Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna (Romanova Anastasia Nikolaevna ) (June 5 (18), 1901, Peterhof - on the night of July 16-17, 1918, Yekaterinburg) - the fourth daughter of Emperor Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna.

Shot along with her family in Ipatiev’s house. The murder plan was developed by Sverdlov and he personally controlled the progress of the destruction of the Tsar’s family.

After her death, about 30 women declared themselves “the miraculously saved Grand Duchess,” but sooner or later they were all exposed as impostors. She was glorified along with her parents, sisters and brother in the Cathedral of the New Martyrs of Russia as a passion-bearer at the Jubilee Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2000. Earlier, in 1981, they were canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. Memory - July 4th according to the Julian calendar.

Born June 5 (18), 1901 in Peterhof. By the time of her appearance, the royal couple already had three daughters - Olga, Tatyana and Maria. The absence of an heir strained the political situation: according to the Act of Succession to the Throne, adopted by Paul I, a woman could not ascend to the throne, therefore the younger brother of Nicholas II, Mikhail Alexandrovich, was considered the heir, which did not suit many, and first of all, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. In an attempt to beg God for a son, at this time she becomes more and more immersed in mysticism. With the assistance of the Montenegrin princesses Militsa Nikolaevna and Anastasia Nikolaevna, a certain Philip, a Frenchman by nationality, arrived at the court, declaring himself a hypnotist and a specialist in nervous diseases. Philip predicted the birth of a son to Alexandra Fedorovna, however, a girl was born - Anastasia. Nicholas wrote in his diary:

At about 3 o'clock Alix began to feel severe pain. At 4 o'clock I got up and went to my room and got dressed. At exactly 6 am, daughter Anastasia was born. Everything happened quickly under excellent conditions and, thank God, without complications. Thanks to the fact that it all started and ended while everyone was still sleeping, we both had a sense of peace and privacy! After that, I sat down to write telegrams and notify relatives in all corners of the world. Fortunately, Alix is ​​feeling well. The baby weighs 11½ pounds and is 55 cm tall.

The entry in the emperor's diary contradicts the statements of some researchers who believe that Nicholas, disappointed by the birth of his daughter, for a long time did not dare to visit the newborn and his wife.

Grand Duchess Xenia, sister ruling emperor, also noted this event:

What a disappointment! 4th girl! They named her Anastasia. Mom telegraphed me about the same thing and writes: “Alix gave birth to a daughter again!”

Grand Duchess was named after the Montenegrin princess Anastasia Nikolaevna, a close friend of the empress. The “hypnotist” Philip, not at a loss after the failed prophecy, immediately predicted to her “ amazing life and a special destiny." Margaret Eager, author of the memoir Six Years at the Russian Imperial Court, recalled that Anastasia was named after the Emperor pardoned and reinstated the students of St. Petersburg University who took part in the recent unrest, since the name “Anastasia” itself means “returned to life,” the image of this saint usually contains chains torn in half.

The full title of Anastasia Nikolaevna sounded like Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess of Russia Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, however, they did not use it, in official speech they called her by name and patronymic, and at home they called her “little, Nastaska, Nastya, little egg” - for her small height (157 cm) and round figure and “shvybzik” - for her mobility and inexhaustibility in inventing pranks and pranks.

According to the memoirs of contemporaries, the emperor’s children were not spoiled with luxury. Anastasia shared a room with her older sister Maria. The walls of the room were gray, the ceiling was decorated with images of butterflies. There are icons and photographs on the walls. The furniture is in white and green tones, the furnishings are simple, almost spartan, a couch with embroidered pillows, and an army cot on which the Grand Duchess slept all year round. This cot moved around the room in order to end up in a more illuminated and warmer part of the room in winter, and in summer it was sometimes even pulled out onto the balcony so that one could take a break from the stuffiness and heat. They took this same bed with them on vacation to the Livadia Palace, and the Grand Duchess slept on it during her Siberian exile. One large room next door, divided in half by a curtain, served the Grand Duchesses as a common boudoir and bathroom.

The life of the grand duchesses was quite monotonous. Breakfast at 9 o'clock, second breakfast at 13.00 or 12.30 on Sundays. At five o'clock there was tea, at eight there was a general dinner, and the food was quite simple and unpretentious. In the evenings, the girls solved charades and did embroidery while their father read aloud to them.

Early in the morning it was supposed to take a cold bath, in the evening - a warm one, to which a few drops of perfume were added, and Anastasia preferred Koti perfume with the smell of violets. This tradition has been preserved since the time of Catherine I. When the girls were small, servants carried buckets of water to the bathroom; when they grew up, this was their responsibility. There were two baths - the first large one, left over from the reign of Nicholas I (according to the surviving tradition, everyone who washed in it left their autograph on the side), the other, smaller, was intended for children.

Sundays were especially looked forward to - on this day the Grand Duchesses attended children's balls at their aunt, Olga Alexandrovna. The evening was especially interesting when Anastasia was allowed to dance with the young officers.

The girls enjoyed every minute, I remembered Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna. - My dear goddaughter Anastasia was especially happy, believe me, I can still hear her laughter ringing in the rooms. Dancing, music, charades - she plunged into them headlong.

Letter from Grand Duchess Anastasia to cousin Dick: “May 17, 1910. My dear Dick. I want to see you. What's your weather like now? Are you all alone in London now? When will you be able to meet your sisters?”

Like other children of the emperor, Anastasia was educated at home. Education began at the age of eight, the program included French, English and German, history, geography, the law of God, natural sciences, drawing, grammar, arithmetic, as well as dance and music. Anastasia was not known for her diligence in her studies; she hated grammar, wrote with horrific errors, and with childish spontaneity called arithmetic “sinishness.” English teacher Sydney Gibbs recalled that she once tried to bribe him with a bouquet of flowers to improve his grade, and after his refusal, she gave these flowers to the Russian language teacher, Pyotr Vasilyevich Petrov.

Basically, the family lived in the Alexander Palace, occupying only part of several dozen rooms. Sometimes they moved to the Winter Palace, despite the fact that it was very large and cold, the girls Tatyana and Anastasia were often sick here.

In mid-June, the family went on trips on the imperial yacht "Standard", usually along the Finnish skerries, landing from time to time on the islands for short excursions. The imperial family especially fell in love with the small bay, which was dubbed Standard Bay. They had picnics there, or played tennis on the court, which the emperor built with his own hands.

We also rested at the Livadia Palace. The main premises housed the imperial family, and the annexes housed several courtiers, guards and servants. They swam in the warm sea, built fortresses and towers out of sand, and sometimes went into the city to ride a stroller through the streets or visit shops. It was not possible to do this in St. Petersburg, since any appearance of the royal family in public created a crowd and excitement.

They sometimes visited Polish estates belonging to the royal family, where Nicholas loved to hunt.

As you know, Grigory Rasputin was presented to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna on November 1, 1905. The Tsarevich’s illness was kept secret, so the appearance at court of a “man” who almost immediately acquired significant influence there caused speculation and rumors. Under the influence of their mother, all five children became accustomed to completely trusting the “holy elder” and sharing their experiences and thoughts with him.

Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna recalled how one day, accompanied by the Tsar, she went into the children's bedrooms, where Rasputin blessed the Grand Duchesses, dressed in white nightgowns, for the coming sleep.

It seemed to me that all the children were very attached to him,” noted the Grand Duchess. “They had complete confidence in him.

The same mutual trust and affection is seen in the letters of “Elder Gregory” that he sent to the imperial family. Here is an excerpt from one of the letters, dated 1909:

Dear children! Thank you for the memory, for the sweet words, for the pure heart and for the love for God’s people. Love God's nature, all of His creation, especially the light. The Mother of God was always busy with flowers and handicrafts.

Anastasia wrote to Rasputin:

My beloved, precious, only friend.

How I want to meet you again. Today I saw you in a dream. I always ask Mom when you visit us next time, and I am happy that I have the opportunity to send you this congratulation. Happy New Year and may it bring you health and happiness.

I always remember you, my dear friend, because you have always been kind to me. I haven’t seen you for a long time, but every evening I certainly remembered you.

I wish you all the best. Mom promises that when you come again, we will definitely meet at Anya’s. This thought fills me with joy.

Yours, Anastasia.

The governess of the imperial children, Sofya Ivanovna Tyutcheva, was shocked that Rasputin had unlimited access to the children's bedrooms and reported this to the tsar. The Tsar supported her demand, but Alexandra Feodorovna and the girls themselves were completely on the side of the “holy elder.”

“I’m so afraid that S.I. will say something bad about our friend,” Tatyana wrote to her mother on March 8, 1910. - I hope that our nanny will be kind to him. Grand Duchess Anastasia

At the insistence of the Empress, Tyutcheva was fired. In all likelihood, the “holy elder” did not allow himself any liberties, but rumors so dirty spread around St. Petersburg that the emperor’s brothers and sisters took up arms against Rasputin, and Ksenia Alexandrovna sent her brother a particularly harsh letter, accusing Rasputin of “Khlystyism,” protesting against that this “lying old man” has unrestricted access to children. Significant letters and cartoons were passed from hand to hand, which depicted the elder’s relationship with the empress, girls and Anna Vyrubova. In order to put out the scandal, to the great displeasure of the empress, Nicholas was forced to temporarily remove Rasputin from the palace, and he went on a pilgrimage to holy places. Despite the rumors, the imperial family's relationship with Rasputin continued until his assassination on December 17, 1916.

A. A. Mordvinov recalled that after the murder of Rasputin, all four Grand Duchesses “seemed quiet and noticeably depressed, they sat closely huddled together” on the sofa in one of the bedrooms, as if realizing that Russia had come into a movement that would soon become uncontrollable. An icon signed by the Emperor, Empress and all five children was placed on Rasputin’s chest. Together with the entire imperial family, on December 21, 1916, Anastasia attended the funeral service. It was decided to build a chapel over the grave of the “holy elder,” but due to subsequent events this plan was not realized.

First World War

According to the memoirs of contemporaries, following her mother and older sisters, Anastasia sobbed bitterly on the day war was declared.

On the day of their fourteenth birthday, according to tradition, each of the emperor’s daughters became an honorary commander of one of the Russian regiments. In 1901, after her birth, the name of St. Anastasia the Pattern Resolver received the Caspian 148th in honor of the princess infantry regiment. He began to celebrate his regimental holiday on December 22, the holy day. The regimental church was erected in Peterhof by the architect Mikhail Fedorovich Verzhbitsky. At 14, the emperor’s youngest daughter became his honorary commander (colonel), about which Nicholas made a corresponding entry in his diary. From now on the regiment began to be officially called 148th Caspian Infantry Regiment of Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Anastasia.

During the war, the empress gave many of the palace rooms for hospital premises. The older sisters Olga and Tatyana, together with their mother, became sisters of mercy; Maria and Anastasia, being too young for such hard work, became patronesses of the hospital. Both sisters gave their own money to buy medicine, read aloud to the wounded, knitted things for them, played cards and checkers, wrote letters home under their dictation, and entertained them with telephone conversations in the evenings, sewed linen, prepared bandages and lint.

