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Anna Anderson
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Anastasia Manahan, usually known as Anna Anderson (probably 22 Dec1896 — 12 February 1984), was the best known of the several women who claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia, the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last autocratic ruler of Imperial Russia, and his wife Tsarina Alexandra. Grand Duchess Anastasia was born on June 5, 1901 and was, by most accounts, killed with her family on the night of July 17, 1918 by Bolsheviks in the town of Ekaterinburg, Russia. DNA information, made public in July 2008, that has been obtained from Ekaterinburg and repeatedly tested independently by laboratories such as the University of Massachusetts Medical School, USA, reveals that the final two missing Romanov remains are indeed authentic and that the entire Romanov family housed in the Ipatiev House, Ekaterinburg were executed in the early hours of 17 July 1918.
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1920 February 17 -A woman named Anna Anderson tries to commit suicide in Berlin and is taken to mental hospital, where she claims she is Anastasia.
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Anastasia Manahan, usually known as Anna Anderson (probably 22 Dec1896 — 12 February 1984), was the best known of the several women who claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia, the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last autocratic ruler of Imperial Russia, and his wife Tsarina Alexandra. Grand Duchess Anastasia was born on June 5, 1901 and was, by most accounts, killed with her family on the night of July 17, 1918 by Bolsheviks in the town of Ekaterinburg, Russia. DNA information, made public in July 2008, that has been obtained from Ekaterinburg and repeatedly tested independently by laboratories such as the University of Massachusetts Medical School, USA, reveals that the final two missing Romanov remains are indeed authentic and that the entire Romanov family housed in the Ipatiev House, Ekaterinburg were executed in the early hours of 17 July 1918. Most historians believe that Anderson was actually Franziska Schanzkowska, a Kashubian factory worker. A private detective investigation had identified Anderson as Schanzkowska, who was born on December 26,1896, in Pomerania (then in Prussia but now in Poland) as early as the 1920s. Anderson's mitochondrial DNA is also a match to the Schanzkowski family, which indicates that she was most likely Schanzkowska. Some of her supporters continue to deny that she was Schanzkowska in spite of the two separate DNA tests conducted that matched Anderson's DNA to the Schanzkowski family.
Anderson's body was cremated upon her death in 1984. Following Anderson's death, the DNA tests were conducted on samples of her tissue that had been stored at a Charlottesville, Virginia hospital following a medical procedure. The DNA tests showed that Anderson's DNA did not match the Romanov remains or Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (a relative of the Romanovs), but was consistent with the mitochondrial DNA profile of Karl Maucher, a great-nephew of Franziska Schanzkowska.
First appearance of AndersonSeventeen year old Grand Duchess Anastasia was, by most accounts, murdered alongside the rest of her family on the morning of July 17, 1918 in the cellar of the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg, Russia. Her death has been reportedly verified according to eyewitness testimonies. Yakov Yurovsky, the Cheka operative and commissar who oversaw the execution of the Romanovs, stated that the entire imperial family and entourage, including Anastasia, were killed. There are also eyewitnesses who testified to her survival, among them a man who lived across the street from the Ipatiev House. However there is no proof to back up these claims other than his testimony in court. The British Consul-General in Ekaterinburg, Thomas Hildebrand Preston, at the time of the murders refutes this stating,
Anna Anderson's first claim to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia occurred after her failed attempt at suicide in Berlin 1920, although it was not until 1922 that her claim became world famous. Later, she explained that she had gone by train and walked to Berlin to seek out her "aunt" Princess Irene, sister of Tsarina Alexandra. Once she reached the palace, she claimed that no one would recognize her or, worse, that they would discover she had borne a child out of wedlock. In shame, she attempted to take her own life by jumping off a bridge into the cold water of the Landwehr Canal. Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna commented on the suicide attempt,
She was rescued by a passing official and became a ward of the state as a patient in a mental hospital in Dalldorf. The young woman was covered, according to her doctors at the asylum, with half a dozen bullet wounds and lacerations, including a star shaped scar behind her head (the doctors originally believed this led to her original loss of memory). The doctors also surmised that the woman was probably a “Russian refugee” because of her Eastern accent. Also noted was a triangular shaped scar on her foot. Because she rarely spoke and refused to provide hospital staff with any information about herself, the nurses nicknamed her Fräulein Unbekannt (Miss Unknown). She did, however, claim to nurse Thea Malinovsky in 1921 that she was the Grand Duchess Anastasia. However, the Nachtausgabe originally recorded the date as 1922. Anderson remained in the asylum for two years until Clara Peuthert, a fellow psychiatric patient, claimed she recognized Anderson to be the Grand Duchess Tatiana, based upon photos of the Grand Duchesses she saw in a magazine.
Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden, a former lady of waiting to Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, was the first to visit the asylum to determine if Anderson's claim to be a daughter of Tsar Nicholas II was legitimate. Upon arrival, the baroness pulled Anderson up off the bed and claimed that she was "too short to be Tatiana." She left believing Anderson a fraud and never wavered in her opinion. Anderson later stated that she never claimed she was Tatiana, but that she was Anastasia.
Tschaikovsky, husband and sonThus began a series of events that would shape Anderson's life forever. Miss Unknown, who began calling herself Anastasia Tschaikovsky (she told confidantes the name of the Russian soldier who rescued her, married her, and eventually fathered her a son was Alexander Tschaikovsky) claimed to have survived the massacre in the basement of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg where the Imperial family is believed to have been murdered. She said that as the assassination began she passed out, and after falling to the ground, she was shielded from additional harm by the body of her sister, Tatiana. The still unidentified Tchaikovsky and his brother, supposedly part of the executioner's squad, noticed she was still alive amongst the corpses after the execution and were able to sneak her out of the building past manned armed guards. After her rescue, she was supposedly brought to Bucharest by Alexander and his brother Serge, their sister Veronica, and their mother. She claims to have had a child with Alexander, and they got married in Bucharest. It was in Bucharest, she said, that Tschaikovsky was killed in a street brawl. According to Greg King and Penny Wilson, authors of The Fate of the Romanovs, it is now possible to accurately name the 10 men who formed the execution squad plus the names of the guards at the Ipatiev House. None of them had the name of Tschaikovsky as claimed by Anna Anderson. No evidence of the existence of her alleged rescuers has ever been found.
At no time did the claimant make any attempt to approach the closest family member who had last seen Grand Duchess Anastasia outside of Russia in 1914, her Mother's first cousin, Queen Marie of Romania, during her entire alleged time in Bucharest.
Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna commented on the claim by Anderson,
Upon her release from the asylum in Berlin, Anderson was taken in by Baron Von Kleist, a Russian émigré who believed her claim. It was suspected by some that the Baron himself was the inventor of Anderson's claim to have been spirited out of Russia by cart. It was also suspected by her opponents that the Baron had also put together an agreement stating that he would receive 50,000 crowns upon the claimant's recognition by the Dowager Empress. However, Anderson felt he was putting her on display and making a spectacle out of her, so she ran away and was taken in by Inspector Grünberg.
Meeting Princess IreneWhile Anderson was staying with Inspector Grünberg, Empress Alexandra's sister, Princess Irene of Hesse and by Rhine, came to visit her under an assumed name. Princess Irene failed to recognise Anderson as her niece. Princess Irene's son, Prince Sigismund later sent Anderson a list of questions that he said only Anastasia could know how to answer. It is claimed that Anderson answered every question correctly. However, the Princess Irene herself was not impressed.
