impostors.

Having canonized all members of the royal family as saints, the Russian Orthodox Church has not yet recognized the results of the genetic examination and has not officially participated in the burial ceremony of the remains of the royal family in the tomb of the Peter and Paul Cathedral in 1998. In 2000, the murdered Romanovs were glorified as martyrs for the faith. To clarify the current position of the Church, I called the Moscow Patriarchate.

We do not accuse anyone of falsification and trust the scientific conclusions, if only because the Church is not a research institute that can verify the results of the examination, - explains Vakhtang Kipshidze, head of the analytical department of the Synodal Information Department of the Russian Orthodox Church, - but our reserved position regarding the remains is connected with the fact that when collecting samples for research there was not enough openness. The royal family has been canonized, that is, canonized, and people want to be sure that the relics they will worship are the remains of those same people. And we cannot afford uncertainty. Doubts are easily removed by re-examining samples taken in a more public way.

The riddle of the mysterious prisoner left with her. And we will probably never know who she really was. A noblewoman with a broken psyche? Or Anastasia?

Maria Fedorovna

Nicholas I

Alexandra Fedorovna

Alexander II

Maria Alexandrovna

According to the memoirs of contemporaries, the children of the emperor were not spoiled with luxury. Anastasia shared a room with her older sister Maria. The walls of the room were gray, the ceiling decorated with images of butterflies. There are icons and photographs on the walls. The furniture is white and green, the decor is simple, almost Spartan, a couch with embroidered cushions, and an army bunk on which the Grand Duchess slept all year round. This bunk moved around the room in order to find itself in a more illuminated and warmer part of the room in winter, and in summer it was sometimes even pulled out onto the balcony so that you could take a break from stuffiness and heat. The same bunk was taken with them on vacation to the Livadia Palace, on which the Grand Duchess slept during her Siberian exile. One large room next door, divided in half by a curtain, served the Grand Duchesses as a common boudoir and bathroom.

The life of the Grand Duchesses was quite monotonous. Breakfast at 9 am, second breakfast at 13.00 or 12.30 on Sundays. At five o'clock - tea, at eight - a common dinner, and the food was quite simple and unpretentious. In the evenings, the girls solved charades and embroidered while their father read aloud to them.

Early in the morning it was supposed to take a cold bath, in the evening - a warm one, to which a few drops of perfume were added, and Anastasia preferred Koti's perfume with the smell of violets. This tradition has been preserved since the time of Catherine I. When the girls were small, the servants carried buckets of water to the bathroom; when they grew up, it was their responsibility. There were two baths - the first large one, left over from the time of the reign of Nicholas I (according to the preserved tradition, everyone who bathed in it left their autograph on the side), the other - smaller - was intended for children.

Sundays were awaited with special impatience - on this day the Grand Duchesses attended children's balls with their aunt - Olga Alexandrovna. Particularly interesting was the evening when Anastasia was allowed to dance with young officers.

Like other children of the emperor, Anastasia was educated at home. Education began at the age of eight, the program included French and English, history, geography, the law of God, science, drawing, grammar, as well as dancing and lessons in good manners. Anastasia did not differ in diligence in her studies, she could not stand grammar, she wrote with terrifying mistakes, and called arithmetic with childlike immediacy "svin". English teacher Sydney Gibbs recalled that once she tried to bribe him with a bouquet of flowers to increase her grade, and after he refused, she gave these flowers to a Russian language teacher, Petrov.

Grigory Rasputin

As you know, Grigory Rasputin was introduced to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna on November 1, 1905. The illness of the Tsarevich was kept secret, therefore the appearance at the court of a “muzhik”, who almost immediately gained significant influence there, caused conjectures and rumors. Under the influence of their mother, all five children got used to completely trust the “holy elder” and share their feelings and thoughts with him.

Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna recalled how once, accompanied by the tsar, she went to the children's bedrooms, where Rasputin blessed the grand duchesses dressed in white nightgowns for the coming sleep.