Grand Duchess Anastasia (1916)

Today I sat next to our soldier and taught him to read, he really likes it,” noted Anastasia Nikolaevna. - He began to learn to read and write here in the hospital. Two unfortunate people died, and just yesterday we were sitting next to them.

Maria and Anastasia gave concerts to the wounded and tried their best to distract them from difficult thoughts. They spent days on end in the hospital, reluctantly taking time off from work for lessons. Anastasia recalled these days until the end of her life:

I remember how we visited the hospital a long time ago. I hope all our wounded survived in the end. Almost everyone was later taken away from Tsarskoe Selo. Do you remember Lukanov? He was so unhappy and so kind at the same time, and always played like a child with our bracelets. His business card remained in my album, but the album itself, unfortunately, remained in Tsarskoye. Now I’m in the bedroom, writing on the table, and on it there are photographs of our beloved hospital. You know, it was a wonderful time when we visited the hospital. We often think about this, and our evening conversations on the phone and everything else...

Under house arrest

Tatiana and Anastasia with the dog Ortino. Tsarskoye Selo Park (spring 1917)

According to the memoirs of Lily Den (Yulia Alexandrovna von Den), a close friend of Alexandra Fedorovna, in February 1917, at the very height of the revolution, the children fell ill with measles one after another. Anastasia was the last to fall ill, when the Tsarskoe Selo palace was already surrounded by rebel troops. At that time the Tsar was at the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief in Mogilev, only the Empress and her children remained in the palace.

On the night of March 2, 1917, Lily Den stayed overnight in the palace, in the Raspberry Room, with Grand Duchess Anastasia. So that they would not worry, they explained to the children that the troops surrounding the palace and the distant shots were the result of ongoing exercises. Alexandra Feodorovna intended to “hide the truth from them for as long as possible.” At 9 o'clock on March 2 they learned of the Tsar's abdication.

On Wednesday, March 8, Count Pavel Benckendorff appeared at the palace with the message that the Provisional Government had decided to subject the imperial family to house arrest in Tsarskoe Selo. It was suggested that they make a list of people who wanted to stay with them. Lily Dehn immediately offered her services.

On March 9, the children were informed about their father’s abdication. A few days later Nikolai returned. Life under house arrest turned out to be quite bearable. It was necessary to reduce the number of dishes during lunch, since the menu of the royal family was announced publicly from time to time, and it was not worth giving another reason to provoke the already angry crowd. Curious people often watched through the bars of the fence as the family walked in the park and sometimes greeted her with whistling and swearing, so the walks had to be shortened.

On June 22, 1917, it was decided to shave the girls’ heads, since their hair was falling out due to persistent fever and strong medications. Alexei insisted that he be shaved too, thereby causing extreme displeasure in his mother.

Despite everything, the children's education continued. The entire process was led by Gillard, a French teacher; Nikolai himself taught the children geography and history; Baroness Buxhoeveden took over English and music lessons; Mademoiselle Schneider taught arithmetic; Countess Gendrikova - drawing; Dr. Evgeniy Sergeevich Botkin - Russian language; Alexandra Fedorovna - God's Law.

Anastasia, Olga, Alexey, Maria and Tatyana after measles (June 1917)

The eldest, Olga, despite the fact that her education was completed, was often present in lessons and read a lot, improving on what she had already learned.

At this time, there was still hope for the family of the former king to go abroad; but George V, whose popularity among his subjects was rapidly declining, decided not to risk it and chose to sacrifice royal family, thereby causing shock in his own cabinet.

Ultimately, the Provisional Government decided to transfer the family of the former tsar to Tobolsk. On the last day before leaving, they managed to say goodbye to the servants and visit their favorite places in the park, ponds, and islands for the last time. Alexei wrote in his diary that on that day he managed to push his older sister Olga into the water. On August 12, 1917, a train flying the flag of the Japanese Red Cross mission departed from the siding in the strictest secrecy.

Tobolsk

From left to right - Olga, Nikolai, Tatiana, Anastasia. Tobolsk (winter 1917)

On August 26, the imperial family arrived in Tobolsk on the steamship Rus. The house intended for them was not yet completely ready, so they spent the first eight days on the ship.

Finally, under escort, the imperial family was taken to the two-story governor's mansion, where they were henceforth to live. The girls were given a corner bedroom on the second floor, where they were accommodated in the same army beds captured from the Alexander Palace. Anastasia additionally decorated her corner with her favorite photographs and drawings.

Life in the governor's mansion was quite monotonous; The main entertainment is watching passers-by from the window. From 9.00 to 11.00 - lessons. An hour break for a walk with my father. Lessons again from 12.00 to 13.00. Dinner. From 14.00 to 16.00 walks and simple entertainment such as home performances, or in winter - skiing down a slide built with one’s own hands. Anastasia, in her own words, enthusiastically prepared firewood and sewed. Next on schedule followed evening service and going to bed.

In September they were allowed to go to the nearest church for morning services. Again, the soldiers formed a living corridor right up to the church doors. The attitude of local residents towards the royal family was rather favorable.

Suddenly, Anastasia began to gain weight, and the process was going quite well. at a fast pace, so even the empress, worried, wrote to her friend:

Anastasia, to her despair, has gained weight and her appearance exactly resembles Maria a few years ago - the same huge waist and short legs... Let's hope this will go away with age... The iconostasis was terribly well set up for Easter, everything is in the Christmas tree, as it should be here, and flowers . We were filming, I hope it comes out. I continue to draw, they say it’s not bad, it’s very pleasant. We were swinging on a swing, and when I fell, it was such a wonderful fall!.. yeah! I told my sisters so many times yesterday that they were already tired, but I can tell them a lot more times, although there is no one else. In general, I have a lot of things to tell you and you. My Jimmy woke up and coughs, so he sits at home, bows to his helmet. That was the weather! You could literally scream from pleasure. I was the most tanned, oddly enough, like an acrobat! And these days are boring and ugly, it’s cold, and we were freezing this morning, although of course we didn’t go home... I’m very sorry, I forgot to congratulate all my loved ones on the holidays, I kiss you not three, but a lot of times to everyone. Everyone, darling, thanks you very much for your letter.

She wrote to sister Maria in Easter week 1917.

"Bouquet". Watercolor drawing of the Grand Duchess

These days we have sun almost all the time, and it’s already starting to warm up, so nice! Therefore, we try to be outside more. - We don’t ride down the mountain anymore (although it’s still standing), since it was ruined and a ditch was dug across it so that we wouldn’t go, well, so be it; It seems that they have calmed down on this for now, since for a long time it seems to be an eyesore for many. Terribly stupid and weak, really. - Well, now we have found a new activity for ourselves. We saw, chop and split firewood, it is useful and a lot of fun to work with. It's already coming out pretty good. And with this we help many more, and for us it’s entertainment. We are also cleaning the paths and entrance, we have turned into street cleaners. - I have not yet turned into an elephant, but this may yet happen in the near future, I don’t know why suddenly, there may be little movement, although I don’t know. - I apologize for the terrible handwriting, my hand doesn’t move well. This week we are all fasting and singing at home. We were finally in church. And you can also take communion there. - Well, how are you all doing and what are you doing? We don't have anything special to write about. Now we need to finish, because now we will go to our yard, work, etc. - Everyone hugs you tightly, and I too, and everyone else too. All the best, Auntie darling.

These are lines from another letter addressed to Grand Duchess Ksenia Alexandrovna.

Ekaterinburg

July 13, 1918 in Ipatiev’s house. was done last photo Grand Duchess Anastasia (copyright reserved and no access to photo)

In April 1918, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the fourth convocation decided to transfer the former tsar to Moscow for the purpose of his trial. After much hesitation, Alexandra decided to accompany her husband; Maria was supposed to go with her “to help.”

The rest had to wait for them in Tobolsk; Olga’s duties were to take care of her sick brother, Tatiana’s was to run the household, and Anastasia’s was to “entertain everyone.” However, at the beginning things were difficult with entertainment, on the last night before departure no one slept a wink, and when finally in the morning, peasant carts were brought to the threshold for the Tsar, Tsarina and those accompanying them, three girls - “three figures in gray” saw off those leaving with tears right up to the gate.

In the empty house, life continued slowly and sadly. We told fortunes from books, read aloud to each other, and walked. Anastasia was still swinging on the swing, drawing and playing with her sick brother. According to the memoirs of Gleb Botkin, the son of a life physician who died along with the royal family, one day he saw Anastasia in the window and bowed to her, but the guards immediately drove him away, threatening to shoot if he dared to come so close again.

On May 3, 1918, it became clear that for some reason, the former Tsar's departure to Moscow was canceled and instead Nikolai, Alexandra and Maria were forced to stay in the house of engineer Ipatiev in Yekaterinburg, requisitioned new government specifically to place the royal family. In a letter marked with this date, the empress instructed her daughters to “properly manage their medications” - this word meant the jewelry that they managed to hide and take with them. Under the guidance of her older sister Tatyana, Anastasia sewed the remaining jewelry she had into the corset of her dress - with a successful combination of circumstances, it was supposed to be used to buy her way to salvation.

On May 19, it was finally decided that the remaining daughters and Alexey, by that time quite strong, would join their parents and Maria at Ipatiev’s house in Yekaterinburg. The next day, May 20, all four boarded the ship “Rus” again, which took them to Tyumen. According to the recollections of eyewitnesses, the girls were transported in locked cabins; Alexei was traveling with his orderly named Nagorny; access to their cabin was prohibited even for a doctor.

My dear friend,

I'll tell you how we drove. We left early in the morning, then got on the train and I fell asleep, followed by everyone else. We were all very tired because we hadn't slept the whole night before. The first day it was very stuffy and dusty, and we had to close the curtains at each station so that no one could see us. One evening I looked out when we stopped at a small house, there was no station there, and you could look outside. A little boy came up to me and asked: “Uncle, give me a newspaper if you have one.” I said: “I’m not an uncle, but an aunt, and I don’t have a newspaper.” At first I didn’t understand why he decided that I was “uncle,” and then I remembered that my hair was cut short and, together with the soldiers who accompanied us, we laughed for a long time at this story. In general, there were a lot of funny things along the way, and if there is time, I will tell you about the journey from beginning to end. Goodbye, don't forget me. Everyone kisses you.

Yours, Anastasia.

On May 23 at 9 a.m. the train arrived in Yekaterinburg. Here, the French teacher Gillard, the sailor Nagorny and the ladies-in-waiting, who had arrived with them, were removed from the children. Crews were brought to the train and at 11 o'clock in the morning Olga, Tatyana, Anastasia and Alexey were finally taken to the house of engineer Ipatiev.

Life in the “special purpose house” was monotonous and boring - but nothing more. Rise at 9 o'clock, breakfast. At 2.30 - lunch, at 5 - afternoon tea and dinner at 8. The family went to bed at 10.30 pm. Anastasia sewed with her sisters, walked in the garden, played cards and read spiritual publications aloud to her mother. A little later, the girls were taught to bake bread and they enthusiastically devoted themselves to this activity.

On Tuesday, June 18, 1918, Anastasia celebrated her last, 17th birthday. The weather that day was excellent, only in the evening a small thunderstorm broke out. Lilacs and lungwort were blooming. The girls baked bread, then Alexei was taken out to the garden, and the whole family joined him. At 8 pm we had dinner and played several games of cards. We went to bed at the usual time, 10.30 pm.