During dinner the claimant had reportedly simply left the table and gone to her bedroom. She later claimed her departure was not to do with social pressures but because she realised she had been tricked: She had not been told that her aunt was to be among her fellow guests. Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna commented on the visit of Princess Irene,
1925 hospital visits - Grand Duchess Olga, Gilliard, Tegleva and GibbesIn 1925, Anderson developed an infection in her arm and was again placed in a hospital. Sick and near death, she lost a lot of weight. It was during this time that Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia, the younger sister of Tsar Nicholas II and Anastasia’s aunt, who had survived the Revolution and settled in Denmark, came to Berlin to see the woman who claimed to be her niece. She spent several days with the patient and exchanged letters with her for a time. Writer and illustrator Harriet von Rathlef (author of Anastasia, A Woman's Fate as a Mirror of the World Catastrophe, serialised in a 1928 Berlin newspaper ), suggested that Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna appeared conflicted about Anderson's identity, as were Imperial tutor Pierre Gilliard and Gilliard's wife, Alexandra Tegleva, who had been Anastasia's nanny. However, according to Dr. Sergei Rudnev (the doctor treating Anderson), Gilliard never referred to the young woman as “Her Imperial Highness” as Rathlef had claimed and said that the woman in the hospital was not the Grand Duchess. The fact she couldn't speak or read Russian, English or French at the time like all the tsar's daughters, was sufficient proof for Gilliard that Anderson was an impostor. Gilliard commented about Anderson,
Both Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna and Gilliard later declared they had known that she was a fraud. Gilliard denounced Anderson as being
Grand Duchess Olga commented about Anderson and Gilliard,
Grand Duchess Olga did reportedly feel sorry for Anderson. She sent Anderson presents consisting of a small photo album and a knitted shawl. Grand Duchess Olga commented on her actions,
According to Coryne Hall, author of "Little Mother of Russia", Olga discussed Anderson with her mother, Dowager Empress Marie. Exactly what she told her mother is unknown but the Empress made it plain that she was not interested and was angry with her for travelling to Berlin.
In Olga's authorised biography, "The Last Grand Duchess" by Ian Vorres, her version of the story is told :
Olga continued,
The Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna remarked that the interviews were made all the more difficult by Mrs Anderson’s attitude. She would not answer some of the questions, and looked angry when those questions were repeated. Some Romanov photographs were shown to her, and there was not a flicker of recognition in her eyes. The Grand Duchess had brought a small icon of St Nicholas, the patron saint of the imperial family. Mrs Anderson looks at it so indifferently that it was obvious the icon said nothing to her.
Olga Alexandrovna offered an explanation and clarification of one of Anderson's famous 'memories':
An important letter concerning the Anderson case and fully corroborating the words of Grand Duchess Olga came to her official biographer, Ian Vorres, from Duke Dmitri of Leuchtenberg, son of Duke George of Leuchtenberg, who invited Anderson to stay at his castle at Seeon, in 1927.
Prince Christopher of Greece commented on the visit of his first cousin, Grand Duchess Olga to Anna Anderson,
Another Imperial tutor, Charles Sydney Gibbes, met Anderson much later in Paris and denounced her as well. He was certain she was a fraud.
Gibbes put his views more formally in an affidavit:
It is curious that Anna Vyrubova, closest friend and confidante of Tsarina Alexandra, was never asked her opinion on the claimant. It was mentioned by Tatiana Botkin that since she was a "disciple of Rasputin" association with her was not welcome, but a more likely reason is that Anna, more than anyone else left alive, could have exposed the claimant as a fraud, and having become an Orthodox nun, her testimony in court would be harder to discount than the others framed as liars by Anderson's supporters.
Other people who knew the young Anastasia quite well, like the Grand Duchess’s childhood nurse Alexandra (Shura) Tegleva failed to identify Anderson as Anastasia. Tegleva accompanied her husband, Gilliard, to meet with Anderson in 1925 and confirmed that Anderson's foot disorder, hallux valgus, was similar to that of the real Grand Duchess. "This is somewhat like Anastasia's body," she declared. Anderson asked Shura to cover her forehead with perfume, a ritual that Shura remembered from Anastasia's childhood when she wanted her nanny to "smell like a flower." "Shura", like many others, never made an official statement in support of Anna Anderson. However, the Empress's close friend Lili Dehn did identify her as Anastasia.