The same mutual trust and affection is seen in the letters of "Elder Gregory", which he sent to the imperial family. Here is an excerpt from one of the letters dated 1909:

Anastasia wrote to Rasputin:

My beloved, precious, only friend. How I long to meet you again. Today I saw you in a dream. I always ask Mom when you visit us next time, and I am happy that I have the opportunity to send you this congratulation. Happy New Year and may it bring you health and happiness. I always remember you, my dear friend, because you have always been kind to me. I have not seen you for a long time, but every evening I remembered you without fail. I wish you all the best. Mom promises that when you come again, we will definitely meet at Anya's. This thought fills me with joy. Your Anastasia.

Sophia Ivanovna Tyutcheva, the governess of the imperial children, was shocked that Rasputin had unlimited access to the children's bedrooms and reported this to the tsar. The tsar supported her demand, but Alexandra Feodorovna and the girls themselves were completely on the side of the “holy elder”.

At the insistence of Empress Tyutchev, she was fired. In all likelihood, the “holy old man” did not allow himself any liberties, but rumors so dirty spread around Petersburg that the emperor’s brothers and sisters took up arms against Rasputin, and Xenia Alexandrovna sent her brother a particularly harsh letter, accusing Rasputin of “Khlysty”, protesting against the fact that this "deceitful old man" has unrestricted access to children. Anonymous letters and caricatures were passed from hand to hand, which depicted the relationship of the old man with the Empress, girls and Anna Vyrubova. In order to put out the scandal, to the great displeasure of the empress, Nikolai was forced to temporarily remove Rasputin from the palace, and he went on a pilgrimage to holy places. Despite rumors, the relations of the imperial family with Rasputin continued until his assassination on December 17, 1916.

A. A. Mordvinov recalled that after the assassination of Rasputin, all four Grand Duchesses “seemed quiet and visibly depressed, they sat closely huddled together” on the sofa in one of the bedrooms, as if realizing that Russia had set in motion, which would soon become uncontrollable. An icon signed by the emperor, empress and all five children was placed on Rasputin's chest. Together with the entire imperial family on December 21, 1916, Anastasia was present at the funeral. It was decided to build a chapel over the grave of the “holy elder”, but due to subsequent events, this plan was not realized.

Maria and Anastasia gave concerts to the wounded and did their best to distract them from their heavy thoughts. They spent their days in the hospital, reluctantly breaking away from work for the sake of lessons. Anastasia, until the end of her life, recalled these days:

I remember how we used to visit the hospital a long time ago. I hope all of our wounded end up alive. Almost all of them were later taken away from Tsarskoye Selo. Do you remember Lukanov? He was so unhappy and so kind at the same time, and always played like a child with our bracelets. His business card remained in my album, but the album itself, unfortunately, remained in Tsarskoye. Now I'm in the bedroom, writing on the table, and on it are photographs of our beloved hospital. You know, it was a wonderful time when we visited the hospital. We often think about it, and our evening conversations on the phone and everything else ...

Under house arrest

According to the memoirs of Lily Den (Julia Alexandrovna von Den), a close friend of Alexandra Feodorovna, in February 1917, at the very height of the revolution, the children fell ill with measles one by one. Anastasia was the last to fall ill, when the Tsarskoye Selo palace was already surrounded by the insurgent troops. The tsar was at that time at the headquarters of the commander-in-chief, in Mogilev, only the empress with her children remained in the palace.

Ultimately, the Provisional Government decided to transfer the family of the former Tsar to Tobolsk. On the last day before departure, they had time to say goodbye to the servants, to visit their favorite places in the park, ponds, islands for the last time. Alexey wrote in his diary that on that day he managed to push his older sister Olga into the water. On August 12, 1917, a train flying the flag of the Japanese Red Cross mission departed in the strictest confidence from the siding.

Tobolsk

Yekaterinburg

There is evidence that after the first salvo, Tatyana, Maria and Anastasia survived, they were saved by jewelry sewn into the corsets of dresses. Later, witnesses interrogated by the investigator Sokolov showed that of the royal daughters, Anastasia resisted death for the longest time, already wounded, she “had” to be finished off with bayonets and rifle butts. According to materials discovered by the historian Edward Radzinsky, Anna Demidova, Alexandra's servant, who managed to protect herself with a pillow filled with jewels, remained the longest alive.

