One of the greatest Mysteries of the First World War is that of Grand
Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II
and Tsarina Alexandra.
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Anastasia was one of four children
of Russia's Royal couple, who were murdered in 1918. Since the Royal
Family's execution in July 1918, there have been speculative rumours
regarding the location and possible survival of Anastasia. The rumour
was fuelled by the fact that the location of her grave has been disputed
and was unknown during the decades of Communist rule in Russia. The
mass grave of the Russian Royal family was located near Ekaterinburg.
The grave held the remains of the Tsar, the Tsarina and three daughters.
Despite the discovery of the grave, the bodies of Alexei and either his
older sister Anastasia or Maria were not in the grave.
Following
the execution, many women claiming to be Anastasia surfaced in Russia
and across Europe. One woman in particular was Anna Anderson. Anderson
is the most notorious of Anastasia imposters, who surfaced in the early
twenties. Her argument was that she had feigned death, hid amongst the
bodies of her 'royal' family and escaped with the help of a
compassionate 'Red' Soldier. Anderson's legal battle was the longest
running in German history, as Anderson battle for recognition between
1938 and 1970. The final decision of the court was that she had not
proven enough evidence to support her claim. Following her death in
1984, DNA tests were taken from tissue samples in a hospital and a blood
sample taken from HRH Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh. The results
showed that Anderson's DNA was not a match with Prince Phillips as His
Royal Highness is the Grand Nephew of the Tsarina.
Anderson
was merely one of a dozen women claiming to be the lost Princess. Two
women claiming to be Maria and Anastasia were taken by priests to the
Ural Mountains in 1919 where they lived as nuns until their deaths. The
execution of the Royal family did not stop rumours and reports
circulating regarding Anastasias survival. The rumours fuelled a 'man
hunt' style search for the Romanov woman. One possible lead was that in
1918, at Perm, the imprisoned Princess Helena Petrovna stated that a
guard had shown her a girl who claimed to be Anastasia. Petrovna stated
that she did not recognise the girl and subsequently the young girl was
taken away.
It is important to note that the
rumours stating that the Royal Family were not dead, merely fuelled the
rumours that the Romanov's were alive. In particular, a number of days
after the family were executed; the German government decreed that the
safety of the Royal Family was paramount. This is due to the fact that
all Royal houses of the early 20th century were related. Following
signing the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the new Communist Russia did not
wish to alienate foreign powers, thus other states were told the Royal
family had been moved. This may be the background to the Perm story.
Historians
have argued and speculated that the opportunity for one of the guards
to rescue a member of, or the Royal family, did exist. Following the
shooting, the Guards responsible were ordered to turn over items looted
from the bodies. It is argued that a significant time span existed where
the bodies were left unattended in the truck, basement and corridor of
the house. Guards who were sympathetic to the Romanov family were left
with the bodies.
Another theory is that
Anastasia and Alexei managed to escape and lived in Bulgaria. In 1953,
Peter Zamiatkin, who was a Royal Bodyguard, told a fellow patient that
he had taken Anastasia and Alexei to his birth village on orders from
the Tsar. In the aftermath of the execution, Zamiatkin reportedly
escaped with the two children. The two children then lived out the rest
of their lives under aliases in the Bulgarian town of Gabarevo.
The Romanov grave was formally excavated in 1991, despite being found nearly a decade earlier.
The
grave only held nine of the supposed eleven who were executed. It was
believed by some historians and scientists that the remains of Anastasia
and her younger brother Alexei were not part of the burial. The
Russians contested this idea, claiming that one of the missing bodies
was that of Maria, not Anastasia. Whilst the Russians used technical
computer programming to reconstruct photographs of Anastasia with the
skulls in the grave, the Americans believed the missing body to be
Anastasias due to none of the skeletons showing evidence of immaturity.
The Royal family was formally buried in 1998, and a 5'7 body was interned under the name of Anastasia
The
final twist of this mysterious story came in 2007. The "Yurovsky Note"
claimed that two bodies were removed from the grave and cremated some
distance away in order to disguise the execution and burial of the
Romanov's. On August 23rd 2007 Russian archaeologists discovered the
remains of two burned partial skeletons in the region where the Royal
family was buried. The remains were assessed and one skeleton was
discovered to be male and between the ages of 10 and 15, the other
skeleton was roughly between the ages of 18 and 23. The two remains were
discovered with various calibres of bullets and shards of a container
containing sulphuric acid.
Multiple testing by
various organisations confirmed that the remains belonged to Alexei and
one of his sisters. This proved conclusively that all family members
were killed in 1918. Finally, Russian forensic scientists confirmed on
the 30th April 2008 that the remains were those of Alexei and one of his
4 sisters. In March 2009, the final results of DNA testing were
published by Dr. Michael Coble of the U.S. Armed Forces DNA
Identification Laboratory, proving that all 4 Grand Duchesses have
finally been accounted for, and no one escaped the murder.
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