Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova

[Josee]

Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia (Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova) was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia, and his wife Alexandra Fyoforovna.
Anastasia was a younger sister of Grand Duchess Olga, Grand Duchess Tatiana and Grand Duchess Maria, and was an elder sister of Alexei Nikolaievitch, Tsarevitch of Russia. She is presumed to have been murdered with her family on July 17,1918 by forces of the Bolshevik secret police. However, rumors have persisted of her possible escape since 1918, fueled by reports that two sets of remains, identified as Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia, and either Anastasia or her elder sister Maria, were missing from a mass grave found near Ekaterinburg and later identified through DNA testing as the Romanovs. In January 2008 Russian scientists announced that the charred remains of a young boy and a young woman found near Ekateinburg in August 2007 are most likely those of the thirteen-year-old Tsarevich and one of the four Romanov grand duchesses. Russian forensic scientists confirmed on April 30,2008 that the remains were those of the Tsarevich Alexei and one of his four sisters.
Several women have claimed to have been Anastasia, the most famous of whom was Anna Anderson. Anderson's body was cremated upon her death in 1984. Despite support for her claim from several people who knew Anastasia and denial by many who knew the real Anastasia, DNA testing in 1994 on pieces of Anderson's tissue and hair showed no relation to DNA of the Grand Duchess.

I'm really amazed by this mystery...
What about you guys? Do you think that the possible escape of Anastasia and Alexei did really happen in 1918? Do you think that Anna Anderson was really who she claimed to be?

PS: I'll give you by tomorrow some informations about the Tsar and the Tsarina,the Grand Duchesses and the Tsarevitch,what really happened during the Bolshevic revolution,and informations about Anna Anderson.

[Josee]

After Tsar Nicholas II abdicated the throne in 1917,Russia quickly disintegrated into civil war.Negotiations for the release of the Romanovs between their Bolshevik(The Reds) captors and their extended family, many of whom were prominent members of the Royal Houses of Europe,stalled.As the Whites (loyalists still faithful to the Tsar and the principles of autocracy)advanced toward Yekaterinburg the Reds were in a precarious situation.The Reds knew Yekaterinburg would fall to the better manned and equipped White Army. When the Whites reached Yekaterinburg,the Imperial Family had simply disappeared.The most widely accepted account was that the family had been executed.This was due to an investigation by White Army Investigator Nicholas Sokolov,who came to the conclusion based on items that had belonged to the family being found thrown down a mine shaft at Ganina Yama.

The "Yurovsky Note",an account of the event filed by Yurovsky to his Bolshevik superiors following the execution,was found in 1989 and detailed in Edvard Radzinsky's 1992 book "The Last Tsar".According to the note,on the night of the murders the family was awakened and told to dress.When they asked why,they were informed that they were being moved to a new location to ensure their safety in anticipation of the violence that might ensue when the White Army reached Yekaterinburg.Once dressed,the family and the small circle of servants and caregivers that had remained with them were herded into a small room in the house's sub-basement and told to wait.Alexandra and Alexei were allowed to sit in chairs provided by guards at the request of the Tsarina.After several minutes,the executioners entered the room,led by Yurovsky.With no hesitation,Yurovsky quickly informed the Tsar and his family that they were all to be executed.The Tsar had time to say only "What?" and turn to his family before he was assassinated with a bullet to the head.The Tsarina and her daughter Olga tried to make the sign of the cross,but were killed in the initial volley of bullets fired by the executioners,both suffering gunshot wounds to the head.The rest of the Imperial retinue was shot in short order with the exception of Anna Demidova,Alexandra's maid.Demidova survived the initial onslaught but was quickly murdered against the back wall of the basement,stabbed to death while trying to defend herself with a small pillow she had carried into the sub-basement that was filled with precious gems and jewels.

The "Yurovsky Note" further reported that once the thick smoke that had filled the room from so many weapons being fired in such close proximity cleared it was discovered that the executioners' bullets had ricocheted off the corsets of two or three of the Grand Duchesses.The executioners later came to find out that this was because the family's crown jewels and diamonds had been sewn inside the linings of the corsets to hide them from their captors.The corsets thus served as a form of "armor" against the bullets.Anastasia and Maria were said to have crouched up against a wall covering their heads in terror until they were shot down by bullets,recalled Yurovsky.However,another guard,Peter Ermakov,told his wife that Anastasia had been finished off with bayonets.As the bodies were carried out,one or several of the girls cried out and were clubbed on the back of the head,wrote Yurovsky.

[Josee]

According to some accounts there may have been an opportunity for one or more of the guards to rescue a survivor. Yakov Yurovsky demanded that the guards come to his office and turn over items they had stolen following the murder. There was reportedly a span of time when the bodies of the victims were left largely unattended in the truck, in the basement and in the corridor of the house. Some guards who had not participated in the murders and had been sympathetic to the grand duchesses were reportedly left in the basement with the bodies.

Anastasia's possible survival was one of the celebrated mysteries of the 20th century.In 1922,as rumors spread that one of the grand duchesses or that all of the family had survived a woman who later came to call herself Anna Anderson appeared in Germany and claimed to be Anastasia.She created a life-long controversy and made headlines for decades with some surviving relatives believing she was Anastasia and others not.Indeed,it was she who made Anastasia and her legend famous.Her battle for recognition continues to be the longest running case that was ever heard by the German courts where the case was officially filed.It began in 1938, and a final verdict was not handed down until 1970.The final decision of the court was that Anderson had not provided sufficient proof to claim the identity of the grand duchess.In it,it also held that the death of Grand Duchess Anastasia had never been established as a historically proven fact.

Anderson died in 1984 and her body was cremated.DNA tests were conducted in 1994 on a tissue sample from Anderson located in a hospital and the blood of Prince Philip,Duke of Edinburgh,a grand-nephew of Empress Alexandra. According to Dr. Gill who conducted the tests, "If you accept that these samples came from Anna Anderson, then Anna Anderson could not be related to Tsar Nicholas or Tsarina Alexandra." Anderson's mitochondrial DNA was a match with a great-nephew of Franziska Schanzkowka,a missing Polish factory worker.

Forensic experts conducted comparisons in 1994 of photographs of Grand Duchess Anastasia and pretender Anna Anderson's face and ears,following routine procedures of legal identification.The tests,commissioned for a British television documentary,indicated that Anna Anderson's ears matched those of the Grand Duchess.However,supporters of Anderson acknowledged that the DNA tests proving she could not have been the Grand Duchess had "won the day."