What Happened To Anastasia?

[MrRING]

You know the story of Anastasia, about impersonators through the years who claimed to be her, and Russian paperwork that says she was killed at the same time as the rest of her family.

The question, that I don't know the answer to, is if Anastasia was killed, why wasn't her body found with the others? And it does give hope to the possibility that she somehow survived. What are your opinions? Or has science and technology proved it one way or another?

A few interesting sites:
A Historical Site in A Fictional Anastasia's voice

A site about the lost Romanov jewels

It is also an interactive game of sorts, but with some historical items. I hadn't heard this bit of information:

The story begins in the summer of 1918. For more than a year, Nicholas Romanov, former Tsar of the Russian Empire, his wife Alexandra and their five children, have been captives of Communist revolutionaries. Confined to a house in the Siberian city of Ekaterinburg, the family pass the time reading, sewing and pondering their fate. On the night of July 16 they are summoned from their beds and ordered to the basement. Their captors tell them they will be photographed. Posed for a portrait, they face the cellar door.
Eleven Bolshevik soldiers enter, raise their pistols and fire. The Tsar and his wife die quickly. Their teen-age daughters, Anastasia and her sisters, do not. Sewn inside their clothes are diamonds, sapphires and other jewels. Meant to be bartered for freedom, the carefully hidden stones now act as bullet-proof vests, deflecting the fire. Such salvation is temporary. Bayonets soon silence their screams and scatter the gems across the bloody floor.
The family was dead. Were all their secrets?

 

[Anome]

The best theory I heard was that she moved to England, became a school teacher, and eventually entered parliament before eventually becoming Prime Minister. IE: she was Maggie Thatcher.

Don't think it was actually true, mind you. Just thought it was the best theory.

Wasn't there a second group of bodies that they recently analysed (with the help of the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince of Wales) to check whether they were Romanovs. If I recall correctly, and by no means am I asserting that I do, Anastasia was thought to be one of those. (Or perhaps it was the children in the main group that they tested, can't remember too many details.)

Then again, maybe she was spirited away, and is now sitting with the crated up Amber Room to protect it from the Nazis...

 

[filcee]

...The question, that I don't know the answer to, is if Anastasia was killed, why wasn't her body found with the others? And it does give hope to the possibility that she somehow survived...

Killed Just A Little Later, That's Why The Body Is Missing

For people who would murder a family in cold blood,bayonetting those who didn't die from gunshot wounds, seperating the 17 year old daughter from the rest of the family for a bit of pre-murder rape probably wasn't too difficult.

 

[Kondoru]

I want to know too

(of course she does)

 

[Alexius4]

I would like to believe some escaped, but with the Czech Legion pounding down the railway tracks towards Ektarerinberg, the Bolsheviks acted swiftly and thoroughly.

Given the circumstances, an altruistic act would be unlikely - in anycase, the Russian Civil War tended to be short on altruism.

 

[carole]

My mum got a book in one of those budget bookshops a couple of years ago which postulated that the Tsarevitch himself escaped. I must dig it out and report back . . .

Carole

 

[Alexius4]

This is an interesting site with some Fortean twists...

Virtual Romanov Memorial

Certainly hagiographic, but it includes a full account of the events and some unusual aspects...like the dark significence of the number 17 for the Romanov, the fates of the bodies and enigmatic graffitti in the cellar.

Also features a virtual, 3 d reconstruction of the house.

On Alexei...the site reports that the two bodies missing when the woodland grave was exhumed were Aleixei's and Anastasia's. The site gives the tale, but it seems the bodies were moved about a lot - the other two might well have been left somewhere else in the considerable haste with which the affair was conducted - but judge for yourself

Also it seems the 'being posed for a photo' ruse is a myth - the executioner's account states that they were called down to the cellar on the pretex that it was the safest part of the house to be in as the Czech Legion drew near and fighting became immanent.

The executioner's account also states that he took personal responsibility for killing Nicholai & Alexei with his Nagan, followed up by a thorough going over with bayonets and rifle butts....which ever way you cut it, looks as if nobody got out there alive.

 

[NilesCalder]

She lives here in Port Marion and runs Anna's Pawnshop down on Wild Talents Way. Only pawn shop which corners the local amber market and has Fabergie eggs and time machine parts in the window...

 

[Alexius4]

Yeah, alright, she survived. Actually, my brother sold her a used Mini 2 years ago - she's still seen bombing around town wearing a head-scarf and sunglasses

 

[Alexius4]

The Executioner's Story

Yurovsky's account of how he did the badness.

 

[Kondoru]

Surley she has better taste than to drive a mini?

(could be worse, could be a BMW cunningly disguised as a mini...Ten years ago who would have believed such a thing?)