Execution

Basement of the Ipatiev House. The photograph was taken during the investigation into the murder of the Royal Family by investigator Sokolov

It is officially believed that the decision to execute the royal family was finally made by the Ural Council on July 16 in connection with the possibility of surrendering the city to the White Guard troops and the alleged discovery of a conspiracy to save the royal family. In fact, the entire execution was managed by Sverdlov, who, together with Lenin, decided on the physical destruction of the Romanov family with the goal of doing everything possible in the future to make the Russian people forget about the tsar and everything that could remind him of him.

On the night of July 16-17, at 11:30 p.m., two special representatives from the Urals Council handed a written order to execute the commander of the security detachment, P.Z. Ermakov, and the commandant of the house, Commissioner of the Extraordinary Investigative Commission, Ya.M. Yurovsky. After a brief dispute about the method of execution, the royal family was woken up and, under the pretext of a possible shootout and the danger of being killed by bullets ricocheting off the walls, they were offered to go down to the corner semi-basement room.

According to the report of Yakov Yurovsky, the Romanovs did not suspect anything until the last moment. At the empress's request, chairs were brought to the basement, on which she and Nicholas sat with their son in her arms. Anastasia stood behind with her sisters. The sisters brought several handbags with them, Anastasia also took her beloved dog Jimmy, who accompanied her throughout her exile.

There is information that after the first salvo, Tatyana, Maria and Anastasia remained alive; they were saved by jewelry sewn into the corsets of their dresses. Later, witnesses interrogated by investigator Sokolov testified that of the royal daughters, Anastasia resisted death the longest; already wounded, she “had” to be finished off with bayonets and rifle butts. According to materials discovered by historian Edward Radzinsky, Anna Demidova, Alexandra's servant, who managed to protect herself with a pillow filled with jewelry, remained alive the longest.

Together with the corpses of her relatives, Anastasia’s body was wrapped in sheets taken from the beds of the Grand Duchesses and taken to the Four Brothers tract for burial. There the corpses, disfigured beyond recognition by blows from rifle butts and sulfuric acid, were thrown into one of the old mines. Later, investigator Sokolov discovered the body of Ortino’s dog here. After the execution, the last drawing made by Anastasia’s hand was found in the room of the Grand Duchesses - a swing between two birch trees.

Character. Contemporaries about Anastasia

Anastasia in another mime scene

According to the recollections of contemporaries, Anastasia was small and dense, with reddish brown hair, with large blue eyes, inherited from the father. The girl had a light and cheerful character, loved to play rounders, forfeits, and serso, and could tirelessly run around the palace for hours, playing hide and seek. She easily climbed trees, and often, out of pure mischief, refused to go down to the ground. She was inexhaustible in her inventions; for example, she loved to paint the cheeks and noses of her sisters, brother and young ladies-in-waiting with fragrant carmine and strawberry juice. With her light hand, it became fashionable to weave flowers and ribbons into hair, which little Anastasia was very proud of. She was inseparable from her older sister Maria, adored her brother, and could entertain him for hours when another illness put Alexei to bed. Anna Vyrubova recalled that “Anastasia seemed to be made of mercury, and not of flesh and blood.” Once, when she was just a baby, three or four years old, at a reception in Kronstadt, she climbed under the table and began to pinch the legs of those present, pretending to be a dog - for which she received an immediate severe reprimand from her father.

She also had a clear talent as a comic actress and loved to parody and imitate those around her, and she did it very talentedly and funny. One day Alexey told her:

Anastasia, you need to perform in the theater, it will be very funny, believe me!

To which I received an unexpected answer that the Grand Duchess cannot perform in the theater, she has other responsibilities. Sometimes, however, her jokes became harmless. So she tirelessly teased her sisters, once playing in the snow with Tatyana, she hit her in the face, so hard that the eldest could not stay on her feet; however, the culprit herself, scared to death, cried for a long time in her mother’s arms. Grand Duchess Nina Georgievna later recalled that little Anastasia did not want to forgive her tall, during the games she tried to outwit, trip her up, and even scratch her opponent.

With Tatiana and Maria (1908)

She constantly reached the dangerous edge with her jokes, recalled Gleb Botkin, the son of a physician who was killed along with the royal family. - She constantly risked being punished.

Little Anastasia was also not particularly neat and loving of order. Hallie Reeves, the wife of an American diplomat accredited at the court of the last emperor, recalled how little Anastasia, while in the theater, ate chocolate, not bothering to take off her long white gloves, and desperately smeared herself face and hands. Her pockets were constantly filled with chocolates and Creme Brulee sweets, which she generously shared with others.

She also loved animals. At first, she lived with a Spitz named Shvybzik, and many funny and touching incidents were also associated with him. So, the Grand Duchess refused to go to bed until the dog joined her, and once, having lost her pet, she called him with a loud bark - and succeeded, Shvybzik was found under the sofa. In 1915, when the Pomeranian died of an infection, she was inconsolable for several weeks. Together with his sisters and brother, they buried the dog in Peterhof, on Children's Island. Then she had a dog named Jimmy.

She loved to draw, and did it quite well, enjoyed playing the guitar or balalaika with her brother, knitted, sewed, watched movies, was fond of photography, which was fashionable at that time, and had her own photo album, loved to use the phone, read or just lie in bed . During the war, she began to smoke, with her older sisters keeping her company.

The Grand Duchess was no different good health. Since childhood, she suffered from pain in her feet - a consequence of congenital curvature of the big toes, the so-called lats. hallux valgus- a syndrome by which she would later begin to be identified with one of the impostors, Anna Anderson. She had a weak back, despite the fact that she did her best to avoid the massage required to strengthen her muscles, hiding from the visiting masseuse in the cupboard or under the bed. Even with small cuts, the bleeding did not stop for an abnormally long time, from which the doctors concluded that, like her mother, Anastasia was a carrier of hemophilia.

As General M.K. Diterichs, who participated in the investigation into the murder of the royal family, testified:

Drawing of Grand Duchess Anastasia

Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, despite her seventeen years, was still a perfect child. She made this impression mainly with her appearance and her cheerful character. She was short, very dense, “a little girl,” as her sisters teased her. Her distinctive feature was to notice people's weaknesses and skillfully imitate them. He was a natural, gifted comedian. She always used to make everyone laugh, maintaining an artificially serious appearance.

She read the plays of Schiller and Goethe, loved Malo and Moliere, Dickens and Charlotte Bronte. She played the piano well, and willingly performed four-handed pieces by Chopin, Grieg, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky with her mother.

French teacher Gilliard recalled her this way:

She was a spoiled person - a flaw from which she corrected over the years. Very lazy, as is sometimes the case with very bright children, she had an excellent pronunciation of French and acted out small theatrical scenes with real talent. She was so cheerful and so able to dispel the wrinkles of anyone who was out of sorts that some of those around them began, remembering the nickname given to her mother at the English court, to call her “Sunbeam.”

Discovery of remains

Cross over Ganina Pit

The “Four Brothers” tract is located a few kilometers from the village of Koptyaki, not far from Yekaterinburg. One of its pits was chosen by Yurovsky's team to bury the remains of the royal family and servants.

It was not possible to keep the place a secret from the very beginning, due to the fact that literally next to the tract there was a road to Yekaterinburg, early in the morning the procession was seen by a peasant from the village of Koptyaki, Natalya Zykova, and then several more people. The Red Army soldiers, threatening with weapons, drove them away.

Later that same day, grenade explosions were heard in the area. Interested in the strange incident, local residents, a few days later, when the cordon had already been lifted, came to the tract and managed to discover several valuables (apparently belonging to the royal family) in a hurry, not noticed by the executioners.

From May 23 to June 17, 1919, investigator Sokolov conducted reconnaissance of the area and interviewed village residents.

From June 6 to July 10, by order of Admiral Kolchak, excavations of the Ganina Pit began, which were interrupted due to the retreat of the Whites from the city.

On July 11, 1991, in Porosenkovo ​​Log near Yekaterinburg, at a depth of just over one meter, remains were found that were identified as the bodies of the royal family and servants. The body, which probably belonged to Anastasia, was marked with number 6. Doubts arose about it - the entire left side of the face was broken into pieces; Russian anthropologists tried to connect the found fragments together and put together the missing part. The result of the rather painstaking work was in doubt. Russian researchers tried to proceed from the height of the found skeleton, however, the measurements were made from photographs and were questioned by American experts.

American scientists believed that the missing body was Anastasia's because none of the female skeletons showed evidence of immaturity, such as an immature collarbone, immature wisdom teeth or immature vertebrae in the back, which they expected to find in the body of a seventeen-year-old girl.

In 1998, when the remains of the imperial family were finally interred, the 5'7" body was buried under Anastasia's name. Photos of the girl standing next to her sisters, taken six months before the murder, show that Anastasia was several inches shorter than them The Empress, commenting on the figure of her sixteen-year-old daughter, wrote in a letter to Anna Vyrubova seven months before the murder: “To her despair, Anastasia has grown fat and her appearance exactly resembles Maria several years ago - the same huge waist and short legs... Let’s hope with. it will go away with age...” Scientists consider it unlikely that in recent months She has grown a lot in her life. Her actual height was approximately 5'2".

The doubts were finally resolved in 2007, after the discovery of the remains of a young girl and boy in Porosenkovo ​​Log, later identified as Tsarevich Alexei and Maria. Genetic testing confirmed the initial findings. In July 2008 this information The Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation officially confirmed that an examination of the remains found in 2007 on the old Koptyakovskaya road established that the discovered remains belonged to Grand Duchess Maria and Tsarevich Alexei, who was the emperor's heir. However, a group of well-known geneticists (who took part in all these DNA tests) led by Dr. Michael D. Coble write in the resulting article in 2009 (section "Discussion", translated from English):

It should be noted that the widely publicized debate about whether the remains of Maria or Anastasia were found in the second burial cannot be resolved based on the results of the DNA analysis. In the absence of specification of DNA data for each of the sisters, we can only definitively identify Alexei - only the son of Nikolai and Alexandra.

And also, in the section " Background information" of this article (in the commentary to Fig. S1):

It was not possible to identify (the remains) exactly Maria or exactly Anastasia using DNA analysis. False Anastasia

The most famous of the false Anastasias is Anna Anderson

Rumors that one of the Tsar's daughters managed to escape - either by running away from Ipatiev's house, or even before the revolution, by being replaced by one of the servants - began to circulate among Russian emigrants almost immediately after the execution of the Tsar's family. Attempts by a number of people to use the belief in the possible salvation of the younger princess Anastasia for selfish purposes led to the appearance of over thirty false Anastasias. One of the most famous impostors was Anna Anderson, who claimed that a soldier named Tchaikovsky managed to pull her wounded from the basement of Ipatiev’s house after he saw that she was still alive. Another version of the same story was told by the former Austrian prisoner of war Franz Svoboda at the trial, at which Anderson tried to defend her right to be called a Grand Duchess and gain access to the hypothetical inheritance of her “father.” Svoboda proclaimed himself the savior of Anderson, and, according to his version, the wounded princess was transported to the house of “a neighbor in love with her, a certain X.” This version, however, contained quite a lot of clearly implausible details, for example, about violating the curfew, which was unthinkable at that moment, about posters announcing the escape of the Grand Duchess, allegedly posted all over the city, and about general searches, which, fortunately , they didn’t give anything. Thomas Hildebrand Preston, who was the British Consul General in Yekaterinburg at that time, rejected such fabrications. Despite the fact that Anderson defended her “royal” origin until the end of her life, wrote the book “I, Anastasia” and fought legal battles for several decades, no final decision was made during her lifetime.

