The story of the imposters who posed as Anastasia Romanov

A woman tries to commit suicide by jumping from the Oberbaum Bridge in Berlin into the frozen river Spree. It's a cold February 27, 1920, the crazy and brilliant decade that will be the interwar decade has just begun. The woman in particular is called Anna Anderson, although when a police sergeant rescues her and takes her to a hospital (later to a psychiatric hospital) they will admit her under the name 'Fräulein Unbekannt' (unknown lady in our language).The Story of the Anastasia Romanov Imposters The Story of the Anastasia Romanov Imposters

He has injuries to his abdomen and head and speaks with a strange accent that some doctors classify as Russian. She spends two years in the mental hospital, and peculiar rumors begin to circulate about her. At first they say that it could be Tatiana Romanov, the second daughter of Tsar Nicholas, although those who knew her in life assure that she is too short to be Tatiana. Then begins to forge one of the most famous and impressive legends of the twentieth century: the legend of the survival of Anastasia, fourth daughter of the tsars of Russia.

In 1920 a woman tries to commit suicide in Berlin and is admitted to a sanatorium. She doesn't know that she will become world famous

Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra and their five children (Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Crown Prince Alekséi) died two years earlier, in 1918, in the dark Ipatiev house or 'house of special purpose'. They had been transferred to that place, in Yekaterinburg, on April 30 of that year, and spent 78 days locked up within its four walls. The tsar had been forced to abdicate during the February Revolution of 17, but even so a year later both he and his family were taken to Yekaterinburg as prisoners.

The House of Special Purpose

Installed in the Ipatiev house, the Romanovs were allowed a brief daily exercise in the garden of the house, which had a high wooden fence and was closed, but little more. The family spent a lot of time sewing, praying and waiting for some news that didn't seem to come. Olga, the eldest and most sensitive daughter, had lost a lot of weight due to the stress of confinement. Alekséi, a hemophiliac, was limping due to a fall. Maria had a little romance with one of the guards staying on the ground floor. They weren't even allowed near the windows: Anastasia leaned out once and a bullet grazed her cheek. Some curious people came to the vicinity of the house to observe the exiled family. In early July the heat was scorching and the command of the guard was assumed by the revolutionary Yakov Yurovsky, a high-ranking member of the Rural Soviet.

At midnight from July 16 to 17 of that year, the family was woken up assuring that they would be evacuated from Yekaterinburg. They dressed, trying to shake off sleep, and along with three of their servants were led up a flight of stairs to a small room in the basement, where the tsarevich and tsarina sat waiting, while the rest stayed behind. And they waited. After a while, Yurovsky arrived together with a group of armed men and spoke briefly: the Russian people had decided to sentence them to death. Tsar Nicholas only had time to drop a perplexed: "What?" Yurovsky himself fired at him, and the rest of the squad opened fire.

The tsar's daughters had sewn diamonds and jewels onto their dresses, causing them to act as bulletproof vests

The massacre, which should have lasted 20 seconds, lasted for half an hour and was a complete disaster. The tsar's daughters had sewn diamonds and jewels onto their dresses, causing them to act as bulletproof vests. They were finished off with shots at point-blank range and blows to the head. In total, 12 people were killed, and also Tatiana's dog. The next day, Yurovski, fearing the rumors, ordered the removal of the corpses and their destruction with acid and fire. No one would know the whereabouts of the bodies until the fall of the USSR, which brings us back to the beginning of this story.

Resurrection

Anastasia's name means 'Resurrection' in Greek. Despite the fact that Yurovski declared that the entire imperial family (including Anastasia) had been executed that day in July, timid voices soon began to emerge claiming to be eyewitnesses and assuring that the tsars' youngest daughter had survived, and even that so much she and her brother had been transported to safety by some remorseful guard. It seemed like a small silver lining for all those Russian noble families, who had fled Russia (mainly to Paris) during the revolution.

The story of impostors who made themselves impersonate Anastasia Romanov

Soon, the story of Anna Anderson began to be heard in all corners of Europe. The theory that she was Tatiana had been dismantled, due to the little resemblance that the 'unknown lady' bore with what she was considered the most beautiful of the tsar's daughters. But what if Anastasia was alive? It was said that the young woman could have really escaped her fate and 'resurrected', she would have fallen in love with one of the soldiers present during her captivity and that he had helped her escape. They would have been married, until he had been murdered on the streets of Bucharest in Romania. She, broken with pain, would have tried to commit suicide in Berlin. Why didn't he remember Russian and spoke in German? Probably due to the trauma suffered, they claimed.

"Anyone would recoil in horror at the idea that this hideous creature could be one of our tsar's daughters"

Close friends of the royal family began to visit her to see if she was really the tsar's daughter, who had been known for her sense of humor, her mischief and her strong character. Nobody agreed. Some wanted to see Anastasia in that woman, others, like the fascinating prince Felix Yusupov (author of the massacre of Rasputin and husband of Irina, cousin of the tsar's daughters) would point out: "She is only an adventuress sick with hysteria and a frightful actress. I don't know how anyone can doubt it. Anyone would recoil in horror at the idea that this frightful creature could be one of our Tsar's daughters." Others, however, did assure that it was her, like the daughter of Evgeni Bótkin, the family doctor.

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The Fake Romanovs

There were some compelling reasons to believe that Anderson might really be the missing Anastasia, though the physical resemblance wasn't too great: she didn't just suffer from bunions, like the Grand Duchess, but despite the trauma, the information and knowledge she had of the Romanov family was impressive. They assured that many details that she recounted were impossible to know if they had not been lived.