 

[Anome]

Not that cunning, really. It looks nothing like a real Mini.

 

[ArthurASCII]

I watched a documentary on the "Hitler" channel over in the States last week that showed a Russian gentleman superimposing photos of various Romanovs over the skulls that were dug up, to identify them.

He said he had proved conclusively that Anastasia's body was one of those in the main burial (the ones that hadn't burned properly), and that the two missing bodies were buried nearby and would be excavated shortly.

Sorry I don't remember the details, but perhaps the documentary will be shown on our side of the pond soon.

 

[Alexius4]

From Yurovsky's account, the disposal of the bodies was a mess - acid, burning, hand-grenades....I believe the discoverer of the grave said that the calcined and scattered remains of Alexei and another were bound to be around that area...just a matter of finding them.

But then again, that is easy to say. Maybe they are not there.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Czar Wars

DNA Report Revives Czar Mystery By Randy Dotinga


02:00 AM Mar. 04, 2004 PT

Resurrecting a debate over one of the 20th century's most enduring mysteries, a team of scientists is casting doubt on DNA tests that confirmed the deaths of Czar Nicholas II, the last ruler of imperial Russia, and most of his family.

In a newly released report, the scientists declare that the testing of remains found in the Ural Mountains was shoddy and flawed. They add that their own tests on the preserved finger of the sister of the czar's wife raise even more questions about the original findings.

"There was a rush to judgment," said report co-author Alec Knight, senior research scientist at Stanford University. "It's up to the scientific community to evaluate whether it's feasible to get results like that."

The findings are infuriating the scientists who reported and confirmed the original DNA tests in the mid-1990s. "Could we all be duped? I just believe that is inconceivable," said Dr. Victor Weedn, principal research scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, who confirmed some of the original DNA findings. "The group of people who have been working on these things are honest and trustworthy."

The glamorous Romanovs, the ruling dynasty of Russia, lost power during the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Czar Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra and their children -- Alexis, Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia, all of whom were in their teens or early 20s -- were packed off to exile in the Ural Mountains.

Late one night, according to witnesses, their imprisonment ended when the entire family was executed by firing squad, along with their doctor, three servants and Anastasia's pet King Charles spaniel.

The Romanovs have haunted the popular imagination ever since. Books, documentaries and movies have explored everything from the love affair between Nicholas and Alexandra to Alexis' life-threatening hemophilia, inherited from his grandmother, Great Britain's Queen Victoria.

Most famously, women have claimed to be the long-lost Anastasia, spawning an Ingrid Bergman film and endless speculation about a courageous surviving princess.

In 1991, as the Soviet Union fell apart, researchers exhumed nine bodies from a bog near Ekaterinburg. Tests on mitochondrial DNA -- handed down by mothers -- confirmed genetic links between the bodies of four females and Great Britain's Prince Philip, who is related to Empress Alexandra.

Mitochondrial DNA tests also linked the body of an adult male to the exhumed body of Czar Nicholas' brother; both had a rare mutation that left them with two forms of mitochondrial DNA. Finally, nuclear DNA tests connected two adults and the four young women to each other.

In all, the researchers concluded that the bodies in the grave were those of the czar, his wife, three of their four daughters, and four other people -- presumably the doctor and the three servants. The son, Alexis, and one daughter -- Anastasia? -- are missing. However, DNA tests suggested that the most famous Anastasia wannabe, an American woman named Anna Anderson, was not related to Empress Alexandra.

The new report, in the Jan. 28 online edition of the Annals of Human Biology, questions the DNA findings. The authors, including geneticists from Stanford University and the Russian Academy of Sciences, allege that "major violations of standard forensic practices" took place, and they suspect that "fresh" DNA -- perhaps from researchers -- contaminated the samples.

They also allege that the DNA testing produced results that were too specific for such old, decayed remains. "If you obtain results like that, they're evidence of contamination," Knight said.

Through a spokesman, the researcher behind the original findings declined to comment because he is working on a formal response. But the researcher, Peter Gill of Great Britain's Forensic Science Service, did appear in the journal Science, saying Knight's work is "vindictive and political.''

Weedn, the principal research scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, defended the original findings, pointing out that the remains were found in an area of permafrost that could have preserved them. After all, he said, DNA results are often preserved through freezing. Knight counters that summer temperatures can go quite high in the region, and he doubts permafrost is there at all. "People are grasping for straws because they know it's impossible to get those results from these badly decomposed bones," he said.

Another researcher who worked on the original Romanov projects expressed amazement at the idea that the DNA from the remains could have been contaminated yet still reveal links to Prince Philip and the czar's brother.