Currently, genetic analysis has confirmed already existing assumptions that Anna Anderson was in fact Franziska Schanzkovskaya, a worker in a Berlin factory that manufactured explosives. As a result of an industrial accident, she was seriously injured and suffered mental shock, the consequences of which she could not get rid of for the rest of her life.

Another false Anastasia was Eugenia Smith (Evgenia Smetisko), an artist who published “memoirs” in the United States about her life and miraculous salvation. She managed to attract significant attention to her person and seriously improve her financial situation, capitalizing on the public's interest.

Rumors about Anastasia's rescue were fueled by news of trains and houses that the Bolsheviks were searching in search of the missing princess. During a brief imprisonment in Perm in 1918, Princess Elena Petrovna, the wife of Anastasia's distant relative, Prince Ivan Konstantinovich, reported that guards brought a girl into her cell who called herself Anastasia Romanova and asked if the girl was the Tsar's daughter. Elena Petrovna replied that she did not recognize the girl, and the guards took her away. Another account is given more credibility by one historian. Eight witnesses reported the return of a young woman after an apparent rescue attempt in September 1918 at the railway station at Siding 37, northwest of Perm. These witnesses were Maxim Grigoriev, Tatyana Sytnikova and her son Fyodor Sytnikov, Ivan Kuklin and Marina Kuklina, Vasily Ryabov, Ustina Varankina and Dr. Pavel Utkin, the doctor who examined the girl after the incident. Some witnesses identified the girl as Anastasia when they were shown photographs of the Grand Duchess by White Army investigators. Utkin also told them that the traumatized girl he examined at the Cheka headquarters in Perm told him: “I am the daughter of the ruler, Anastasia.”

At the same time, in mid-1918, there were several reports of young people in Russia posing as escaped Romanovs. Boris Solovyov, the husband of Rasputin’s daughter Maria, deceitfully begged money from noble Russian families for the supposedly saved Romanov, in fact wanting to use the proceeds to go to China. Solovyov also found women who agreed to pose as grand duchesses and thereby contributed to the deception.

However, there is a possibility that one or more guards could actually save one of the surviving Romanovs. Yakov Yurovsky demanded that the guards come to his office and review the things they stole after the murder. Accordingly, there was a period of time when the bodies of the victims were left unattended in the truck, in the basement and in the hallway of the house. Some guards who did not participate in the murders and sympathized with the grand duchesses, according to some sources, remained in the basement with the bodies.

In 1964-1967, during the Anna Anderson case, the Viennese tailor Heinrich Kleibenzetl (German. Heinrich Kleibenzetl) testified that he allegedly saw the wounded Anastasia shortly after the murder in Yekaterinburg on July 17, 1918. The girl was looked after by his landlady, Anna Baudin. Anna Baoudin), in the building directly opposite the Ipatiev house.

“Her lower body was covered in blood, her eyes were closed and she was white as a sheet,” he testified. “We washed her chin, Frau Annuschka and I, then she moaned. The bones must have been broken... Then she opened her eyes for a minute.” Kleibenzetl claimed that the injured girl remained in his landlady's house for three days. The Red Army soldiers allegedly came to the house, but knew its landlady too well and did not actually search the house. “They said something like this: Anastasia has disappeared, but she’s not here, that’s for sure.” Finally, a Red Army soldier, the same man who brought her, arrived to take the girl away. Kleibenzetl knew nothing more about her future fate.

The last of the false Anastasias, Natalya Bilikhodze, died in 2000.

Rumors revived again after the release of Sergo Beria’s book “My Father - Lavrenty Beria,” where the author casually recalls a meeting in the foyer Bolshoi Theater with the supposedly saved Anastasia, who became the abbess of an unnamed Bulgarian monastery.

Rumors of a “miraculous rescue,” which seemed to have died down after the royal remains were subjected to scientific study in 1991, resumed with renewed vigor when publications appeared in the press that one of the grand duchesses was missing from the bodies found (it was assumed that it was Maria) and Tsarevich Alexei. However, according to another version, among the remains there might not have been Anastasia, who was slightly younger than her sister and almost the same build, so a mistake in identification seemed likely. This time, Nadezhda Ivanova-Vasilieva, who spent most of her life in the Kazan psychiatric hospital, where she was assigned by the Soviet authorities, allegedly fearing the surviving princess, was claiming the role of the rescued Anastasia.

Prince Dmitry Romanovich Romanov, great-great-grandson of Nicholas, summed up the long-term epic of impostors:

In my memory, the self-proclaimed Anastasias ranged from 12 to 19. In the conditions of the post-war depression, many went crazy. We, the Romanovs, would be happy if Anastasia, even in the person of this very Anna Anderson, turned out to be alive. But alas, it was not her!

The last point above i The bodies of Alexei and Maria were found in the same tract in 2007, and anthropological and genetic examinations were carried out, which finally confirmed that there could not have been any saved among the royal family.

Canonization

Icon of the Holy Martyr Anastasia New Martyr Anastasia Nikolaevna

The canonization of the family of the last tsar in the rank of new martyrs was first undertaken by the foreign Orthodox Church (1981). Preparations for canonization in Russia began in the same 1991, when excavations in the Ganina Pit were resumed. With the blessing of Archbishop Melchizedek, a Worship Cross was installed in the tract on July 7. On July 17, 1992, the first bishop's religious procession took place to the burial site of the remains of the royal family.

A new cross with an icon case was installed here by the Brotherhood in the name of the Holy Royal Martyrs.

On the night of July 17, 1995, the first ceremony took place at the cross. Divine Liturgy, which now takes place every year.

In 2000, the decision on canonization was made by the Russian Orthodox Church. In the same year, with the blessing of the patriarch, construction began monastery"Ganina's pit"

We hope that the construction of a monastery on the site of the destruction of the bodies of the Royal Passion-Bearers in the Ganina Pit, where church prayer will also soon be offered, will erase the consequences of the terrible crimes committed on the long-suffering Ural soil.

On October 1, 2000, His Eminence Vincent, Archbishop of Yekaterinburg and Verkhoturye, laid the first stone for the foundation of the future church in honor of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers. The monastery is built mainly from wood, it contains seven main churches, in particular the main temple in honor of the saints royal passion-bearers, church of St. Seraphim of Sarov and others.

About the Holy Reign of the Great Martyr, Queen Alexandra, Princess Olgo, Tatiano, Maria, Anastasia, together with Tsarevich Alexy and the Venerable Martyrs Elizabeth and Varvara! Receive from our repentant hearts this warm prayer brought to you, and ask us from the All-Merciful Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for forgiveness for the permission of the Regicide, against us and our father who fell, even to the seventh generation. Just as in your earthly life you have done innumerable mercies to your people, so now have mercy on us, sinners, and save us from fierce sorrows, from mental and physical ailments, from the elements that arise against us by God’s permission, from the battles of the enemy and internecine and brotherly bloodshed. Strengthen our faith and hope and ask the Lord for patience and everything useful in this life and useful for spiritual salvation. Comfort us, the grieving, and lead us to salvation. Amen.

Poem by Nikolai Gumilyov

Russian poet N. S. Gumilyov, being an ensign during the First World War Russian army and while in 1916 in the Tsarskoye Selo infirmary, he dedicated the following poem to Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna for her birthday:

Today is Anastasia's day,And we want that through usLove and affection from all RussiaI thanked you.

What a joy it is for us to congratulateYou, best image our dreamsAnd put a modest signatureBelow are the welcome verses.

Forgetting that the day beforeWe were in fierce battlesWe are the fifth of June holidayLet's celebrate in our hearts.

And we take off to a new battleHearts full of delightRemembering our meetingsIn the middle of the Tsarskoye Selo Palace. Films about Anastasia

Filmed in the USA feature films about Anastasia, “Clothes Make the Woman” (1928), “Anastasia” (1956) and “Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna” (1986), as well as the cartoons “Anastasia” (1997), “Anastasia’s Secret”, based on the version by Anna Anderson. Also appears as a cameo character in the anime Blood+.

• Anastasia is mentioned in The Rolling Stones song “Sympathy for the Devil."
• Anastasia is also mentioned in the film Titanic (1997)
• Anastasia is mentioned in Zhanna Bichevskaya’s song “Song of the Holy Royal Martyrs”
• Anastasia is mentioned in Yuri Morozov’s song “In Yekaterinburg-City”
• Dmitry Bogachev said that a musical about Anastasia is planned to be staged in Moscow.
• Anastasia is one of the playable characters in role-playing game"Shadow Hearts 2: Covenant" for Playstation 2.
• Anastasia is mentioned in the series "Nikita" (2010)

In her honor, in 1902, the village of Anastasievka, Black Sea province, was named. History of the formation of villages in the Tuapse region. Dictionary of villages

Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, daughter of the last Russian emperor, would have turned 105 years old on June 18, 2006. Or is it still turned? This question haunts historians, researchers, and... swindlers.

The life of the youngest daughter of Nicholas II ended at 17 years old. On the night of July 16-17, 1918, she and her relatives were shot in Yekaterinburg. From the memoirs of contemporaries it is known that Anastasia was well educated, as befits the daughter of an emperor, she knew how to dance, knew foreign languages, participated in home performances... She had a funny nickname in her family: “Shvibzik” for her playfulness. Moreover, she is with early age took care of her brother, Tsarevich Alexei, who was sick with hemophilia.

In Russian history, there have been cases of “miraculous salvation” of murdered heirs before: just remember the numerous False Dmitrys who appeared after the death of the young son of Tsar Ivan the Terrible. In the case of the royal family, there are serious reasons to believe that one of the heirs survived: members of the Yekaterinburg District Court Nametkin and Sergeev, who investigated the case of the death of the imperial family, came to the conclusion that the royal family was at some point replaced by a family of doubles . It is known that Nicholas II had seven such twin families. The version of the doubles was soon rejected; a little later, researchers returned to it again - after the memoirs of those who participated in the massacre in the Ipatiev House in July 1918 were published.

In the early 90s, the burial of the royal family near Yekaterinburg was discovered, but the remains of Anastasia and Tsarevich Alexei were not found. However, later there was will find more one skeleton, "number 6" and buried as belonging to the Grand Duchess. Only one small detail casts doubt on its authenticity - Anastasia had a height of 158 cm, and the buried skeleton was 171 cm... Moreover, two judicial determinations in Germany, based on DNA examinations of the Yekaterinburg remains, showed that they completely correspond to the Filatov family - doubles of the family of Nicholas II...

In addition, there is little factual material left about the Grand Duchess; perhaps this also provoked the “heiresses.”