There were other impostors as well: more than 23 people claimed to be Olga and a CIA agent claimed to be the tsarevich

Her existence began to be a sweetened Disney story, which would serve as inspiration for 'Anastasia' (1956) starring Ingrid Bergman and Yul Brynner: upon her arrival in the United States she was received with the title of Highness and in her Balls were held in honor, and it was when she began to use the name of Anna Anderson to escape a bit of the fame that she herself had created. Chocolate bars and even 'Anastasia' brand cigars were created. The fairy tale had only just begun, and she was preparing to claim her dynastic rights.

She wasn't the only one. Another equally tragic example was that of Nadezhda Vasilieva, who appeared in Siberia in 1920 when she was trying to travel to China. Arrested by the Bolsheviks, she was imprisoned in Moscow and Leningrad until she was transferred to a prison hospital in Kazan. She claimed to be Anastasia until her death in an asylum in 1971, and was said to be completely healthy except for claiming to be the Grand Duchess. Also the Bulgarian Eleonora Kruger, or Eugenia Smith, who even wrote an autobiographical book in which she claimed to be the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas.

But the most famous was Anderson. Her story crossed borders and was so celebrated that the Grand Duke of Hesse, Anastasia's uncle, decided to hire a private detective to take her apart. He found out that the woman claiming the former throne of Russia was Franziska Schanzkowska, a mentally challenged Polish woman whose scars came from an explosion at the factory where she had worked during World War I, a fact that probably also explained her mental issues. The information he handled about the tsars was due to the fact that he had met a Russian soldier who had met them in life.

The woman claiming the former Russian throne was actually Franziska Schanzkowska, a mentally challenged Polish woman

In October 1928, Empress Maria, mother of Nicholas II, died. At her funeral, 12 people who knew the tsars met and signed an agreement stating that Anderson was an impostor, accusing Botkin (a family doctor who supported the story) of using a mentally challenged woman for profit.

Anna's mental health, meanwhile, deteriorated, starting her life from scratch in the United States: she went out naked on the roof, suffered from Noah syndrome (she accumulated dozens of animals at home) and married a peculiar friend of Botkin's 21 years younger than her; the historian Jack Manahan, who was amused by being called the "czar's son-in-law." Her dream came true, as they soon began to be known as "the eccentric czars of Charlottesville", while Andersen's paranoia continued to grow: she was obsessed with the fact that the KGB intended to kill her.

Her mental health was deteriorating. She went out naked on the roof, she suffered from Noah syndrome and she lived obsessed with the fact that the KGB was after her

In the absence of the bodies, other people claimed to be the lost sons of the tsars. More than 23 people claimed to be Olga (the most famous being Marga Boodts), a CIA agent claimed to be the Tsarevich, and a woman named Michelle Anches, who died under mysterious circumstances, claimed to be Tatiana in the 1920s, demanding to see her grandmother to tell her how he had escaped the slaughter, although such an encounter never took place.

The discovery of the bodies

On February 12, 1984, Anna Anderson died, and she continued to claim until her death that she was really Anastasia Romanov.

In the early 1990s, the bodies of the tsar, his wife and three of their daughters were exhumed in a common grave. Supposedly, it had been found ten years earlier, but the information had not been revealed until then.

The Orthodox Church still does not acknowledge that the remains found many years later belong to the Romanov family

It was then declared that the remains corresponded to Tatiana and Olga, although there were doubts about the third body since Anastasia and María were very close in age and complexion. Therefore, the remains of the Tsarevich and one of the daughters of Nicholas II were still missing. Could the legend that some still believed be true?

The analysis of the bones was not without controversy. Although a DNA test comparing Anna Anderson's remains to a great-nephew of Franziska Schanzkowska confirmed the relationship, some critics continued to claim it was a fraudulent hoax. A team of anthropologists from the United States proposed that the missing bones were those of Anastasia, the Russian forensic team defended that they were those of Maria.

The Russians stood up against a dynasty that for 300 years plunged them into darkness

In 2007, the missing bodies finally turned up in another grave. Although they were canonized, the Orthodox Church still does not recognize that the remains found many years later belong to the Romanov family, despite the fact that the certainty that they are (according to the investigation committee) is 99.9%.

Despite everything, with the revelation of Anna Anderson's deception and the discovery of the mass grave, it seems that Anastasia's fairy tale faded into oblivion, like a legend of better times that traveled through the 20th century but that , like its protagonist, did not really manage to survive. Gone was the dream of a return to the origins that had fueled films like Ingrid Bergman's in the middle of the Cold War, or Fox's subsequent Anastasia. The story of a poor little lost princess, amnesiac and survivor, was infinitely more attractive, but each time It seemed further removed from reality.

The eldest of the tsar's daughters was 22 at the time of his death, the youngest just 13. They will have them forever

Although some still choose to believe in fairy tales, it seems that there was no place for them that hot night in Yekaterinburg, in the so-called house of special purpose. With the assassination of the tsars, the Russians rose up against a dynasty that had plunged them into darkness and famine for 300 years, taking revenge on the descendants of Nicholas II and thereby precisely preventing anyone from claiming the throne in the future, as happened years before during the French Revolution.

Rasputin had already predicted it a little earlier: when he left this world, they wouldn't have much longer to live. So it was. Despite the fake Romanovs that would appear later, the eldest of the tsar's daughters was 22 at the time of her death, the youngest only 13. They will have them forever. They did not even find a grave.