Together with the corpses of her relatives, Anastasia's body was wrapped in sheets taken from the beds of the Grand Duchesses and taken to the Four Brothers tract for burial. There, the corpses, disfigured beyond recognition by blows from rifle butts and sulfuric acid, were thrown into one of the old mines. Later, investigator Sokolov found the corpse of Jimmy's dog here. After the execution, the last drawing made by Anastasia's hand was found in the room of the Grand Duchesses - a swing between two birches.

Character. Contemporaries about Anastasia

Anastasia in another mimic scene

According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Anastasia was small and dense, with blond hair with a reddish tint, with large blue eyes inherited from her father. The girl was distinguished by an easy and cheerful character, she loved to play bast shoes, forfeits, in serso, she could tirelessly rush around the palace for hours, playing hide and seek. She easily climbed trees, and often, out of sheer mischief, refused to descend to the ground. She was inexhaustible in inventions, for example, she loved to paint the cheeks and noses of her sisters, brother and young maids of honor with fragrant carmine and strawberry juice. With her light hand, it became fashionable to weave flowers and ribbons into her hair, which little Anastasia was very proud of. She was inseparable from her older sister Maria, adored her brother, and could entertain him for hours when another illness put Alexei to bed. Anna Vyrubova recalled that "Anastasia was as if made of mercury, and not of flesh and blood." Once, being a very little girl, three or four years old, at a reception in Kronstadt, she crawled under the table and began to pinch those present by the legs, portraying a dog - for which she received an immediate severe reprimand from her father.

She also had a clear talent as a comic actress and loved to parody and mimic others, and she did it very talentedly and funny. Once Alexei said to her:

To which he received an unexpected answer that the Grand Duchess could not perform in the theater, she had other duties. Sometimes, however, her jokes became not harmless. So she tirelessly teased her sisters, once playing snowballs with Tatyana, hit her in the face, so much so that the eldest could not stay on her feet; however, the culprit herself, frightened to death, wept for a long time in her mother's arms. Grand Duchess Nina Georgievna later recalled that little Anastasia did not want to forgive her tall stature, during the games she tried to outwit, frame her leg, and even scratch her rival.

Little Anastasia also did not differ in special accuracy and love for order, Halle Reeves, the wife of an American diplomat accredited at the court of the last emperor, recalled how little Anastasia, being in the theater, ate chocolate, not bothering to take off her long white gloves, and desperately smeared herself face and hands. Her pockets were constantly stuffed with chocolates and creme brulee, which she generously shared with others.

She also loved animals. At first, a Spitz named Shvybzik lived with her, many funny and touching cases were also associated with him. So, the Grand Duchess refused to go to bed until the dog joined her, and once, having lost her pet, she called him with a loud bark - and succeeded, Shvybzik was found under the sofa. In 1915, when the Pomeranian died of an infection, she was inconsolable for several weeks. Together with their sisters and brother, they buried the dog and buried it in Peterhof, on Children's Island. She then had a dog named Jimmy.

She loved to draw, and she did it very well, she enjoyed playing the guitar or balalaika with her brother, knitted, sewed, watched movies, was fond of photography that was fashionable at that time, and had her own photo album, loved to hang on the phone, read or just lie in bed . During the war, secretly from her parents, she began to smoke, in which she was accompanied by her older sister, Olga.

The Grand Duchess was not in good health. Since childhood, she suffered from pain in her feet - a consequence of a congenital curvature of the big toes, the so-called lat. hallux valgus- a syndrome according to which she will later be identified with one of the impostors - Anna Anderson. She had a weak back, despite the fact that with all her might she avoided the massage required to strengthen the muscles, hiding from the masseuse who came in the cupboard or under the bed. Even with small cuts, the bleeding did not stop for an abnormally long time, from which the doctors concluded that, following her mother, Anastasia is a carrier of hemophilia.

As General M.K. Diterikhs, who participated in the investigation into the murder of the royal family, testified:

Drawing of Grand Duchess Anastasia

The French teacher Gilliard recalled her this way:

Discovery of remains

Cross over Ganina Pit

The Four Brothers tract is located a few kilometers from the village of Koptyaki, not far from Yekaterinburg. One of his pits was chosen by Yurovsky's team for the burial of the remains of the royal family and servants.