"That is not going to happen by accident. What has to be implied here is some kind of bizarre conspiracy theory," said Tom Parsons, chief scientist of the Armed Forces DNA Identification Lab, whose office confirmed the DNA tests that linked Czar Nicholas to his brother. If the contamination came from "some random schmo," it wouldn't magically provide a link to the czar, he added.

In response, Knight insisted that he isn't accusing the researchers of working together to twist the truth. "I never dreamed that all those people got together and committed conspiracy," Knight said, although he hinted that others may have tinkered with the remains. "All sorts of people have vested interests in this thing."

In search of support for their theories, the authors of the new study turned to a preserved finger that apparently belonged to Grand Duchess Elisabeth, Empress Alexandra's sister, who was killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918. A Russian Orthodox bishop kept the finger, considered a relic, after Elisabeth's coffin was opened in Jerusalem in 1981.

DNA tests on the finger, which consists of bone and dried flesh, failed to conclusively link it to the empress's genetic profile, the study authors said, creating "yet another discrepancy." However, the researchers found the finger was contaminated with the DNA of at least two other people.

It's unclear if the new report will inspire any more DNA testing.

http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,62529,00.html

 

[Alexius4]

A finger was found near the site of the original disposal ground, and was lost when the Bolsheviks had to dredge the bodies back up when their attempts to seal the mine shaft with hand grenades failed. It was found by a white soldier very soon after the fall of the town.

Question of course being - is the relic the finger in question? Surely it's provenance needs to be established before it can be used as the basis for further testing?

 

[oll_lewis]

Given the treatment of the bodys post morum (burning, acid bath thrown down a mine shaft and buried in a feild, posibly with quicklime) it would be nearly a miracle if there were any of Alexis remains left save for the ocasional very small bone fragment because he was simply too young for his skelition to be fully formed, other factors such as his haemophillia, his gracile bone structure and the fact that he was a very sickly child anyway would have futher restricted skeletal development.

On the question of Anistasias body being missing (there are inconsistancies in reports that it was as shown in some of the posts above) on could postulate that the emotional imaturaty of the girls was matched by physical imaturaty too, this includeing bone growth.

The reason for the missing Rominovs could be simply that they were there but not aparent due to the bodys being highly decomposed.

 

[Kondoru]

The whole situations so politicaly loaded I doubt anyone could get to the bottom of it

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Scientists reopen the Romanov mystery

By Roger Highfield
(Filed: 12/07/2004)


An American team challenges DNA-based British research that bodies in a mass grave are the tsar's family, writes Roger Highfield



The fate of the Russian royal family was plunged into renewed controversy yesterday after scientists cast doubt over British DNA tests on bones recovered from a mass grave.

One of the most riveting detective stories of the last century supposedly ended in 1998, when the Russian government formally declared that the bones were those of the Romanovs, who were executed by the Bolsheviks in 1918.

But in a paper for the seventh International Ancient DNA Conference in Brisbane, a team from Stanford University near San Francisco will this week question tests by Home Office forensic scientists.

Dr Peter Gill and his team at the Forensic Science Service used genetic testing with the help of five cubic centimetres of blood from Prince Philip and other relatives of the Romanovs to announce in 1993 that they had proved "virtually beyond doubt" that broken bones found in a grave in Yekaterinburg in July 1991 were those of Tsar Nicholas II and members of his family.

The remains were brought to Britain by Dr Pavel Ivanov of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Dr Gill concluded that there was almost a 99 per cent probability that five of the nine skeletons were those of the tsar, the tsarina and three of their daughters.

But Dr Alec Knight, who conducted the study with colleagues at Stanford, the Russian Academy of Sciences, Eastern Michigan University and Los Alamos National Laboratory, claimed: "Our team has what appears to be overwhelming evidence to reject the conclusion of the identity of the remains as those of the Russian royal family."

Dr Knight and his team questioned the results, raised "forensic irregularities" and conducted an independent DNA analysis of the preserved finger of the late Grand Duchess Elisabeth - sister of Tsarina Alexandra, one of the 1918 victims.

Since the 1982 opening of Elisabeth's coffin in Jerusalem, the finger had been preserved in a reliquary at the New York home of Bishop Anthony Grabbe, the president of the now-disbanded Orthodox Palestine Society. Crucially, tests on the finger failed to match the tsarina's DNA reported by Dr Gill.

Though Dr Knight's trip was funded by the Russian Expert Commission Abroad - a group of scholars who challenge the assertion that the bones are royal - he maintains that his experiments were unbiased.

"[The Commission Abroad] didn't support the DNA tests or do the science," he said. "They just bought me the plane ticket and got me the sample. They had no control over the work."

Dr Knight argues that the Home Office results were too good to be true and doubts the researchers could have obtained such long stretches of DNA from old bones, particularly those that had spent more than 70 years in a shallow, wet earthen grave.