Two years after the execution of the royal family, the first contender appeared. On one of the Berlin streets in 1920, a young woman Anna Anderson was found unconscious, who, upon regaining consciousness, called herself Anastasia Romanova. According to her version, the miraculous rescue looked like this: along with all the killed family members, she was taken to the burial place, but on the way, the half-dead Anastasia was hidden by some soldier. She reached Romania with him, they got married there, but what happened next was a failure...

The strangest thing in this story is that Anastasia was recognized in it by some foreign relatives, as well as Tatyana Botkina-Melnik, the widow of Dr. Botkin, who died in Yekaterinburg. For 50 years, talk and court cases continued, but Anna Anderson was never recognized as the “real” Anastasia Romanova.

Another story leads to the Bulgarian village of Grabarevo. “A young woman with an aristocratic bearing” appeared there in the early 20s and introduced herself as Eleanor Albertovna Kruger. A Russian doctor was with her, and a year later a tall, sickly-looking young man appeared in their house, who was registered in the community under the name Georgy Zhudin.

Rumors that Eleanor and George were brother and sister and belonged to the Russian royal family circulated in the community. However, they did not make any statements or claims about anything. George died in 1930, and Eleanor died in 1954. However, Bulgarian researcher Blagoy Emmanuilov claims that he has found evidence that Eleanor is the missing daughter of Nicholas II, and George is Tsarevich Alexei, citing some evidence:

“A lot of information reliably known about Anastasia’s life coincides with Nora from Gabarevo’s stories about herself.” - researcher Blagoy Emmanuilov told Radio Bulgaria.

“Towards the end of her life, she herself recalled that the servants bathed her in a golden trough, combed her hair and dressed her. She talked about her own royal room, and about her children’s drawings drawn in it. There is another interesting piece of evidence. At the beginning of the 50- In the 1980s, in the Bulgarian Black Sea city of Balchik, a Russian White Guard, describing in detail the life of the executed imperial family, mentioned Nora and Georges from Gabarevo. In front of witnesses, he said that Nicholas II ordered him to personally take Anastasia and Alexei out of the palace and hide them in the provinces. After long wanderings, they reached Odessa and boarded the ship, where, in the general confusion, Anastasia was overtaken by bullets from red cavalrymen. All three went ashore at the Turkish pier of Tegerdag. Further, the White Guard claimed that by the will of fate, the royal children ended up in a village near the city of Kazanlak.

In addition, comparing photographs of 17-year-old Anastasia and 35-year-old Eleanor Kruger from Gabarevo, experts have established significant similarities between them. The years of their birth also coincide. Contemporaries of George claim that he was sick with tuberculosis and talk about him as tall, weak and pale young man. Russian authors also describe the hemophiliac Prince Alexei in a similar way. According to doctors, the external manifestations of both diseases are the same."

The website Inosmi.ru cites a report from Radio Bulgaria, which notes that in 1995 the remains of Eleonora and George were exhumed from their graves in an old rural cemetery, in the presence of a forensic doctor and an anthropologist. In the coffin of George they found an amulet - an icon with the face of Christ - one of those with which only representatives of the highest strata of the Russian aristocracy were buried.

It would seem that the appearance of the miraculously saved Anastasia should have ended after so many years, but no - in 2002 another contender was presented. At that time she was almost 101 years old. Oddly enough, it was her age that made many researchers believe in this story: those who appeared earlier could count, for example, on power, fame, money. But is there any point in chasing wealth at 101?

Natalia Petrovna Bilikhodze, who claimed to be considered Grand Duchess Anastasia, of course, counted on the monetary inheritance of the royal family, but only in order to return it to Russia. According to representatives of the Interregional Public Charitable Christian Foundation of Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanova, they had data from “22 examinations carried out in the commission judicial procedure in three states - Georgia, Russia and Latvia, the results of which have not been refuted by any of the structures." According to these data, Georgian citizen Natalya Petrovna Bilikhodze and Princess Anastasia have "such a number of matching features that can only be found in one out of 700 billion. cases," stated members of the Foundation. The book by N.P. Bilikhodze was published: "I am Anastasia Romanova," containing memories of life and relationships in the royal family.

It would seem that the solution is close: they even said that Natalia Petrovna was going to come to Moscow and speak in the State Duma, despite her age, but later it turned out that “Anastasia” died two years before she was declared the heir.

In total, since the murder of the royal family in Yekaterinburg, about 30 pseudo-Anastasius have appeared in the world, writes NewsRu.Com. Some of them did not even speak Russian, explaining that the stress they experienced in the Ipatiev House made them forget their native speech. The Bank of Geneva created special service for their “identification”, an exam which none of the former candidates could pass.

Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna was born on June 5/18, 1901. Having learned about the birth of his fourth daughter, the Tsar walked for a long time alone and was sad, because he expected that a boy would be born. But when he returned, he completely changed, with a smile he entered the empress’s room and kissed the newborn child.

Having been born instead of the expected heir, Anastasia, indeed, by the liveliness of her character, resembled a playful boy. “The youngest of the Grand Duchesses, Anastasia Nikolaevna, seemed to be made of mercury, and not of flesh and blood,” wrote Lily Dehn.

The youngest Princess was bolder than her sisters, very fast and witty, quick-witted and observant, and was considered the ringleader in all pranks. She had a pretty face, long blonde hair and quick eyes sparkling with enthusiasm and fun. Many found that her facial features resembled her grandmother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, the mother of the Sovereign Martyr.

Saint Princess Anastasia, like all the royal children, was brought up in the Russian Orthodox spirit, combining work and prayer, as well as Spartan conditions: a cold bedroom, a hard bed with small pillows, a cold shower in the morning, clothes are always simple, inherited, as a rule, from older sisters.

“All these three Grand Duchesses, except for Tatiana, played pranks and frolicked like boys, but in their manners they were reminiscent of the Romanovs,” recalls Anna Vyrubova. Anastasia Nikolaevna was always playing pranks, climbing, hiding, making everyone laugh with her antics, and it was not easy to spot her.

The Younger Princess was extremely cheerful, brave, very fast, witty and observant, and was considered the ringleader in all pranks. Grand Duchess Anastasia was also a lively and carefree child, intelligent and not without cunning. She always managed to turn everything in her own way. From early childhood, plans for various pranks arose in Her head, and later the Heir, always ready for pranks, joined Her. When the Tsarevich lacked boyish company, he was successfully replaced by the “bastard” Anastasia.

Her distinctive feature was to notice people's weaknesses and skillfully imitate them. “She was a natural, gifted comedian,” wrote M.K. Diterichs. “It always happened that she made everyone laugh, maintaining an artificially serious appearance.”

The Empress Mother understood perfectly well that for the sake of her daughter, her irrepressible energy had to be restrained from time to time. But unlike many modern mothers, the wise Empress Alexandra Feodorovna did not at all want to remake the child’s nature to her own taste, or break it. She allowed her daughters, relying on the instilled rules of Christian piety, to develop depending on their God-given qualities. As a result, playfulness, a quality that could have degenerated into something unattractive, turned into a virtue for Grand Duchess Anastasia: the cheerfulness of the young girl not only pleased, but also consoled those around her

She also pleased the Queen Mother with her notes. Here's a typical one sample note Anastasia Nikolaevna dated May 7, 1915: “My dear sweet Mother! I hope that you are not too tired. We will try not to quarrel, argue or fight, so sleep well. May God bless you! Your loving daughter Nastenka.”

The daughters also wrote to the Father, whom they also loved and honored immensely. Although these letters are confessional, the measure of love in them is no less expressive. In these letters, the children were more relaxed; they could write as they pleased, which was not possible in correspondence with Mom. The most lively and playful ones were written by Anastasia.
Here is her “message” dated October 28, 1914: “My golden, good, dear Dad! We have just had lunch. So I am sending you my beautiful postcard. I'm sure you'll like it. Today I sat with our soldier and helped him read, which made me very happy... Olga pushes Maria, and Maria screams like an idiot. A dragon and a big idiot. Olga sends you a kiss again. I have already washed my face and must now go to bed. I will finish this letter tomorrow. Greetings Your Imperial Majesty! Good morning! I'm going to drink tea. I slept well without my mother and sisters. Now I have a Russian lesson. Pyotr Vasilyevich reads Turgenev's Notes of a Hunter. Very interesting. I wish you all the best, 1,000,000 kisses. Your devoted and loving daughter, 13-year-old servant of God Anastasia. God bless you."

The kind, loving heart of the youngest Princess, combined with her liveliness and wit, incredibly inspired all those who had the good fortune to communicate with her. During the war, visiting hospitals with her sister Maria, she cheered up the soldiers, making them forget about pain for a while, and consoled all those suffering with her kindness and tenderness. Even many years later, soldiers and officers who once lay in the Tsarskoe Selo infirmaries, when remembering the Tsar’s daughters, according to eyewitnesses, seemed to be illuminated by an unearthly light, brightly recalling those days when the Grand Duchesses leaned over them carefully and tenderly.

The wounded soldiers and officers were keenly interested in the fate of the princesses.

The Holy Martyr Tsarana Anastasia walked with her family the entire mournful path from the Tsarskoye Selo Palace to the basement of the Ipatiev House, which the Lord prepared for them to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

In the 20s, a girl appeared in Berlin posing as Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanova. The hope burned in the hearts of many Russian people that at least one of the daughters of the Sovereign Martyr had been saved. But these hopes did not come true. Neither the Tsarina's sister Irena of Prussia, nor Baroness Sophia Buchsgeven, nor the mentor of the royal children, Pierre Gilliard, recognized her as Anastasia. The girl turned out to be an impostor. Later, more and more impostors appeared. One of the reasons for these appearances was that the so-called. The “royal gold” was bequeathed by the emperor to his youngest daughter. And to this day, the desire to receive the “inheritance” kept by the Japanese emperor haunts many political adventurers who more than once wanted to profit from the tragedy of the Russian people - the betrayal of the Royal Family, which ended in regicide.

Reading the letters of Grand Duchess Anastasia and the memories of those close to her, you involuntarily come to the indisputable conclusion that under no circumstances would the Princess leave her beloved family. Even if she was given a chance to escape, she would never take it. Any of the Royal Martyrs would have done the same, since not one of them wanted to leave Russia and could not imagine himself without his family, where the souls and hearts of the Tsar, Queen, Tsarevich and Grand Duchesses were connected by an unbreakable thread, which even death could not break.

Anastasia was obedient to her parents and older sisters. A meek and silent spirit was inherent in her internally, and not externally, because Anastasia was humble. It is precisely humble, since the word “humility” attracts with the phrase “in peace” hidden in it. Accept everything in peace. Even the bullying of the Red “comrades” and executioners.

On the night of the martyrdom of the Royal Family, Blessed Maria of Diveyevo raged and shouted: "The princesses with bayonets! Damned Jews!" She raged terribly, and only then did they understand what she was screaming about. The wounded Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna was finished off with bayonets and rifle butts. The most innocent suffered the greatest torment, truly the Holy Lamb.

Melnik-Botkina’s memoirs mention a conversation between members of the Provisional Government commission to investigate the guilt of the Royal Family. One of its members asked why letters from the Empress and the Grand Duchesses had not yet been published. “What are you saying,” said another, “all the correspondence is here in my desk, but if we publish it, the people will worship them as saints.”

