Curious Chapbooks & Hysterical Histories

Chapter 6

ANASTASIA

Of all Queen Victoria's unfortunate children, the strangest misfortune befell her great-granddaughter Anastasia (right). Born on June 5, 1901, Anastasia began life a Grand Duchess in the Court of St. Petersburg, the youngest daughter to the Tsar. Her early years were spent in protected seclusion, mostly at the Imperial family's private residence in Tsarkoe, Selo. There she was called schwibzik, or "little one" (Radzinsky, 112). Photographs at this time show a short, plump, fair-haired daughter standing shyly among her taller sisters all in white. Nothing in her nurtured upbringing prepared her for the Revolution, her own incarceration, execution, and impossible rebirth. Nothing or no one -- except, perhaps, Rasputin.

Anastasia knew Rasputin intimately and penned earnest, affectionate notes to him. In one she wrote:

My dear, precious, only friend. How much I should like to see you again. You appeared to me today in a dream. I am always asking Mama when you will come, and I am happy even to be able to send you my greetings. I send you my warmest wishes for the New Year, and hope it will bring you health and happiness. I think of you always, my dear, because you are so good to me. I have not seen you for such a long time, but no evening passes without my thinking of you. I wish you the best in everything. Mama has promised that when you are here again, I shall see you at Ania's. This thought already brings happiness to 'Your Anastasia' (Fulop-Miller, 144).

One of the rumors circulating about Rasputin shortly before his death concerned his seduction of the four grand duchesses. In part, this scurrilous story could be based upon a misunderstanding of Rasputin's evangelism. Aronson describes Rasputin proselytizing in this way: "Redemption from sin, he would explain huskily to some fluttering young matron, could not come about unless one had sinned first; therefore, by committing adultery with him--so patently a man of God--one could achieve sin and redemption at, so to speak, the same stroke (194)." Furthermore, Rasputin belonged to the Khlysty cult, in which there is no act that is sinful to one who has died "the mysterious death of Christ." This mysterious death can be attained only through "complete self-denial and absolute submission to the will of the Holy Spirit, by the subduing of every passion, for rebirth is possible only if the sinful man is completely overcome (Fulop-Miller, 20)." But whomever has once undergone this mystical resurrection can supposedly perform miracles, even escape death--as Anastasia reputedly did.

In the summer of 1918, on the night of July 16, the Imperial family were awakened, hurried out of bed and ordered into the cellar of the house where they had been held in captivity by the Ural Regional Soviet in Ekaterinburg. While the Tsar, the Tsaritsa and the Tsarevich sat in the chairs with their daughters gathered around them, an armed squad headed by Commisar Yurovksky suddenly entered the cellar. Their jailer, the commissar, announced that they all were to be shot. Immediately the men opened fire and continued shooting until the Tsar's entire family and four retainers were massacred. Legend has it that the second to last to die was the frail Tsarevich, and that the last one was his sister Anastasia (Aronson, 235). But did she die?

Two years later in Berlin, an unknown woman attempted suicide by jumping into a canal. She was rescued and placed in a clinic where she remained for some time, depressed, almost mute, until she came across a photograph of the Tsar's family. According to Radzinsky, the photograph "produced a remarkable agitation in her and from which she could not be parted. Soon a rumor arose: the miraculously saved daughter of the Russian Tsar. . . (371)." The young woman told an incredible story in fragments, for her memories were fragmented. In recovering from her amnesia she recalled being shot, and falling behind her sister, whose body shielded her from bullets--then unconscious--a blank in her memory . . . then stars . . . covered in blood she awoke in a wagon where she was being carried through the snow. She had been saved by a red soldier, to whom she had born a child. Later she had escaped Russia, the child having been placed in an institution. And now she was Anastasia Nikolaevna, Grand Duchess and heir to the Russian throne ("Princess or Peasant," 298-299)!

Gradually this mysterious amnesiac gained credibility, even acceptance, among members of the exiled Russian royal family. Princess Xenia, Anastasia's third cousin, was convinced of her identity and Duke Andrew did not deny it (298). The circumstantial evidence was compelling, such as the remarkable resemblance between her and the Tsar's daughter, even down to the identical birthmark on the right shoulder, as well as the shape of the ears, and similar handwriting. Furthermore, the amnesiac spoke with such convincing detail about the private matters of the royal family's life (Radzinky, 371). This last phenomenon might be explained by her traveling companion, Dr. G.E. Botkin, son of the Tsar's own physician. As a boy, the doctor's son would play with Anastasia. On their tour of the U.S. Dr. Botkin was asked if he could be mistaken about the identity of his companion. Botkin replied, "Could you be mistaken about somebody you played with as a child ("Princess or Peasant," 298)?"

Answering a question with a question is not an answer. A skeptic might wonder if the information about the Russian royal family, so surprising coming from her, would not be surprising at all coming from him. Though collusion between the two was never proven, many did not accept Botkin's protégé as Anastasia. For example, the Grand Duchess Olga, sister to the late Tsar, met and talked with her several times, but was not convinced (298). However, there might have been ulterior motives on the part of the surviving Russian royal family as well. According to Outlook magazine in 1928, "The intricacies of the Imperialistic intrigue for the purely nominal right to ascend or be near the throne of Russia at some future time are such that any claimant without the most tangible evidence would have a hard time in securing recognition (298)."

For the rest of her life the mysterious amnesiac strove for that recognition. And to do her justice, she was not a pretender. Though she earnestly believed herself to be Anastasia, never was she completely certain. Never did she fully recover from her traumatic amnesia. According to Radzinsky, "to the end of her life she continued to dig painfully in her memory so that for all her certainty, she was to some extent uncertain. That burning torment: trying to remember, going back and forth, into the monstrous past--in an attempt to meet up there, in that horror, with herself . . . and  never to do so (371-372)." Radzinsky adds that, "she attempted to defend her right to the name of the Tsar's daughter in court and suffered defeat. But when the mysterious 'Anastasia' died, she was buried in a crypt with her Romanov relatives, the princes of Leuchtenbert (371)."

[NEXT CHAPTER]  [BACK TO CONTENTS]