"Based on what we know now, those bones were contaminated," Dr Knight said, citing strong evidence that the bone samples were tarnished with fresh, less-degraded DNA - from an individual who handled the samples, a claim that is disputed by Dr Gill.

Experts are divided on the issue of DNA preservation. Dr Peter de Knijff, head of the Forensic Laboratory for DNA Research at Leiden University in the Netherlands, agrees that the Gill-Ivanov study was "unrealistically solid".

But Dr Tom Parsons of the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Rockville, Maryland, has found that larger DNA fragments can survive.

Dr Knight said:"We have uncovered irregularities and inconsistencies (and very strange goings-on) in the case, and the results claimed by the DNA tests are essentially impossible.

"We are not questioning the integrity of Dr Gill or Dr Parsons but rather the actions of those in Russia who had control of all the samples, concluded at the outset that they were the royal family, acted with secrecy and deception, distributed the samples to the labs in other countries, participated in the analyses, wrote a report concluding identity, and then voted on acceptance of that report."

Dr Kevin Sullivan, a casework standards manager at the Forensic Science Service, another of the Home Office team, said: "We have every confidence in our results which have been reproduced and independently confirmed by two other world-renowned DNA laboratories.

"We were able to conclude that the remains were those of the Romanovs because they match the DNA of known living maternal relatives of the tsar and tsarina, including Prince Philip, all of which were analysed after the results were generated from the bones." He added: "The DNA result generated from the shrivelled finger is different to that of Prince Philip and therefore could not have come from the Grand Duchess Elisabeth or any other maternal relative."

The Stanford team's initial findings were reported in the January/February issue of the Annals of Human Biology but were dismissed at the time by Dr Gill, who told the journal Science that Dr Knight's research "comes across as vindictive and political".

But Dr Knight said the case against the original analysis had strengthened since the paper in the Annals. "Calling us names, as Dr Gill has done, will not help their fatally flawed position."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...ar12.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/12/ixworld.html

 

[James_H]

I recently listened to a podcast about Anastasia imposter Anna Anderson and I'm completely gobsmacked that so many white Russians found her credible at the time. She couldn't even understand or speak Russian.

 

[Krepostnoi]

She couldn't even understand or speak Russian.

That isn't quite the disqualifying factor you might imagine it to be. Russian aristocracy had a habit of adopting foreign languages - Alexander Pushkin, the father of Russian literature - grew up speaking French with his parents, and learnt his Russian from his nanny.

Nikolai II spoke better English than Russian, and his wife was German. They conversed in English.

 

[Min Bannister]

I read a very excellent (but very sad) book on this called Ekaterinburg by Helen Rappaport which explained why Alexey and Maria's (for it was she "missing") were buried seperately from the others but I can't remember why now! All bodies are accounted for now anyway.

 

[ramonmercado]

All bodies are accounted for now anyway.

So THEY say.

 

[Ogdred Weary]

So THEY say.

Yeah, it could be that Anastasia was replaced by an exact clone with the exact same DNA. I think Princess Dianna was the actual Anastasia and was killed by the Queen and Queen Mum because she was going to tell everyone The Truth.

 

[James_H]

That isn't quite the disqualifying factor you might imagine it to be. Russian aristocracy had a habit of adopting foreign languages - Alexander Pushkin, the father of Russian literature - grew up speaking French with his parents, and learnt his Russian from his nanny.

Still, it was a member of the household who first pointed out she couldn't understand Russian and clearly expected her to be able to. On this occasion Anna hid under a blanket to hide the discrepancies in her physical appearance from that of the duchess. Later she claimed that she wouldn't speak Russian because it would bring up her past traumas, but that still wouldn't explain her inability to understand it.

 

[Ogdred Weary]

I watched that film about her and there was a talking (possibly singing) bat, has anyone found the bat? That would clear everything up.

 

[EnolaGaia]

I watched that film about her and there was a talking (possibly singing) bat, has anyone found the bat? That would clear everything up.

The character of Bartok the bat (Rasputin's sidekick) originated with the animated film. As far as I know it's not based on or related to anything historical.

 

[Ogdred Weary]

The character of Bartok the bat (Rasputin's sidekick) originated with the animated film. As far as I know it's not based on or related to anything historical.

So that cartoon lied to me? Next you'll be telling me that Beauty and the Beast, Hercules and Snow White are all fibs.

 

[Stpauli9]

It should be noted that the Anastasia fraud was only big in the West. In the Soviet Union, the royals thought to have survived were Grand Princess Tatiana and Tsaraevich Alexei, a haemophiliac who was healed by...Rasputin's advice. Nothing supernatural in the healing, by the way. Rasputin ordered Alexei needed more blood (as haemophiliacs do-the royal doctors were removing his blood and nearly killed him).