HOLY MARTYR QUEEN ANASTASIA, PRAY TO GOD FOR US!

Anna Anderson

Anna Anderson (Tchaikovskaya, Manahan, Shantskovskaya) is the most famous of the women who posed as Grand Duchess Anastasia, daughter of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. Let's try to figure out whether Anna Anderson was Princess Anastasia Romanova or is she just another swindler, an impostor, or just a sick person.

Unknown Russian, or Anastasia Romanova

The rumor that this woman, Grand Duchess Anastasia, excited the world after the Berlin police report on February 17, 1920 recorded a girl rescued from a suicide attempt. She had no documents with her and refused to give her name. She had brown hair with a chestnut tint and piercing gray eyes. She spoke with a pronounced Slavic accent, so in her personal file there was an entry “unknown Russian”.

Since the spring of 1922, dozens of articles and books have been written about her. Anastasia Tchaikovskaya, Anna Anderson, later Anna Manahan (after her husband’s last name). These are the names of the same woman. The last name written on her gravestone is "Anastasia Manahan". She died on February 12, 1984, but even after death, her fate haunts neither her friends nor her enemies.

Family of Nicholas II

Why for a century there was a myth about the salvation of Princess Anastasia and only son Nicholas II Tsarevich Alexei? After all, it was only in 1991 that a common grave with the remains of the royal family was discovered, among which the bodies of the prince and Anastasia were missing. And only in August 2007, near Yekaterinburg, the remains were discovered, presumably belonging to Tsarevich Alexei and the Grand Duchess. However, foreign experts have not confirmed this fact.

Confirmation of the death of Anastasia Romanova

In addition, there are a number of reasons that do not allow Anastasia to be considered dead along with the entire Royal Family on the night of July 17, 1918:

• “1. There is an eyewitness account who saw the wounded but alive Anastasia in a house on Voskresensky Prospekt in Yekaterinburg (almost opposite Ipatiev’s house) in the early morning of July 17, 1918; it was Heinrich Kleinbetzetl, a tailor from Vienna, an Austrian prisoner of war, who in the summer of 1918 worked in Yekaterinburg as an apprentice to the tailor Baudin. He saw her in Baudin's house in the early morning of July 17, a few hours after the brutal massacre in the basement of Ipatiev's house. It was brought by one of the guards (probably still from the previous more liberal composition of the guard - Yurovsky did not replace all the previous guards), - one of those few young guys who had long sympathized with the girls, the Tsar’s daughters;
• 2. There is great confusion in the testimonies, reports and stories of the participants in this bloody massacre - even in different versions stories from the same participants;
• 3. It is known that the “Reds” were looking for the missing Anastasia for several months after the murder of the Royal Family;
• 4. It is known that one (or two?) women's corsets were not found. None of the “white” investigations answers all the questions, including the investigation of the Kolchak commission investigator Nikolai Sokolov;
• 5. The archives of the Cheka-KGB-FSB about the murder of the Royal Family and what the security officers led by Yurovsky in 1919 (a year after the execution) and MGB officers (Beria’s department) in 1946 did in the Koptyakovsky forest have not yet been opened. All documents known so far about the execution of the Royal Family (including Yurovsky’s “Note”) were obtained from other state archives (not from the archives of the FSB).”

The story of Anastasia Romanova

And so back to the story of Anna Anderson. A woman rescued from a suicide attempt was placed in the Elisabeth Hospital on Lützowstrasse. She admitted that she tried to commit suicide, but refused to give a reason or make any comments. Upon examination, doctors discovered that she had given birth six months ago. For a girl “under the age of twenty,” this was an important circumstance. They saw numerous scars from lacerations on the patient’s chest and stomach. On the head behind the right ear there was a 3.5 cm long scar, deep enough for a finger to go into it, as well as a scar on the forehead at the very roots of the hair. On the right foot there was a characteristic scar from a perforating wound. It fully corresponded to the shape and size of the wounds inflicted by the bayonet of a Russian rifle. There are cracks in the upper jaw.

The next day after the examination, she admitted to the doctor that she was afraid for her life: “She makes it clear that she does not want to identify herself for fear of persecution. The impression of restraint born of fear. More fear than restraint." The medical history also records that the patient has a congenital orthopedic foot disease hallux valgus of the third degree.

“The disease discovered in the patient by the doctors of the clinic in Daldorf absolutely coincided with the congenital disease of Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova. As one orthopedist put it: “It’s easier to find two girls of the same age with the same fingerprints than with signs of congenital hallux valgus.” The girls we are talking about also had the same height, foot size, hair and eye color, and portrait resemblance. From the medical record data it is clear that the traces of injuries to Anna Anderson fully correspond to those that, according to the forensic investigator Tomashevsky, were inflicted on Anastasia in the basement of Ipatiev’s house. The scar on the forehead also matches. Anastasia Romanova had such a scar since childhood, so she is the only one of the daughters of Nicholas II who always wore her hair with bangs.

Anna Anderson

Anna calls herself Anastasia

Later, Anna declared herself the daughter of Nikolai Romanov, Anastasia, and said that she came to Berlin in the hope of finding her aunt, Princess Irene, the sister of Queen Alexandra, but the palace did not recognize her or even listen to her. According to ‘Anastasia’, she attempted suicide out of shame and humiliation.

It was never possible to establish the exact data, and even the name of the patient (she was named Anna Anderson) - the ‘princess’ answered questions at random, and although she understood the questions in Russian, she answered them in some other Slavic language. However, someone later claimed that the patient spoke excellent Russian.

Her manners, gait, and communication with other people are not without a certain nobility. In addition, in conversations, the girl made quite competent judgments about various areas of life. She had an excellent understanding of art and music, knew geography well, and could freely list all the reigning persons of European states. In her appearance, the breed, “blue blood”, was clearly visible, inherent only to persons of the reigning dynasties or noble gentlemen and ladies close to the throne.

The news that a woman had appeared posing as the Tsar's daughter reached Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna (Anastasia's aunt) and her mother Empress Maria Feodorovna (Anastasia's grandmother). Following their instructions, people who knew the royal family and Anastasia well began to come to the patient. They looked closely at Anna, asked her questions about life in Russia, about her salvation, about the facts of Anastasia’s life, known only to those closest to the Tsar. The girl spoke confusedly and confusedly and amazed many with her knowledge. Despite the correct but confusing answers and a small external resemblance the verdict was made - this is not Anastasia.

Anna or Anastasia?

Interrogation of Anastasia Romanova

Another of the main arguments against Anderson being Anastasia was her categorical refusal to speak Russian. Many eyewitnesses also claimed that she generally understood very poorly when addressed in her native language. She herself, however, motivated her reluctance to speak Russian by the shock she experienced while under arrest, when the guards forbade members of the emperor’s family to communicate with each other in any other languages, since they could not understand them in this case. In addition, Anderson demonstrated almost complete ignorance of Orthodox customs and rituals.

Why are members of the House of Romanov in Europe and their relatives from royal dynasties Germany almost immediately, in the early 1920s, turned out to be opposed to it? “Firstly, Anna Anderson spoke sharply about Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich (“he is a traitor”) - the same one who, immediately after the abdication of Nicholas II, took his Guards crew away from Tsarskoye Selo and allegedly put on a red bow.

Secondly, she unintentionally revealed a big state secret, which concerned her mother’s brother (Empress Alexandra Feodorovna), about the arrival of her uncle Ernie of Hesse to Russia in 1916. The visit was associated with intentions to persuade Nicholas II to a separate peace with Germany. In the early twenties it was still a state secret

Thirdly, Anna-Anastasia herself was in such a difficult physical and psychological state (consequences of severe injuries received in the basement of Ipatiev’s house, and the very difficult previous two years of wandering) that communicating with her was not easy for anyone. There is an important fourth reason, but first things first.

The question of succession to the Russian throne

In 1922, in the Russian Diaspora, the question of who would lead the dynasty was being decided for the place of the “Emperor in Exile.” The main contender was Kirill Vladimirovich Romanov. He, like most Russian emigrants, could not even imagine that the Bolshevik rule would last for seven long decades. The appearance of Anastasia caused confusion and division of opinion in the ranks of the monarchists. The following information was spread about the physical and mental ill health of the princess, and the presence of an heir to the throne, born in unequal marriage(either from a soldier, or from a lieutenant of peasant origin), all this did not contribute to her immediate recognition, not to mention the consideration of her candidacy for the position of head of the dynasty.

“The Romanovs did not want to see God’s anointed peasant son, who was either in Romania or in Soviet Russia. By the time she met her relatives in 1925, Anastasia was seriously ill with tuberculosis. Her weight barely reached 33 kg. The people surrounding Anastasia believed that her days were numbered. And who besides the mother needed her “bastard”? But she survived, and after meetings with Aunt Olya and other close people, she dreamed of meeting her grandmother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna. She was waiting for recognition from her family, but instead, in 1928, on the second day after the death of the Dowager Empress, several members of the Romanov dynasty publicly renounced her, declaring that she was an impostor. The insult led to a break in the relationship.”

Impostor or Princess Anastasia Romanova?

The fact that Anna Anderson was an impostor, and not Grand Duchess Anastasia, was immediately reported to Grand Duchess Olga. The Grand Duchess cannot calm down in any way, she is tormented by doubts, and in the fall of 1925, taking with her Alexandra Tegleva, the former nanny of Anastasia and Maria, and several ladies who are well acquainted with the royal family, she herself goes to Berlin.

When they met, Anastasia’s nanny did not recognize Anna as her ward, but the color of her eyes completely matched. Those eyes suddenly filled with tears of joy. Anna went up to Tyeglyova and, hugging her tightly, began to cry. Looking at this touching scene, the arriving ladies were dumbfounded, but not the Grand Duchess. Having last seen Anastasia in 1916, she determined at first glance that the girl standing in front of her had nothing in common with her niece.

Answering questions from the ladies present, Anna Anderson revealed a good knowledge of the customs and practices of the imperial house. She even mentioned the finger injury, showing the scar on it to the arriving ladies. She also indicated the time - 1915, when the footman, slamming the carriage door hard, pinched the Grand Duchess's finger.

The girl affectionately called Tyeglyova Shura and told about several funny incidents from her childhood. They really took place, and the former nanny hesitated. The woman was ready to recognize Anna Anderson as her pupil when she suddenly remembered the incident with the finger. It happened not to Anastasia, but to Maria - and not in a carriage, but in a train compartment. The charm woven by the stranger from dear memories dissipated. But there was still one more piece of evidence that needed to be verified.

Anastasia's big toes had a slight curvature. This doesn’t happen often with young girls, and Tegleva, overcoming her awkwardness, asked Anna Anderson to take off her shoes. She, not at all embarrassed, took off her shoes. The above toes did indeed look crooked, but the feet themselves did not match Anastasia's feet. The daughter of Nicholas II had them graceful and small, but here they are wide and much larger. And another verdict - an impostor.

Royal family

Life of Anastasia Romanova

The breakdown of relations with most of her relatives forced Anna to defend her rights in court. This is how they appeared in Anastasia’s life forensic experts. The first graphological examination was made in 1927. It was performed by an employee of the Institute of Graphology in Prisna, Dr. Lucy Weizsäcker. Comparing the handwriting on the recently written samples with the handwriting on the samples written by Anastasia during the life of Nicholas II, Lucy Weizsäcker came to the conclusion that the samples belong to the same person.