Former German Crown Princess Cecilie also made a visit in 1925. She commented about Anderson,
Prince Christopher of Greece, first cousin of Nicholas II, wrote about her in his memoirs,
Gleb Botkin and othersGleb Botkin and his sister Tatiana Botkina, nephew and niece of Serge Botkin, who was at the time head of the Russian emigre' society in Berlin, and son and daughter of the Imperial Family's personal physician Dr Eugene Botkin who perished with his imperial patients in the Ipatiev House in 1918, were two of Anderson's greatest supporters. Gleb and Tatiana Botkin spent much of their youth near the Imperial Family. Gleb Botkin's uncle, Serge Botkin, presided over the Russian Refugee Office in Berlin. He represented the interests of Russian exiles in Germany and came to the aid of Anderson. There has been much speculation by many, including John Godl, that the Botkins may have been the brains behind the whole charade, helping her with memories, in exchange for fame and financial gain should the claim pay off. Both Botkins wrote books about Anderson. Others, including Peter Kurth, author of Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Anderson, believe that the Botkins were sincere in their belief that Anderson was Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia. Frances Welch author of "A Romanov Fantasy: Life at the Court of Anna Anderson" depicts the Botkins as genuine yet misguided in their hope/belief that Anna Anderson was their long lost playmate the Grand Duchess Anastasia.
Dr. Von Berenberg-Gossler, attorney for the opposition in the Anderson trials of the 1950's, believes that although wishful thinking in Russian émigré circles played a part in the affair, money was the principal motivation behind Anderson's claims: the supposed lost fortune of the tsar was estimated at US$80,000,000.
Gleb Botkin met Anna Anderson in May 1927, and declared instantly she was Anastasia. He later decided to take her with him to New York, where he provided articles on Anderson to newspapers. In an effort to attract attention to Anderson, Botkin attacked the sisters of Nicholas II and the Romanov family in general.
Although no immediate relation of Nicholas II believed Anderson's claims, the continued saga was, for many, like salt being rubbed in an open wound. The Romanovs believed that Gleb Botkin and his accomplices were seeking monies, which they did not possess. Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna commented,
Grand Duchess Olga's claim can be supported by the fact that the Dowager Empress relied on a pension from her nephew King George V, and her daughter, Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna, lived in a grace and favour house also provided due to the kindness of the King. . They believed that the Botkins wanted to use the money for their own ends and treated him with contempt. Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna commented,
Grand Duke Andrew Vladmirovich, first cousin of Nicholas II, who had some contact with Anastasia before the revolution, met Anderson in 1928 before she set out to New York with Gleb Botkin. He wrote to his cousin Grand Duchess Olga,
Later after Gleb Botkin wrote his notorious letter, Grand Duke Andrei wrote to Tatiana Botkin,
Tatiana Botkin wrote,
Prince Felix Yussopov, husband of Princess Irina of Russia, daughter of Grand Duchess Xenia, wrote to Grand Duke Andrei about Anna Anderson,
The Tsar’s former mistress who married Grand Duke Andrei after the revolution, Mathilde Kschessinska met Anna Anderson towards the end of her life out of curiosity.
Certain people (in this case, Captain Felix Dassel) would question her, having trick questions such as “The billiard table was on the second floor” and Anderson would reply, “You remember nothing. Billiard was on the first floor.” Prince Christopher of Greece commented on Anna Anderson's supposed knowledge of imperial residences that the Grand Duchess Anastasia knew extremely well,
Anna Anderson vs. relatives of Grand Duchess AnastasiaIn 1938, Anderson's lawyer initiated a suit in German courts to claim an inheritance that was handed out to relatives of Empress Alexandra who declared all the Imperial family to be dead. Anderson’s lawyers declared that Grand Duchess Anastasia was still alive. Her supporters fought for her claim. Experts were called to compare the features of Anna Anderson with the Tsar's daughter. Her ear was declared by an expert, Moritz Furtmayr, to be identical in 17 anatomical points to Anastasia's. Her handwriting was declared by Dr. Minna Becker to be identical to that of the Grand Duchess. Anderson's legal teams, like their opposition, were articulate and well organized. German Courts heard an almost endless procession of handwriting experts, historians, and forensic scientists scrutinizing photographs and documents usually contradicting opposing depositions. Her opponents including Anastasia's first cousin, Lord Mountbatten, nephew of Tsarina Alexandra and the Grand Duke of Hesse, fought just as hard, to prove she was the missing Kaschub factory worker, Franziska Schanzkowska.
