Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova

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Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanowa, ca.1914

Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia (Anastasia Nikolaevna, Russian Великая Княжна Анастасия Николаевна ; born June 5, jul. / 18th June  1901 greg. In Peterhof ; † 17th July 1918 in Yekaterinburg ) was the youngest daughter of the last Russian imperial couple , Nicholas II . and Alexandra Fjodorowna , formerly Alix von Hessen-Darmstadt . Despite later legend, it has been proven since 2007 that she and her entire family were murdered by the Bolsheviks .

Life

Early years

When Emperor Nicholas II and Alexandra already had three daughters, they were hoping for an heir to the throne. Nevertheless, the Kaiser and Empress loved their new baby dearly and were happy that the baby was healthy. The Empress was a very caring mother and, like her other daughters, also breast-fed Anastasia herself. Anastasia was not a good student, but she loved languages. The children spoke English with their mother, Russian with their father, German with their mother's relatives from Hessen and learned French. Her mother called her "Imp" or "Shivzik", the Russian word for " goblin ", because no one was safe from their jokes. Anastasia was fearless and rarely cried, liked to play pranks and had great acting talent. She liked to imitate other people and thus pleased those around her. Although she was a Grand Duchess of Russia, like her siblings, she slept on camp beds and had to take a cold bath every morning.

She had a close relationship with her younger brother Alexei . If he was not doing well because of his illness , it was usually only Anastasia who was able to distract her brother from the pain and to amuse him a little. She also had a close bond with her older sister Maria , and the two were known as the "Little Couple". Her two older sisters Olga and Tatjana were the "big couple" - the names come from a midwife who, right after Anastasia's birth, said to Empress Alexandra that she shouldn't be sad that it was a girl again, because now she had a big one and a little pair of girls.

Anastasia suffered from splayfeet and bilateral hallux valgus . She also had back problems, which is why she was massaged regularly .

  • Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna with daughter Anastasia, 1901

  • Anastasia, 1904

  • Anastasia, 1906

  • Anastasia, 1910

  • Anastasia (third person from right) with her family, 1913

Captivity and Murder

During the period of captivity in Tobolsk and Yekaterinburg , the girls tried to keep their cheerfulness, and the best way to do this was Anastasia and Maria. Even the soldiers responded to Anastasia's jokes. On the night of July 17, 1918, at the age of 17, she was murdered by Bolsheviks in the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg with the rest of her family.

  • Anastasia (third person from left) with her father and sisters in Tobolsk , 1917/18

  • The basement of the Ipatiev House where the tsarist family was murdered

  • The Cathedral on the Blood was built on the site of the Ipatiev House and commemorates the murder of the tsarist family

Identification of the corpse

The legend that Anastasia might have survived lingered for a long time. When the bodies of the Romanovs were exhumed in 1991, two were actually missing. Until 2007 it was not clear whether the body of Anastasia or Maria was missing. On August 24, 2007, a team of Russian archaeologists said they had found the remains of Tsarevich Alexei and his sister Maria in July 2007 , which was confirmed by a DNA analysis. Accordingly, the corpses found in 1991 were those of the emperor and his wife and daughters Anastasia, Olga and Tatjana.

  • Skeleton of Anastasia

  • Skull of Anastasia (front view)

  • Skull of Anastasia (side view)

Burial and canonization

Anastasia were buried on July 17, 1998 in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in Saint Petersburg .

In 2000, Anastasia and her family were canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church .

Pretenders

Various women, such as the American Eugenia Smith and a woman who later called herself Anna Anderson , posed as Anastasia, the surviving youngest daughter of the Tsar. In the meantime, DNA tests have confirmed that Anna Anderson was the West Prussian factory worker Franziska Schanzkowska who suffered injuries after dropping a grenade in a weapons factory. She herself attributed these injuries to bayonets and gunshot wounds by the murderers in the Ipatiev house. Anderson refused to speak Russian all her life, which psychologists attributed to trauma from the experiences of the family's execution. In addition, she knew little about the life of the tsar's family, in contrast to the Russian Natalia Bilichodse , who even knew individual wallpaper patterns from the palace and some details from the intimate life of the Romanov family. Anna Anderson, married Manahan, passed away on February 12, 1984 in Charlottesville in the US state of Virginia .

Media reception

Movies

There are some film adaptations, mostly about the fact that Anna Anderson could be Anastasia Romanova:

Computer games

Anastasia Romanova is a playable character in the video games Shadow Hearts: Covenant and Assassin's Creed Chronicles Russia.

literature

  • Hugh Brewster: Anastasia's Album. Langen Müller, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-7844-2596-8 .
  • Roland Krug von Nidda (Ed.): I, Anastasia, tell the story. Records and documents of the Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia. Fackelverlag, Olten / Stuttgart / Salzburg 1962, DNB 1079497781 .
  • Helen Rappaport: Ekaterinburg. The Last Days of the Romanovs. Hutchinson, London 2008, ISBN 978-0-09-192115-6 (English).

Web links

Commons : Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanowa  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Marina Koreneva: Researchers discover executed royal family . In: Spiegel Online , June 8, 2011. Retrieved April 11, 2012. 
  2. ^ Vladimir Solovyov: Victim of premeditated murder . In: Der Spiegel . No. 30 , 2008 ( online ).
  3. ↑ Yelena Kiseleva: Pseudo-Anastasia comes to Moscow with 1 trillion dollars and distemper. In: Pravda.RU. June 12, 2002, archived from the original on September 17, 2004 ; accessed on December 26, 2014 (English).
personal data
SURNAME Romanowa, Anastasia Nikolaevna
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia; Анастасия Николаевна (Russian spelling)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian daughter of the last Russian couple Nicholas II and Alexandra
DATE OF BIRTH June 18, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Peterhof
DATE OF DEATH July 17, 1918
Place of death near Yekaterinburg