In 1938, at the insistence of Anna, the trial began and ended only in 1977. It lasted 39 years and is one of the longest trials in modern history humanity. All this time, Anna lives either in America or in her own house in the Black Forest village, given to her by the Prince of Saxe-Coburg.

In 1968, at the age of 70, Anderson married large industrialist John Manahan from Virginia, who dreamed of getting a real Russian princess as his wife, and became Anna Manahan. It is interesting that while she was in the United States, Anna met with Mikhail Golenevsky, who pretended to be “the miraculously saved Tsarevich Alexei,” and publicly recognized him as her brother.

In 1977, the trial was finally put to rest. The court denied Anna Manahan the right to inherit the property of the royal family, as it considered the available evidence of her relationship with the Romanovs insufficient. Having failed to achieve her goal, the mysterious woman dies on February 12, 1984.

Expert opinions about whether Anderson was the emperor's real daughter or a simple impostor remained controversial. When in 1991 it was decided to exhume the remains of the royal family, research was also carried out on Anna’s relationship with the Romanov family. DNA tests did not show Anderson to be a member of the Russian royal family.

Now I will give the floor to the American author Peter Kurt, whose book “Anastasia. The Riddle of Anna Anderson" (in Russian translation "Anastasia. The Riddle of the Grand Duchess"), according to many, is the best in the historiography of this riddle (and is wonderfully written). Peter Kurth knew Anna Anderson personally. This is what he wrote in the afterword to the Russian edition of his book:

Stories about Anastasia Romanova

“Truth is a snare; you can't have it without getting caught. You can’t catch her, she catches a person.”
Søren Kirkegaard

“Fiction must remain within the boundaries of the possible. The truth is no.”
Mark Twain

These quotes were sent to me by a friend in 1995, shortly after the British Home Office's Department of Forensic Sciences announced that mitochondrial DNA testing of "Anna Anderson" had conclusively proven that she was not Grand Duchess Anastasia, the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II. According to the conclusion of a team of British geneticists in Aldermaston, led by Dr Peter Gill, Ms Anderson's DNA does not match either the DNA of female skeletons recovered from a grave near Yekaterinburg in 1991 and allegedly belonging to the queen and her three daughters, nor with the DNA of Anastasia's maternal relatives and paternal line, residing in England and elsewhere. At the same time, a blood test of Karl Mauger, the great-nephew of missing factory worker Franziska Schanckowska, revealed a mitochondrial match, leading to the conclusion that Franziska and Anna Anderson are the same person. Subsequent tests in other laboratories looking at the same DNA led to the same conclusion.

... I knew Anna Anderson for more than ten years and was familiar with almost everyone who was involved in her struggle for recognition over the past quarter century: friends, lawyers, neighbors, journalists, historians, representatives of the Russian royal family and the royal families of Europe, Russian and European aristocracy - a wide circle of competent witnesses who without hesitation recognized her as the tsar’s daughter. My knowledge of her character, all the details of her case and, as it seems to me, probability and common sense - everything convinces me that she was a Russian Grand Duchess.

This belief of mine, although challenged (by DNA research), remains unshakable. Not being an expert, I cannot question Dr. Gill's results; if only these results had revealed that Ms. Anderson was not a member of the Romanov family, I might be able to accept them—if not easily now, then at least in time. However, no amount of scientific evidence or forensic evidence will convince me that Ms. Anderson and Franziska Schanckowska are the same person.

I categorically assert that those who knew Anna Anderson, who lived with her for months and years, treated her and cared for her during her many illnesses, be it a doctor or a nurse, who observed her behavior, posture, demeanor, “They can’t believe that she was born in a village in East Prussia in 1896 and was the daughter and sister of beet farmers.”

So, in the case of Anastasia Romanova, we can state the following

• "1. Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova had a congenital deformity of both feet “Hallux Valgus” (bursitis thumb feet). This is visible not only in some photographs of the young Grand Duchess, but was confirmed after 1920 even by those close to her (to Anastasia) who did not believe in the identity of Anna Anderson (for example, younger sister Tsar, Olga Alexandrovna - and she knew the imperial children well from their birth; this was also confirmed by Pierre Gilliard, the teacher of the royal children, who had been at court since 1905). This was precisely a congenital case of the disease. The nanny (of little Anastasia), Alexandra (Shura) Tegleva, also confirmed congenital bunions of Anastasia’s big toes.
• 2. Anna Anderson also had a congenital deformity of both feet “Hallux Valgus” (bunions).
  Besides the diagnosis German doctors(in Daldorf in 1920), the diagnosis of congenital “Hallux Valgus” was made to Anna Anderson (Anna Tchaikovskaya) also by the Russian doctor Sergei Mikhailovich Rudnev at the clinic of St. Maria in the summer of 1925 (Anna Tchaikovskaya-Anderson was there in in serious condition, with tuberculosis infections): “On her right foot I noticed a severe deformity, apparently congenital: the big toe bends to the right, forming a tumor.”
  Rudnev also noted that “Hallux Valgus” was on both of her legs. (See Peter Kurt. - Anastasia. The Mystery of the Grand Duchess. M., Zakharova Publishing House, p. 99). Dr. Sergei Rudnev cured and saved her life in 1925. Anna Anderson called him “my kind Russian professor who saved my life.”
• 3. On July 27, 1925, the Gilliard couple arrived in Berlin. Once again: Shura Gilliard-Tegleva was Anastasia’s nanny in Russia. They visited a very sick Anna Anderson in the clinic. Shura Tegleva asked to show her the patient’s legs (feet). The blanket was carefully turned away, Shura exclaimed: “With her [with Anastasia] it was the same as here: the right leg was worse than the left” (see the book by Peter Kurt, p. 121)
  Now, I will give once again the medical statistics of “Hallux Valgus” (bursitis of the big toe) for Russia:
  — “Hallux valgus” (HV) is present in 0.95% of the examined women;
  - 89% of them have the first degree of HV (= 0.85% of the women examined);
  - 1.6% of them have the third degree of HV (= 0.0152% of the women examined or 1: 6580);
  — the statistics of a congenital case of “hallux valgus” (in modern Russia) is 8:142,000,000, or approximately 1:17,750,000!

We can assume that the statistics of congenital cases of “hallux valgus” in former Russia did not differ too much (even several times, 1: 10,000,000, or 1: 5,000,000). Thus, the probability that Anna Anderson was not Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova ranges from 1:5 million to 1:17 million.

Evidence of Anna's relationship to the Romano dynasty

It is also known that the statistics of congenital cases of this orthopedic disease in the West in the first half of the 20th century were also calculated in single cases for the entire orthopedic medical practice.
Thus, the very rare congenital deformity of the legs “hallux valgus” of Grand Duchess Anastasia and Anna Anderson puts an end to the tough (and sometimes cruel) debate between supporters and opponents of Anna Anderson.

Vladimir Momot published his article (“Gone with the Wind”) in February 2007 in the American newspaper “Panorama” (Los-Angeles, newspaper “Panorama”). He did a great job to restore the truth about Anna Anderson and the royal daughter Anastasia. It’s amazing how, for more than 80 years, no one thought to find out the medical statistics of hallux valgus foot deformity! Truly this story is reminiscent of the fairy tale about the glass slipper!

Now we can be completely and irrevocably sure that Anna Anderson and Grand Duchess Anastasia are one and the same person.”

So who is Anna Anderson really, an impostor or Anastasia Romanova? If Anna Anderson and Grand Duchess Anastasia are the same person, then it remains to be seen whose remains were buried under the name of Grand Duchess Anastasia in St. Petersburg in July 1998 (however, there are doubts about other remains buried then), and whose the remains were found in the summer of 2007 in the Koptyakovsky forest.

Anastasia

And finally, an excerpt from S. Sadalsky’s story “The Riddle of the Princess”: Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova - June 5, 1901 - Peterhof - July 17, 1918, Yekaterinburg. “In the early 80s, when, by the will of fate, I began to visit Germany quite often, I showed great interest in the old Russian emigrants who, like fragments of Russian culture, were still preserved there. I reached out to them, and they reached out to me. The Soviets at that time were afraid of them like hell.

My curiosity was rewarded by meeting Princess Anastasia, who, before her death, came to Hanover to say goodbye to her friends and youth.

I told her, naturally, in Russian (she answered in German), that I had seen the Ipatievs’ house in Sverdlovsk during my tour with the Sovremennik Theater, that the city’s residents incredibly revered this place and brought flowers to it.

Then, by order of the first secretary of the regional party committee, Yeltsin, the house was demolished overnight, but the residents took everything home brick by brick and kept it as a shrine.

The princess listened and cried and asked me to bow to that place. She died in America in 1984."

P.S.: “Holy Princess Anastasia The youngest daughter, Anastasia, was born in 1901. At first she was a tomboy and the family jester. She was shorter than others; she had a straight nose and beautiful gray eyes. Later, she was distinguished by her good manners and subtlety of mind, had the talent of a comedian and loved to make everyone laugh. She was also extremely kind and loved animals. Anastasia had a small Japanese dog, the favorite of the whole family. Anastasia carried this dog in her arms when she went down to the Yekaterinburg basement on the fateful night of July 4/17, and the little dog was killed along with her.”

Based on materials from the article by Boris Romanov “The Crystal Slippers of Princess Anastasia”

Comments

Vitaliy Pavlovich Romanov

I am also convinced that Toska was very disturbing
Kirill and his pack to bask in the royal treasury, and
Olya dreamed of seizing the throne. The greed of it
family is palpable to me.

The Grand Duke himself is at your service.
Romanov Vitaly Pavlovich.

Romanov Vitaly Pavlovich

My last name is Romanov. I have never been interested in my origins. Now I have become an old man and
I really want to know who I am? Maybe also a charlatan like Anderson? And Anastasia lived for 17 years
in Russia, but did not know the language of my homeland. The conclusion suggests itself - your Anderson is
scammer. Romanov V.P. himself is at your service...

Victoria

You know, I was never interested in the Second World War or any revolution. I was always interested in the Romanovs, the Romanov family, where they were born, how 300 years of the throne were celebrated. But most of all I was interested in Anastasia. Did she survive, or was she saved? This question I’ve been interested in her for many years. I just can’t believe that she, like everyone else, was shot in the basement. She suffered for so many years, proving that she was the one, Anastasia Romanova. Do you know? I believe that “Anna Anderson” was that Anastasia to her. After all, while she was walking through the forest, or whatever it was, for 2 years, her toes became crooked. And before, as Tegleva said, she had soft, tender legs. I wish I could walk for 2 years! !!No, it was Anastasia!

Ural historians found the remains of the royal family back in 1976, but the excavations themselves were carried out only in 1991. Then, with the help of many examinations, scientists were able to prove that the found fragments of bodies belonged to Tsar Nicholas, Empress Alexandra, three daughters - Olga, Tatiana and Anastasia, as well as their servants. The fate of only the bodies of Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria, who were not found in the general burial, remained mysterious. http://ura.ru/content/svrd/16-09-2011/news/1052134206.html.