As early as 1928, 24 hours after the Dowager Empress's death a statement signed by 12 Romanovs and three of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna's family was released making their views abundantly clear: It was their "unanimous conviction that the person currently living in the United States is not the daughter of the Tsar." The signatories were Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna; Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna, her six sons, and her daughter; Princess Irina, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich; Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna; the Grand Duke of Hesse and his sisters Princess Irene of Prussia and Victoria, Dowager Marchioness of Milford-Haven. To the end of his life in 1979, Lord Mountbatten and other members of various royal families believed this to be the case.
The legal case dragged out until 1970, when the court determined that she had not proven herself to be the Grand Duchess.
Dr. Von Berenberg-Gossler, opposing attorney in the Anderson case, said he believed the desire of the press to sensationalise the story led to only one side being told, which caused only the romanticised version to survive. He said during Anderson's German court cases the press were always more interested in reporting her side of the story than the opposing side's less glamorous perspective. He claimed that editors often pulled journalists off the story after they reported testimony delivered by Anderson's side. He claimed journalists ignored rebuttal evidence, which meant the public seldom received a complete picture of the evidence presented.
Marriage and death After moving to the United States in 1928, Anderson lived for several months on Long Island with Mrs. William B. Leeds (born Princess Xenia Georgievna Romanova of Russia), a daughter of Grand Duke George Mihailovich of Russia and Princess Maria Georgievna of Greece and Denmark, until she was asked to leave after quarreling. Prince Christopher of Greece described the stay:
Princess Xenia Georgievna, who had played with Anastasia when they were children, was of the opinion that Anna Anderson was Anastasia and didn't change her mind even when she asked Anderson to leave her home. "One of the most convincing elements of her personality," Princess Xenia recalled later,
Gilliard pointed out that Princess Xenia had last seen her second cousin when Xenia was 10 and Anastasia was 12. Xenia responded that she didn't recognize Anastasia visually, but felt she was qualified to tell the difference between a member of the Romanov family and a "Polish peasant woman." Anderson bore a strong family resemblance to Tsarina Alexandra's family and her moodiness and temper also reminded Xenia of her cousin Anastasia. Xenia's sister, Nina, met Anderson for five minutes and came to no conclusion about her identity. Princess Nina did indicate that Anderson seemed to her to be a "lady of good society" who could speak Russian. It is interesting to note what Prince Dmitri, son of Grand Duchess Xenia wrote about what Princess Xenia had stated,
The pianist Sergei Rachmaninov arranged for Anderson to live in a comfortable hotel suite at the Garden City Hotel on Long Island. She booked in as Mrs. Anna Anderson to avoid the press. She never used the name Tschaikovsky again.
In early 1929 she moved in with Annie B. Jennings, a wealthy Park Avenue spinster eager to have a daughter of the Tsar living under her roof. For 18 months she was the toast of New York society. Then a pattern of self-destructive behaviour began to occur culminating in her throwing tantrums and even running naked back and forth on the roof. Finally Judge Peter Schmuck of the New York Supreme Court signed an order committing her to a mental hospital. She remained in the Four Winds Sanatorium for over a year. In August 1932, Anderson returned to Germany accompanied by a private nurse in a locked cabin on the liner Deutschland. Her Park Avenue benefactress, Annie B. Jennings paid for this voyage, as she had paid $25,000 for the one -year stay at the Four Winds Sanatorium, and as she would pay for an additional six months cure at Ilten psychiatric home near Hanover.
In 1949, Prince Frederick of Saxe-Altenburg settled her in a former army barracks in the village of Unterlengenhardt, a small village on the edge of the Black Forest in Germany.
