Young Alexei was a hemophiliac and was frail for most of his short life. Grigori Rasputin was a Russian mystic who claimed to have healing powers, and Tsarina Alexandra often called upon him to pray for Alexei during his more debilitating periods. They often wrote him letters and he responded in kind.
The governess was eventually fired and went to other family members to tell her story. Over time, the rumors began to spiral out of control, and there were whispers that Rasputin was having an affair with the Tsarina and her young daughters. To counter the gossip, Nicholas sent Rasputin out of the country for a while; the monk went on a pilgrimage to Palestine.
In December , he was murdered by a group of aristocrats who were upset about his influence over the Tsarina. Alexandra was reportedly devastated by his death.
Anastasia and Maria were too young to join the ranks, so instead they visited wounded soldiers in the hospital new St. In February , the Russian Revolution took place, with mobs protesting the food rationing that had been in place since the beginning of the war which had begun three years earlier.
During the eight days of clashes and rioting, members of the Russian Army deserted and joined the revolutionary forces; there were countless deaths on both sides. There were calls for the end of imperial rule, and the royal family was placed under house arrest.
On March 2, Nicholas abdicated the throne on behalf of himself and Alexei, nominating his brother, the Grand Duke Michael, as successor. Michael, realizing quickly that he would have no support in the government, declined the offer, leaving Russia without a monarchy for the first time, and a provisional government was established.
As revolutionaries approached the royal palace, the provisional government removed the Romanovs and sent them to Tobolsk, Siberia. By all accounts, the family was not mistreated during their time in Tobolsk.
The children continued their lessons with their father and a tutor, Alexandra, despite failing health, did needlework and played music. When the Bolsheviks took over Russia, the family was moved once again to a house in Yekaterinburg.
Despite their status as prisoners, Anastasia and her siblings tried to live as normally as possible. However, the confinement began to take its toll. Alexandra had been ill for months, and Alexei was not doing well. Anastasia herself became regularly upset about being trapped indoors, and at one point attempted to open an upstairs window to get some fresh air. A sentry fired at her, narrowly missing her. Finally, what was left was thrown into the mine pit, which was covered with dirt. At first, the Bolshevik government reported that only Nicholas was executed and that his wife and children were moved to a safe location.
Later, reports that the entire family had perished were confirmed by Russian investigators. At the same time, however, a persistent rumor spread through Europe, telling of a Romanov child, usually Anastasia, who had survived the carnage. Several pretenders came forward, hoping to cash in on the Romanov fortune reportedly held in European banks, but they were quickly exposed as frauds.
Europe, however, had yet to meet Anna Anderson. In , an apparently suicidal young woman was pulled from the Landwehr Canal in Berlin.
She refused to tell authorities her identity and was committed to the Dalldorf Asylum, where she lived in anonymity until , when she suddenly announced that she was none other the Grand Duchess Anastasia.
At the time, Europe was filled with Russian exiles who had fled the Bolshevik Revolution, and a number of sympathetic czarists rushed to the aid of this young woman, who at first glance was certainly articulate and beautiful enough to be the lost Anastasia. Her body showed ugly scars, which she said she incurred from Bolshevik knives during the execution of her family. One Bolshevik soldier, she said, finding her alive, had helped her, and she eventually escaped to the West.
Several months after claiming to be Anastasia, she was released from the asylum and moved in with the first of a long line of supporters. During the next few years, her entourage of Russian emigres grew, and she became particularly close to Gleb Botkin, who as the son of the slain Romanov family physician had spent considerable time with the imperial family in his childhood. Her knowledge of English, French, and Russian, which the young Anastasia knew how to speak well, were also significantly lacking.
Many blamed these inconsistencies on her reoccurring mental illness, which led to short stays in mental institutions on several occasions. Meanwhile, her supporters began a long battle to win her legal recognition as Anastasia. The investigator announced that she was in fact Franziska Schanzkowska, a Polish-German factory worker from Pomerania who had disappeared in Schanzkowska had a history of mental instability and was injured in a factory explosion in , which accounted for the scars.
These findings were published in German newspapers but were not proved definitively. The woman who became known as Anna Anderson continued her fight for recognition, losing several court cases as the decades passed. He suppressed these findings from the public until the Soviet Union collapsed in the early s.
In a new DNA analysis of another grave, discovered near the first, conclusively identified Anastasia and Alexei's bodies, closing the door on nearly 90 years of mystery and speculation. We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Subscribe to the Biography newsletter to receive stories about the people who shaped our world and the stories that shaped their lives.
Her rule precipitated the collapse of Russia's imperial government. She was murdered, along with her entire family, in Nicholas II was the last tsar of Russia under Romanov rule. Rasputin is best known for his role as a mystical adviser in the court of Czar Nicholas II of Russia. Peter the Great was a Russian czar in the late 17th century, who is best known for his extensive reforms in an attempt to establish Russia as a great nation.
Vladimir Lenin was founder of the Russian Communist Party, leader of the Bolshevik Revolution and architect and first head of the Soviet state. But that did not put a stop to the widespread theories. In , a young woman was pulled out of a canal in Berlin, an attempted suicide.
For months the woman refused to give her name or say much of anything. Transferred to an asylum, she was told one day by a fellow psychiatric patient that she looked like the Grand Duchess Tatiana, the second oldest daughter. Later, when it was clear that she was too short to be Tatiana, the other mental patients wondered if she was actually Grand Duchess Anastasia.
So-called White Russian communities, noble and upper-crust refugees who had been stripped of wealth and position, huddled in Berlin and Paris. Could one of these far-flung, desperate women be Grand Duchess Anastasia? Although it seems impossible that anyone could have escaped a Bolshevik firing squad with members handpicked for their willingness to kill the Romanovs, a great deal of uncertainty on who precisely died persisted for years.
Vladimir Lenin wanted it that way. The new government released the news that Nicholas II was dead, but would not confirm the executions of his wife and children. Kaiser Wilhelm and the Empress Alexandra were cousins—she was of the House of Hesse—and Wilhelm did not want her and her children harmed.
He played for time with the Germans by offering vague details and denials. And so the rumors flew, ranging from guards rescuing one or two daughters to the Tsarevich Alexei being the one to escape. None of the claimants to be resurrected Romanov children, then or later, rivalled the fame of the woman in the German mental hospital, who took the name Anna Anderson. The guard allegedly spirited her away and became her lover, only to die later in a street brawl.
But others poked holes: Her mouth was too wide and other facial features were different. The Dowager Empress Marie, grandmother of Anastasia, refused to meet with her. She never posted any reward. Yet some people persisted in believing that this young woman was Anastasia. Anderson lived on the charity of sympathetic monarchists in Germany and the United States, cycling in and out of mental hospitals until she married a Virginia genealogist named John Manahan, 18 years her junior. All the time she still insisted she was a Romanov princess.
In , the film Anastasia was released to great acclaim. The storyline followed the life of Anna Anderson, a confused young woman, played by Ingrid Bergman, who was retrieved from a river in on the point of suicide. Then fiction takes over. Yul Brynner plays a charismatic White Russian con man living in Paris who backs her claims in hopes of collecting a huge reward.
Helen Hayes, playing the Dowager Empress Marie, is eventually persuaded that her granddaughter survived. The producers say the legal action is without merit.
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