The Mystery Of Anastasia In Romanov Family History Essay

The Romanov family was the second and last imperial dynasty to rule over Russia, from 1613 until 1917, when the February revolution broke up and abdicated the Romanov Emperor Tsar Nicholas II. As result of this revolution the Romanov was overthrown from the power and let the path to the Communism Regime from Lenin.

In April of 1918, Tsar Nicholas II Romanov and his family were taken prisoners in a house in Ekaterinburg, Russia by the new government. After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and Russia’s withdrawal of the war, the Romanov family was forgotten but their western allies and had no interest of the Romanov family fate. The Tsar made his best to help with the war effort by summoning fifteen million Russians to the trenches and even sacrifice and army to help saving Paris. But these war efforts wouldn’t save the Tsar, and his only hope now was to be saving from the Germans. The house where the Romanov family was to live was really a prison. There were five rooms in the house that where sealed as a prison. The windows where painted white so no one could see outside. The first floor was converted into offices and guards room. This prison house was named “The House of Special Purpose”. Many Bolshevik guards were inclined to drink heavily and found pleasant in being rude to the family. They even refused to granted small request such opening the windows in a hot day. The doors were unlocked, even the bathroom doors where unlocked and guards usually entered when they wanted. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/Russian_Royal_Family_1911_720px.jpg/200px-Russian_Royal_Family_1911_720px.jpg

The Russian Romanov family consisted of the younger boy Alexei, the four daughters Anastasia, Marie, Olga and Tatiana, also the Tsar Nicholas II. The Romanov family did their best to pass the time. They were allowed to walk in the garden in the afternoon. Nicholas and Alexandra often read, Alexei was often in bed ridden because of his illness. The girls knitted and sang hymns with his mother. Their breakfast was a black bread and a tea, and the main meal was a soup and cutlets, obtain form the local kitchen and warmed up. The guards in the prison house began to change of attitude and started to warm up the family, especially Alexei concern in his hemophilia. The Regional Soviet and the Central Executive Committee sensed this changed and replace all the guards.

On July 16, 1918 the Bolshevik commander Yurovsky, who was entrusted with the prisoners, ordered that the family execution was to be that night, and told the outside guards to ignore the gunshots. At midnight, the Romanov family was waken up and told that the Czechs and the White Army were descending upon Ekaterinburg and the Regional Soviet ordered that the family be moved from the house. [1] The family was led to a basement room, where Yurovsky told them to wait until the cars arrive. Nicholas asked for chairs so his wife and son could sit down. After the family and servants were assembled, Yurovsky entered with the entire guard squad. Then Yurovsky tell the last word to the family “Your relations have tried to save you. They have failed and we must now shoot you.” [2] Seconds later, the Romanov family was lying dead in the floor.

“Anastasia was born on June 5th 1901 according to a Russian calendar which was 13 days behind the rest of the world at the time. She was born at the amazingly opulent Petrodvoretz Palace (Peterhof) outside of St. Petersburg, Russia and lived 16 privileged years as the youngest of a group of very charming, elegant and well-educated young Romanov princesses. Anastasia never achieved the physical stature of her older sister, Tatiana, who was often referred to as the tallest and most beautiful Romanov princess. Olga and Marie were two older princesses known for their beauty and charm. Anastasia was very close to her younger brother, Alexei, who was the baby of the family and a hemophiliac.” [3] http://cdn.babble.com/famecrawler/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Anastasia_1.jpg

In July 17, 1918 the Romanov family was killed, rumors began to fly about the possibility of her survival, because nobody could identify where her body was located. The possibilities that Anastasia could escaped from the execution was a myth that became a mystery in history. It was believe that she and his brother Alexei has escaped from the Bolshevik execution, and the mass grave where the body of the Tsar Nicholas, Alexandra and three of the daughter were found in 1991 creating a bigger speculations about the survival of Anastasia Romanov. But in 2007, they found the remains of a young boy and a young girl near Ektarinburg, been claim that the body found in the grave were the body of Alexei and Anastasia Romanov, been prove that neither of the Romanov family escaped the Bolshevik execution.

As the rumor of Anastasia survival keep many people looking for her to cash the reward. Many people tried to convince the Grand Duchess that they were the surviving princesses Anastasia. Many imposters tried to prove this and many failed. The most well know was called Anna Anderson.

