Anastasia Romanov: The Last Grand Duchess #10 (16 page)

Rasputin

January 21, 1869—December 29, 1916

R
asputin is one of the most controversial figures in Russian history, if not in world history. How did a man who never bathed, who had little formal schooling and no manners, who was called “the mad monk” or “the devil Rasputin,” gain the confidence and trust of the royal family? Born into a peasant family in Siberia, he was said to have the gift of prophecy at an early age. He arrived in St. Petersburg in 1906 and quickly got a reputation as a healer and a mystic. A year later, he was called upon to help the young Tsarevich, Alexei, when he suffered from a severe hemorrhage due to his hemophilia. When Rasputin seemingly cured the boy, he won his way into the hearts of the family, and in particular, Empress Alexandra. As time went on, politicians, journalists, and the Russian people grew suspicious of Rasputin and his influence over the royal family. People tried to warn the Empress about public opinion toward Rasputin, but she remained his strongest defender. On December 29, 1916, political rivals of Tsar Nicholas II kidnapped and murdered Rasputin. Although the strength of his influence over the Tsar and Tsarina is debatable (some claim that his only purpose in their lives was to keep Alexei healthy; others believe he hypnotized Alexandra and used his power over her politically), historians agree that his presence in the royal family and his closeness to Empress Alexandra added to growing negative feelings toward them. To this day, people debate this mysterious man. Some consider him a mystic; others a mad man.

ANN'S FAVORITE FACTS:

I do so much research for each book in The Treasure Chest series and discover so many cool facts that I can't fit into every book. Here are some of my favorites from my research for
The Treasure Chest: #10: Anastasia Romanov: The Last Grand Duchess.
Enjoy!

W
hen I was in elementary school, there was a television show called
Saturday Afternoon at the Movies
. It showed old black-and-white movies from the 1940s and 1950s, often two or three in a row. Back then, there was no Netflix or On Demand—the only way to watch older movies was when they played on TV. On Sundays and late at night, you could often find an old movie playing. Since there were only three television stations—and no cable!—our choices were limited on what to watch. As a result, I ended up seeing a lot of old movies a lot of times!

Every Saturday afternoon (big surprise!), my grandmother Mama Rose and I would watch
Saturday Afternoon at the Movies
. One of my favorites to show up there was a 1956 film called
Anastasia
. It starred the actress Ingrid Bergman as a woman with amnesia who bears a remarkable resemblance to Grand Duchess Anastasia.

I didn't know then that ever since the massacre of the royal family in 1918, a rumor had persisted that Anastasia had survived and escaped. I also didn't know that for years many women had claimed to be the real Anastasia. Allegedly, the Romanov fortune is in a bank vault somewhere in Europe waiting to be claimed. Perhaps that rumor led to so many Anastasia imposters. Her Aunt Olga, Nicholas's sister, had to endure meeting many of these women in the years following the massacre. After speaking to them she easily debunked their claims.

However, that old movie
Anastasia
never answered the question of whether or not the woman played by Ingrid Bergman was the real Anastasia. Instead, it left it up to the viewer to decide. If you were a nine-year-old girl with an active imagination, living in a small town—like me!—it was easy to believe that Anastasia had survived. Easier to believe that than to accept the harsh truth of what happened to the royal family. Plus, I loved a mystery (still do!). I had read all the Nancy Drew books by then, and the mystery of Anastasia, with its tragic backstory and intrigue of amnesia and escape, appealed to me.

Among the many Anastasia imposters, one stood out as the most likely person to be the Grand Duchess, had she managed to survive. When I was in middle school, I read a newspaper article about a woman named Anna Anderson. The title was something like: “Is This Woman the Real Grand Duchess Anastasia?” The blurry black-and-white photo that ran with the article looked, to me, very much like Anastasia, whose photograph appeared beside Anna Anderson's. I loved the idea that Anastasia had survived! And over the years, I followed the story of Anna Anderson with great interest.

Anna Anderson was first thought to be one of the Grand Duchesses in 1922. Two years earlier, she had attempted to jump off a bridge in Berlin. When she was rescued by police, she refused to show her identification papers or to reveal her name. The police brought her to a hospital, where they discovered she had many scars on her head and body, typical of a violent attack. Another patient there believed the woman was Grand Duchess Tatiana, and upon her release from the hospital told a Russian friend that she had met Tatiana Romanov. A series of Russians who had known the royal family traveled to Berlin to meet the woman. One of them declared with certainty, “She is too short to be Tatiana.” To which the woman replied, “I never said I was Tatiana.”

A nurse at the hospital said that the woman had confided to her that she was Grand Duchess Anastasia, but that she suffered amnesia. After her release, she took the name Anna—a nickname for Anastasia. When she became very ill and near death in 1924, many Russians, including the Grand Duchesses' tutor, the Tsar's sister Olga, and Anastasia's nursemaid, all visited her in the hospital and all believed she was
not
Anastasia.

She survived her illness, and an informal investigation into her identity began. Although other friends and family members concluded she was the Grand Duchess, another story about her identity surfaced. That story said she was a Polish factory worker who was badly injured in an explosion and had disappeared from Berlin, Germany, in 1920—the year Anna appeared on the bridge there. When the Dowager Empress Marie, Nicholas's mother, died in 1928, a dozen living relatives of the Tsar's signed a declaration that Anna was a fraud.

Still, the belief persisted that she was Grand Duchess Anastasia. She took the name Anna Anderson and her papers used the details of Anastasia's life. Staunch supporters of her identity in Germany and the United States supported her, let her live with them, and fought to verify that she was indeed Anastasia, just as disbelievers fought to debunk her.

Eventually, in 1968, Anna Anderson moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, where she married Jack Manahan, who called himself a Grand Duke-in-waiting. A year later, lawsuits from both sides ended without a resolution as to her true identity. Until her death in 1984, Anna Anderson never let up on her claim that she was Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov.

In 1919, the White government in Russia began an investigation into the massacre of the royal family. The mass grave was found in 1991, and with it many personal items, such as the Tsar's belt buckle, the Tsarina's pearl earring, the Grand Duchesses' shoe buckles, and many, many charred bones. With modern advances in technology, the technique of identifying people through DNA analysis has become a useful investigative tool. In 1991, the bones from the mass grave were identified through DNA analysis as those of Tsar Nicholas, Tsarina Alexandra, and three of their daughters. Rather than settle the question of whether Anastasia had survived, this discovery fueled a new round of speculation. If only three Grand Duchesses' bodies could be accounted for, wasn't it possible Anastasia, the fourth Grand Duchess, had escaped?

However, as science continued to develop more refined techniques, a new round of DNA testing was done on the bones from the mass grave in Ekaterinburg in 2007. This time, DNA tests confirmed the identity of Alexei and Anastasia, too. In addition, DNA testing was done on a lock of Anna Anderson's hair. Those tests proved she was not a Romanov—she was the Polish factory worker, Franziska Schanzkowska.

For me, this nearly definitive evidence proves that Anastasia perished with the rest of her family on that terrible July night in 1918. How I wish she had survived! The idea of Anastasia escaping the massacre represented a kind of hope for me as a little girl, and for many other people who wanted to believe that despite this bloody chapter in history, at least one little girl had been saved.

About the Author

A
nn Hood is the author of many books, including
How I Saved My Father's Life (and Ruined Everything Else)
. She also knits, wanders around museums, wears cool glasses, likes to play on her iPhone, and spends a lot of her time wishing she could time travel and meet famous people.