It was not possible to keep the place a secret from the very beginning, due to the fact that the road to Yekaterinburg passed literally next to the tract, early in the morning the procession was seen by a peasant woman from the village of Koptyaki Natalya Zykova, and then several more people. The Red Army men, threatening with weapons, drove them away.

Later, on the same day, grenade explosions were heard in the tract. Interested in a strange incident, the locals, a few days later, when the cordon had already been removed, came to the tract and managed to find several valuables (apparently belonging to the royal family) in a hurry not noticed by the executioners.

American scientists believed that the missing body belonged to Anastasia because none of the female skeletons showed evidence of immaturity, such as an immature collarbone, immature wisdom teeth, or immature vertebrae in the back, which they expected to find in the body of a seventeen-year-old girl.

In 1998, when the remains of the imperial family were finally interred, the 5'7" long body was buried under the name of Anastasia. Photos of the girl standing next to her sisters, taken six months before the assassination, show that Anastasia was several inches shorter than them Her mother, commenting on the figure of her sixteen-year-old daughter, wrote in a letter to a friend seven months before the murder: “Anastasia, to her despair, has grown fat and looks exactly like Maria a few years ago - the same huge waist and short legs ... Let's hope, with with age it will pass ... "Scientists consider it unlikely that in the last months of her life she grew much. Her real height was approximately 5'2".

The doubts were finally resolved in 2007, after the discovery of the remains of a young girl and a boy on the so-called Porosenkovsky Meadow, later identified as Tsarevich Alexei and Maria. Genetic examination confirmed the initial findings. In July 2008, this information was officially confirmed by the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, saying that an examination of the remains found in 2007 on the old Koptyakovskaya road established that the discovered remains belong to Grand Duchess Maria and Tsarevich Alexei, who was the heir to the emperor.

False Anastasia

The most famous of the false Anastasias is Anna Anderson

Rumors that one of the tsar's daughters managed to escape - either by running away from the Ipatiev house, or even before the revolution, being replaced by one of the servants, began to circulate among Russian emigrants almost immediately after the execution of the tsar's family. Attempts by a number of people to use for selfish purposes the belief in the possible salvation of the younger princess Anastasia led to the appearance of more than thirty false Anastasias. One of the most famous imposters was Anna Anderson, who claimed that a soldier named Tchaikovsky managed to pull her wounded out of the basement of the Ipatiev house after he saw that she was still alive. Another version of the same story was presented by the former Austrian prisoner of war Franz Svoboda at the trial, in which Anderson tried to defend her right to be called the Grand Duchess and gain access to the hypothetical inheritance of her “father”. Svoboda proclaimed himself Anderson's savior, and, according to his version, the wounded princess was transported to the house of "a neighbor who was in love with her, a certain X." This version, however, contained quite a lot of clearly implausible details, for example, about curfew violations, which was unthinkable at that moment, about posters announcing the escape of the Grand Duchess, allegedly pasted up all over the city, and about general searches, which, fortunately didn't give anything. Thomas Hildebrand Preston, who at that time was the British Consul General in Yekaterinburg, rejected such fabrications. Despite the fact that Anderson defended her “royal” origin until the end of her life, wrote the book “I, Anastasia” and fought litigation for several decades, no final decision was made during her lifetime.

Genetic analysis has now confirmed previous assumptions that Anna Anderson was in fact Franzska Schanzkowska, a worker in a Berlin explosives factory. As a result of an accident at work, she was seriously injured and received a mental shock, from the consequences of which she could not get rid of for the rest of her life.

Another false Anastasia was Evgenia Smith (Evgenia Smetisko), an artist who published “memoirs” in the USA about her life and miraculous salvation. She managed to attract significant attention to her person and seriously improve her financial situation, speculating on the interest of the public.