Anna Anderson born in 1896 in December 16 was the most well know of the impostors that claimed to be Anastasia Romanov. The location of the remains of the body of Anastasia was unknown and it was thought that she achieve to escape from the Bolshevik execution. Anderson was intern in a psychiatric hospital in 1920, after she tried to suicide in Berlin. At first she was known as Fräulein Unbenkannt (German for Unknown lady), because she refuse to tell her identity. In March 1922, the declarations of she being the Grand Duchess brought the attention of the public. Great part of the family of Anastasia, including the court tutor Pierre Gillard, told that Anna was an impostor, but many where convinced that she was Anastasia. Private investigations paid by Ernst Ludwig von Hesse-Darmstadt, Grand Duque of Hesse, made in 1927, identify her as Franziska Schanzkowska, a polish worker that suffers from mental illness. After a lawsuit that lasted for several decades, the German courts ruled that Anderson had failed to prove that it was Anastasia. However, his complaint reached ‘known’ because of the wide coverage it received in the media.http://www.freewebs.com/anastasiafranziska/aamug.jpg

In 1928 she lived in EE.UU and since 1929, Anderson lived with Annie Jennings, a wealthy single woman of Park Avenue, happy to receive her who suppose to be the daughter of the Tsar. For eighteen months, Anderson was the center of attention of the society in New York. Then she began a Pattern of destructive behavior, killing her favorite parrot, and even once she ran naked through the rooftop. On July 24, 1930, the judge Peter Schmuck of the New York Supreme Court signed an order that Anderson should stay in a psychiatry hospital. Before they could take her she locked herself in his room and they had to knock down the door with an axe. She was taken to the Four Winds Sanitarium in Westchester Country in the State of New York, where she remain for more than a year. In August 1932 she returned to Germany accompanied by a private nurse in a closed cabin.

In 1968, Anderson went back to USA, with a six months visa and before it expired she married Jack Manahan in December 23, 1968 and in February of 1970, the lawsuits finally finished and neither of the side could establish the identity of Anna Anderson. In August 20 of 1979, she was taken to the Martha Jefferson Hospital because of an intestinal obstruction. She was interned into an asylum in November of 1983, and William Preston was designated his guardian. In February 12 of 1984, Anna Anderson died of pneumonia. She was incinerated that same day and later her ashes were buried at the Seeon Castle, in June 18 of 1984.

Anna Anderson had very strong physical similarities between her pictures and the picture of Anastasia, being a very important fact to believe she was really Anastasia. Her supporters noted that she knew intimated details of the life and policy in the palace. Most of all they pointed to her knowledge that Ernst Ludwig von Hesse-Darmstadt to request the Tsar Nicholas II to make a separate peace treaty with Germany, something that no one knew until Anna mentioned it. “The Grand Duke flatly denied this claim; even if true, admitting so would damage the Grand Duke’s reputation in Germany among his more nationalistic countrymen, who would quickly see such a trip as an attempt to sell out the fatherland. But in 1949 a former commander of a Russian Guards’ regiment, Colonel Larsk, swore on oath that the Grand Duke had indeed made the trip at the time stated; and in 1953, the Crown Princess Cecile declared on oath that her father-in-law affirmed that “our circles knew about it even at the time” True or not, while Tchaikovski gained the support of Colonel Larski and Princess Cecile, she had made an enemy of the Grand Duke [4] .”

But there were things about her that wasn’t consistent with Anastasia. While she spoke fluent German, she only knew few words of English, French and Russian. Being an unusual flaw for a Russian princess. Her supporters argued that she suffered from a shock, trauma, and a possible brain damage in her ordeal and that she had forgotten most of her Russian, and then learned German. “This counter-argument didn’t impress the doubters; in fact, the possibility of brain damage just brought all her other claimed memories into doubt. The doubters found it odd that the only information about her past that Anderson offered seemed to be either vague, unconformable details waiting for convenient witnesses to come forward, or already well-known facts about the Tsar’s family. Also, investigators were unable to confirm details of her rescue story, her husband’s existence, or find the orphanage and alleged missing child.”  [5] Having this flaw made Anna Anderson’s story sound not believable. Even if she had memories of things that almost no one knew, not knowing her natal language, Russian, would make her story almost impossible to believe.

The mystery of Anastasia was the greatest mystery for most of the twentieth century, the fate of the last survival of the Romanov family. As told before, the Romanov family and four loyal members of their staff were executed by a firing squad. After attempting to leave the remains in a mine shaft, they transported the bodies to an open field only a few kilometers from the mine shaft. Nine of the members were buried in a mass grave while two of the children were buried in a separate grave. In 1991, the discovery of the mass grave was official, and subsequent the DNA testing to confirm the identities of the Tsar, Alexandra, and three of their daughters. In the summer of 2007, a group of amateur archeology discovered the remains from the second grave approximately 70 meters from the other grave. Forensic DNA test of the remains of the grave found in 2007, combined with the DNA testing of the mass grave found in 1991 makes irrefutable evidence that the two bodies found in the grave in 2007 are the two missing children of the Romanov family: Alexei and Anastasia Romanov.