In 1968 upon returning to the U.S.A., Anderson, around age 70, married an American supporter, John Eacott Manahan. Manahan enjoyed being Anderson's husband. He sometimes described himself as "Grand Duke-in-Waiting." The couple lived in relative squalor in Charlottesville, Virginia. Anderson told a visitor that, in the Ipatiev House, the entire Imperial family except the tsarevich had been repeatedly raped, all of them being forced to watch as each other was violated. On August 20, 1979, after several days of vomiting and stubbornly refusing help, Anderson was rushed to Charlottesville's Martha Jefferson Hospital. Dr. Richard Shrum operated immediately. He found obstruction and gangrene in the small intestine caused by attachment to an ovarian tumour. He removed almost a foot of the intestine, resectioned the bowel, and closed the wound. Dr. Shrum commented,
In November 1983, she was institutionalised. A few days later she was kidnapped by Manahan, and for three days they drove down Virginia backroads stopping to eat at convenience stores. A 13-state police alarm finally produced an arrest and her return to a psychiatric ward.
On February 12, 1984, she died of pneumonia. Her body was cremated that afternoon and her ashes were buried in the spring in the churchyard at Castle Seeon in Germany.
DNA tests In 1991, the bodies of the royal family were exhumed, and it was discovered that the bodies of Alexei, and one of his sisters, identified as Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia by Russian scientists and as Grand Duchess Anastasia by American scientists, were not in the grave. The mitochondrial DNA of the bones unearthed from a forest grave, presumed to be those of Alexandra and three of her daughters, were compared to that of the Duke of Edinburgh, whose maternal grandmother Princess Victoria of Hesse and the Rhine was a sister of Alexandra. This proved to be a match.
Anderson's tissue sample was later discovered stored at Martha Jefferson Hospital. Anderson’s DNA was compared with those of the Romanovs, at the suggestion of Marina Botkin Schweitzer, the daughter of Gleb Botkin. Anderson’s DNA sample did not match that of the Duke of Edinburgh or that of the bones, meaning that the tissue sample tested belonging to Anderson could not have belonged to Anastasia. At the press conference, Dr. Peter Gill stated,
He further stated,
Subsequent comparisons with DNA samples provided by Franziska Schanzkowska's great nephew Karl Maucher were a match, meaning he shared the same mitochondrial DNA profile as Anderson. Dr. Gill stated about the Anderson tissue and Karl Maucher,
There were also several strands of hair tested which produced the same mtDNA sequence as the tissue. The hair came from a woman who claimed she found the hair at a used bookstore in Chapel Hill, NC. Inside a book that belonged to Jack Manahan, there was an envelope which read "Anastasia's hair." Inside were several strands of hair that she gave to Anderson biographer Peter Kurth. He in turn gave them to a BBC reporter who in turn transferred them to Aldermaston for DNA testing. The hair did not match that of the Romanov remains.
The DNA tests came as an unexpected shock to those involved with Anastasia Manahan. Richard Schweitzer and his wife Marina Botkin Schweitzer as well as Brian Horan, a Connecticut lawyer were stunned at the results. Few who had known her were willing to accept that this woman was a Kaschub girl who had been working in the factories. They argue that she could not have known so much about the Imperial family’s life, and have so much inside knowledge of the imperial family and could not reconcile their impressions of Anna Anderson with having been a Kaschub peasant born when, they say, class distinctions were so great. In spite of the DNA evidence, Anderson's supporters have attempted to point out what they say are differences between Franziska Schanzkowska and Anna Anderson, such as the languages they spoke and physical differences. Schweitzer commented,
The London Evening Standard newspaper described Schweitzer as
Sir Brian McGrath, spokesman for Prince Philip stated on the release of the DNA results,
Prince Rotislav Romanov declared,
while Prince Nicholas Romanov stated,
Peter Kurth, a long-time supporter of Anna Anderson, never wavered in his personal belief that she was Anastasia:
He added,
The only surviving photograph of Schanzkowska was taken when she was 20, in 1916. Some have described her as an "attractive, bright eyed, intelligent young woman." Her childhood friends remembered her as pretentious, putting on airs and graces. One historian speculated that Schanzkowska must have taught herself etiquette and deportment, like socially ambitious girls of her class and generation. Peter Kurth asserted in his Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Anderson that the photo of Schanzkowska has been frequently retouched.