Rumors about the rescue of Anastasia were fueled by news of trains and houses that the Bolsheviks searched in search of the missing princess. During a brief imprisonment in Perm in 1918, Princess Elena Petrovna, the wife of Anastasia's distant relative, Prince Ivan Konstantinovich, reported that the guards brought a girl to her cell, who called herself Anastasia Romanova, and asked if the girl was the daughter of the Tsar. Elena Petrovna replied that she did not recognize the girl, and the guards took her away. The other report is given more credibility by one historian. Eight witnesses reported the return of a young woman after an apparent rescue attempt in September 1918 at a railway station at Alternate Route 37, northwest of Perm. These witnesses were Maxim Grigoriev, Tatyana Sytnikova and her son Fyodor Sytnikov, Ivan Kuklin and Marina Kuklina, Vasily Ryabov, Ustina Varankina and Dr. Pavel Utkin, the doctor who examined the girl after the incident. Some witnesses identified the girl as Anastasia when they were shown photographs of the Grand Duchess by White Army investigators. Utkin also told them that an injured girl he was examining at the headquarters of the Cheka in Perm told him: "I am the ruler's daughter, Anastasia."

At the same time, in mid-1918, there were several reports of young people in Russia posing as the escaped Romanovs. Boris Solovyov, the husband of Rasputin's daughter Maria, deceived money from noble Russian families for the allegedly escaped Romanov, in fact, wanting to go to China with the proceeds. Solovyov also found women who were willing to impersonate grand duchesses and thus contributed to the introduction of deception.

However, there is a possibility that indeed one or more guards could save one of the surviving Romanovs. Yakov Yurovsky demanded that the guards come to his office and review the things they stole after the murder. Accordingly, there was a period of time when the bodies of the victims were left unattended in the truck, in the basement and in the corridor of the house. Some guards who did not participate in the killings and sympathized with the Grand Duchesses, according to some information, remained in the basement with the bodies.

The last of the false Anastasias, Natalya Bilikhodze, died in 2000.

Rumors revived again after the publication of Sergo Beria’s book “My Father is Lavrenty Beria”, where the author casually recalls a meeting in the foyer of the Bolshoi Theater with the allegedly saved Anastasia, who became the abbess of an unnamed Bulgarian monastery.

Rumors about a "miraculous rescue", which seemed to have subsided after the royal remains were subjected to scientific study in 1991, resumed with renewed vigor when publications appeared in the press that one of the Grand Duchesses was missing among the bodies found (it was assumed that it was Maria) and Tsarevich Alexei. However, according to another version, Anastasia, who was a little younger than her sister and almost as complex, might not have been among the remains, so an identification mistake seemed likely. This time Nadezhda Ivanova-Vasilyeva claimed the role of the saved Anastasia, who spent most of her life in the Kazan psychiatric hospital, where she was assigned by the Soviet authorities, who allegedly feared the surviving princess.

Canonization

The canonization of the family of the last tsar in the rank of new martyrs was first undertaken by the Orthodox Church Abroad (1981). Preparations for canonization in Russia began in the same year, 1991, when the excavations in Ganina Yama were resumed. With the blessing of Archbishop Melchizedek, on July 7, a Pontifical Cross was installed in the tract. On July 17, 1992, the first bishop's procession to the burial place of the remains of the royal family took place.

About the Holy Reign of the Great Martyr, Tsarina Alexandra, Tsarevna Olga, Tatiano, Maria, Anastasia, together with Tsarevich Alexy and the Martyrs Elizabeth and Barbara! Accept from our penitent hearts this warm prayer that is brought to you, and ask the All-Merciful Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for forgiveness for us and our fallen father, even to the seventh knee. As in your earthly life, you have done innumerable mercies to your people, so now have mercy on us, sinners, and save us from fierce sorrows, from ailments of the soul and body, from the elements, rising against us with the permission of God, from the battles of the enemy and internecine and brotherly shedding of blood. Strengthen our faith and hope and ask the Lord for patience and all that is useful in this life and useful for spiritual salvation. Comfort us who mourn, and lead us to salvation. Amen.

The image of Anastasia in literature and cinematography

Nikolai Gumilyov's poem

Other

Notes

1. At home, however, he had a reputation as a charlatan and was even prosecuted for practicing medicine without an appropriate education.
2. Makeevich, A.; Makeevich, G. Waiting for the heir to the throne. Tsesarevich Alexei. Retrieved 21 August 2008.
3. Massie (1967), p. 153