“At about 3 o’clock Alix began to feel severe pain. At 4 o'clock I got up and went to my room and got dressed. At exactly 6 a.m. my daughter was born. Anastasia. Everything happened quickly under excellent conditions and, thank God, without complications. Thanks to the fact that it all started and ended while everyone was still sleeping, we both had a sense of peace and privacy! After that, I sat down to write telegrams and notify relatives in all corners of the world. Fortunately, Alix is ​​feeling well. The baby weighs 11½ pounds and is 55 cm tall.”

This is how the last Russian emperor described in his diary the birth of his youngest, fourth daughter, which occurred on June 18, 1901.

The birth of little Anastasia did not cause delight among the Romanovs. Nicholas's sister, Grand Duchess Xenia, wrote about it like this: “What a disappointment! 4th girl!... Mom telegraphed me about the same thing and writes: “Alix gave birth to a daughter again!”

According to the laws in force at that time in the Russian Empire, introduced back Paul I, women could inherit the throne only if all male lines of the family were suppressed. This meant that the heir to the father of four daughters Nicholas II should be his younger brother Mikhail.

This prospect did not please the Romanov clan too much, and Emperor's wife Alexandra Feodorovna and completely infuriating. The empress had high hopes for the fourth birth, but a girl appeared again. Alexandra Fedorovna managed to give birth to an heir only on the fifth attempt.

"Kubushka" who did not like arithmetic

Grand Duchess Anastasia was not threatened with the prospect of taking the throne. Like her sisters, she received home education, which began at the age of eight. The program included French, English and German, history, geography, God's Law, natural sciences, drawing, grammar, arithmetic, as well as dance and music.

While studying, “Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia” had a particular dislike for arithmetic and grammar. Anastasia loved games, dancing, and charades.

Because of her mobility and hooligan disposition, her family called her “shvybzik”, and because of her small stature and prone to plump figure, she was called “little one”.

In accordance with the traditions of the imperial family, at the age of 14, each of the emperor’s daughters became an honorary commander of one of the Russian regiments. In 1915, Anastasia became the honorary commander of the Caspian 148th Infantry Regiment.

Maria and Anastasia in the hospital in Tsarskoe Selo. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

During the First World War, Anastasia and her sister Maria organized concerts for wounded soldiers in hospitals, read to them, and helped them write letters home.

In the spring of 1917, the daughters of Nicholas II, who had already abdicated the throne, contracted measles. Because of high temperature and strong medications, the girls' hair began to fall out, and their heads were shaved. Their brother Alexei, who was spared the disease, insisted that he be tonsured in the same way as his sisters. In memory of this, a photo was taken - the shaved heads of the emperor's children protruding from behind the black drapery. Today, some see this photo as a dark omen.

Anastasia, Olga, Alexey, Maria and Tatiana after measles (June 1917) Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

Life under house arrest for the daughters of Nicholas II was not too burdensome - the girls were not spoiled in the palace, where they grew up in, if not Spartan, then very harsh conditions.

During her stay in Tobolsk, Anastasia was passionate about sewing and preparing firewood.

Birthday at Ipatiev's house

In May 1918, the Romanov family was taken to Yekaterinburg, to the house engineer Ipatiev. On June 18, Anastasia celebrated her 17th birthday.

From left to right - Olga, Nikolai, Anastasia, Tatyana. Tobolsk (winter 1917) Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

By this time, she was almost no longer interested in children's fun - Anastasia, like all girls of her age, was worried about the relatively imaginary and real shortcomings of her own figure. With the outbreak of the war, she, along with her sisters, became addicted to smoking. In the last period before her father’s abdication, Anastasia was fond of photography and loved chatting on the phone.

In general, there were few people in the Romanov family with good health, and Anastasia was not one of the chosen ones. Doctors believed that she, like her mother, was a carrier of hemophilia. Since childhood, she suffered from pain in her feet - a consequence of congenital curvature of her big toes. Anastasia had a weak back, but she avoided special exercises and massage aimed at correcting this deficiency in every possible way.

On the night of July 16-17, 1918, Anastasia Romanova was shot in the basement of the house of engineer Ipatiev, along with her sisters, brother, parents and associates.

A short life with a sad ending. But surprisingly, after her death, Anastasia became the most famous representative of the family of Nicholas II in the world, perhaps eclipsing the emperor himself.

The girl from the Berlin clinic

The story of the “miraculous rescue” of Grand Duchess Anastasia has been exciting minds for almost a century. Books have been written about her, films have been made, and in 1997 the full-length cartoon “Anastasia” was released, which collected $140 million at the worldwide box office. “Anastasia” was even nominated for an Oscar for best song.

Anastasia. Photo: Still from the cartoon

Why did Anastasia, of the entire imperial family, gain such fame?

This happened thanks to a woman named Anna Anderson, who declared herself a Grand Duchess who escaped execution.

In February 1920, a policeman in Berlin saved a young woman who was trying to commit suicide by jumping from a bridge. From the lady’s confused explanations it followed that she was looking for royal relatives in the capital of Germany, but they allegedly rejected her, after which the woman decided to take her own life.

Anna Anderson. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

The failed suicide was sent to a psychiatric clinic, where upon examination they found numerous scars from gunshot wounds on her body. The patient understood Russian, but doctors still believed that her native language was Polish. At the clinic, she did not give her name and was generally reluctant to enter into conversations.

In 1921, rumors began to circulate especially actively in Europe that one of the daughters of Nicholas II could have survived the execution in Yekaterinburg.

Looking at photographs of the daughters of the Russian emperor published in newspapers, one of the clinic’s patients found that her neighbor was extremely similar to one of them.

This is where the epic of Anna Anderson and Anastasia began.

“I hid behind my sister Tatyana’s back”

Russian emigrants began to visit the clinic, trying to understand whether the unknown woman, suffering from memory loss, was really the daughter of the emperor.

At the same time, they initially said that the patient of the mental hospital was not Anastasia, but Tatyana.

Most of the visitors who knew the royal daughters were convinced that the unknown lady had nothing to do with the children of Nicholas II.

But they noticed that the “princess” grasps everything on the fly - after one visitor, trying to remind her of the “royal past,” told her episodes from the life of the royal daughters, she passed on these words to the next as her own “memories.”

Anna Anderson. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

In 1922, Anna Anderson openly declared herself Anastasia Romanova for the first time.

“I was with everyone on the night of the murder, and when the massacre began, I hid behind my sister Tatyana, who was shot dead. I lost consciousness from several blows. When I came to my senses, I discovered that I was in the house of some soldier who had saved me. By the way, I went to Romania with his wife, and when she died, I decided to make my way to Germany alone,” this is how the woman told about her “miraculous salvation.”

The stories of Anna Anderson, who left the clinic and found support from those who believed her, changed over time and were full of inconsistencies. Despite this, opinions on her were divided: some were convinced that Anna Anderson was an impostor, others also firmly insisted that she really was Anastasia.

"Anna Anderson vs. the Romanovs"

In 1928, Anna Anderson moved to the USA, where she began to actively fight for recognition of herself as Anastasia. At the same time, the “Romanov Declaration” appeared, in which the surviving members of the Russian imperial house resolutely disavowed any kinship with her.

The problem, however, was that of the 44 Romanovs, less than half signed this document. Some Romanovs stubbornly supported Anna Anderson, and they were joined by Tatiana And Gleb Botkins, children of the last court physician, who was killed along with the royal family.

In 1928, Gleb Botkin was at the forefront of the creation of the joint-stock company “Grandanor” (“Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia” - that is, “Russian Grand Duchess Anastasia”.

The company intended to defend the interests of Anna Anderson in the courts, seeking her recognition as Anastasia. At stake was “royal gold”—the foreign treasures of the Romanovs, which were valued at tens of millions of dollars. If successful, Anna Anderson was to become their sole heir.

The Anna Anderson v. Romanov trial began in Berlin in 1938 and spanned several decades. It was a series of lawsuits that ended in nothing in 1977. The court found the available evidence of Anna Anderson's relationship with the Romanovs insufficient, although her opponents failed to prove that Anderson was not really Anastasia.

The opponents of “Anastasia” from among the Romanovs, having spent a lot of money on paying private investigators, provided evidence that Anna Anderson is in fact Polish Franziska Shantskovskaya, a worker at a Berlin explosives factory. The wounds on her body, according to this version, were received in an explosion at the enterprise.

Anna Anderson was even confronted with the Shantskovskys, at which they identified her as their relative.

However, not everyone believed their testimony, especially since the Shantskovskys themselves either identified Franziska in Anna or retracted their words.

"Alas, it was not her"

Long trial made the supposed "Anastasia" very famous in the West, inspiring writers and directors to create works about her fate.

At the end of her life, Anna Anderson again found herself in a psychiatric clinic, this time in Charlottesville, in American state Virginia. On February 12, 1984, she died of pneumonia. Her body, according to her will, was cremated, and her ashes were buried in the chapel of Zeon Castle in Bavaria.

By 2008, numerous DNA analyzes of the alleged remains of the royal family found in 1991, carried out by experts in several laboratories in different countries, gave an unequivocal conclusion - we are really talking about the family of Nicholas II, and all its representatives really died in Ipatiev’s house.

An analysis of tissue samples from Anna Anderson, taken from her during her lifetime and preserved in the Charlottesville clinic, showed that she has nothing to do with the Romanovs. But two independent DNA tests confirmed her genetic proximity to the Shantskovsky family.

Grand Duchess Anastasia, circa 1912. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

Anna Anderson was the most famous, but far from the only false Anastasia. Great-great-grandson of Emperor Nicholas I, Prince Dmitry Romanov said: “In my memory there were from 12 to 19 self-proclaimed Anastasii. In the conditions of the post-war depression, many went crazy. We, the Romanovs, would be happy if Anastasia, even in the person of this very Anna Anderson, turned out to be alive. But, alas, it was not her."

"The Emperor's Children" as "the children of Lieutenant Schmidt"

The prince turned out to be wrong in only one thing - there were much more false Anastasius. To date, 34 “miraculously escaped Anastasias” are known. Most of them did not show such activity as Anna Anderson; some were posthumously attributed to “royal origin” by various lovers of historical secrets.

Who was not among the “Anastasias” - both peasant women who revealed the “secret” to their children before death, and patients psychiatric clinics, and clever scammers, sometimes having nothing to do with Russia at all. The last of the false Anastasias passed away in 2000, but some of their heirs to these women are still fighting to recognize themselves as Romanovs.

“But why Anastasia?” - a natural question from an inquisitive reader will be heard.

In fact, not only Anastasia. “The miraculously saved children of Nicholas II” are no less than the famous “children of Lieutenant Schmidt” from “The Golden Calf”. Researchers of this phenomenon counted 28 false Olgas, 33 false Tatyanas, 53 false Marias. But all the records were broken by the false Alexeys - today there are more than 80 of them. And each has its own story of salvation, its own supporters, confident in the truth of the applicant.

All this has nothing to do with tragic fate Alexey, Anastasia, Maria, Tatiana and Olga Romanov, as a story False Dmitry has nothing to do with the fate of the unfortunate younger son of Ivan the Terrible.

But in history it sometimes happens that impostors leave a brighter mark on it than those whose names were appropriated.