It is worthwhile to look back at what the real Grand Duchess Anastasia's aunt, the Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna had said about Anderson many years earlier,
2007 discovery of remains and 2008 resultsOn August 23, 2007, a Russian archaeologist announced the discovery of two burned, partial skeletons at a bonfire site near Yekaterinburg that appeared to match the site described in Yurovsky's memoirs. The archaeologists said the bones are from a boy who was roughly between the ages of 10 and 13 years at the time of his death and of a young woman who was roughly between the ages of 18 and 23 years old. Anastasia was 17 years, one month old at the time of the assassination, while her sister Maria was 19 years, one month old, and her brother Alexei was two weeks shy of his 14th birthday. Anastasia's elder sisters Olga and Tatiana were 22 and 21 years old at the time of the assassination. Along with the remains of the two bodies, archaeologists found "shards of a container of sulfuric acid, nails, metal strips from a wooden box, and bullets of various caliber." The bones were found using metal detectors and metal rods as probes. Tests have been repeatedly and independently conducted on the remains to determine that they are the remains of the two missing Romanov children.
Preliminary testing indicated a "high degree of probability" that the remains belong to the Tsarevich Alexei and to one of his sisters, Russian forensic scientists announced on January 22, 2008. The testing began in late December 2007 and was originally scheduled to be completed by February 2008. However, scientists with the Sverdlovsk Regional Medical Forensic Bureau and a Moscow laboratory were still conducting testing. One report indicated uncertainty about when the final report will be released. The Yekaterinburg region's chief forensic expert Nikolai Nevolin indicated the results will be compared against those obtained by foreign experts and a final report could be issued by April or May of 2008. On April 30, 2008, The Associated Press, BBC, Reuters, CBS, CNN and other news organisations reported that the regional governor for the Ekaterinburg, Russia, area, officially announced that the DNA tests indeed proved that the fragments found in 2007 were those of the last two missing children, declaring
Independent DNA testing carried out by the University of Massachusetts Medical School, USA, made public in July 2008, on the final two remains confirmed the earlier Russian findings that the last two remains were indeed members of the Romanov family murdered in the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg. All members of Nicholas II's immediate family have now accounted for officially.
Anna in popular cultureIn 1928, a film was made based very loosely on the woman who would one day be called "Anna Anderson". It was a silent film called "Clothes Make the Woman".
In 1956 there was a film made about a figure based on Anna Anderson, Anastasia, starring Ingrid Bergman as Anna/Anastasia, and Yul Brynner; however, this film is highly fictionalised.
The 1997 animated film of the same name was based on the 1956 film, but is even more fictionalized; the only connection between that film and Anna Anderson is that her story inspired the earlier film. Indeed, in the 1997 film the title character (only known as "Anastasia" or "Anya", never "Anna") unbelievably turned out to be Grand Duchess Anastasia, even though that film was released after the discovery of the Romanov remains (though not the second gravesite) and the DNA tests on Anna Anderson's remains.
NBC ran a two-part fictionalised mini-series titled which starred Amy Irving and won her a Golden Globe nomination. It was based on a biography written by long time Anna Anderson supporter Peter Kurth.
Kevin Hearn of the band Barenaked Ladies wrote a song called "Anna, Anastasia" for his solo album H-Wing.
Tori Amos wrote a song titled 'Yes, Anastasia' for her Under the Pink album inspired by the spirit of Anna Anderson.
In 2006, Diana Norman, writing under the pseudonym Ariana Franklin, published a novel "City of Shadows," a fictionalised account of Anderson's time in Berlin from 1920 to 1933. In it she seems to accept that Anderson was in fact a fraud, but invents a colourful post-Revolution history for the Grand Duchess herself.
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