Just like the 1997 animated film from Fox Studios on which it was based (also called Anastasia), the musical blends Anastasia's real-life story with the accounts of alleged "impostors" who claimed to be Anastasia, and claimed that she survived the assassination of Tsar Nicholas II's family on July 17th, 1918. The most notable of such "impostors" was Anna Anderson (1896-1984), who was evidently an escaped Polish mental patient, real name Franziska Schanzkowska.
Unfortunately, the musical
Anastasia - just like the Fox cartoon which inspired it and its new songs - omits the character Rasputin completely. Gone from the musical are the real-life "mad monk" Grigori Rasputin (1869-1916); his fictional bat sidekick Bartok (voiced by Hank Azaria in the 1997 film); the terror-inducing magick spells they cast together; and the Rasputin character's haunting song "In the Dark of the Night". No Rasputin, no Bartok, and no mention of occult spirituality whatsoever.
Of course, the audience should have no reason to expect that this Anastasia musical - which is geared mostly towards children and their parents - would continue to include Rasputin, with his terrifying image and piercing stare. It would give children nightmares.
Although the audience should appreciate that the new musical prominently includes mention of the Soviet Communist regime which took over Russia after the Tsar was forced to abdicate, something was certainly lost from the story, in replacing Rasputin as the main villain, with a Soviet officer named Gleb. What was lost, in leaving Rasputin out, was some of the historical accuracy of the story.
But once again, the audience should have no reason to expect that this musical be perfectly historically accurate, based (as it were) on an admittedly fictionalized account of Anastasia's life, blended with the life stories of impostors. However, the fact that the Anastasia story, as represented in popular culture, is getting
less and less historically accurate as the years go on, presents us with an opportunity to set the records straight about Rasputin, Anastasia, her father the Tsar, and the circumstances surrounding their deaths.
In this article, I will explain why some people still believe that Anastasia could have survived the assassination attempt of July 1918, by examining the facts surrounding the whereabouts of the remains of Anastasia and her sisters. I will also explain which historical facts the 1997
Anastasia animated film got wrong; and I will additionally note several facts about Rasputin and the Romanovs which most accounts - historical and fictional alike - omit from the story.
II. Historical Inaccuracies in the Animated Film and Musical
It should go without saying that Rasputin didn't have a bat sidekick, as he did in the 1997 Fox animated film
Anastasia. But more importantly, the first several minutes of the 1997 film contain several inaccuracies which conflict with the historical facts surrounding how and when the Romanov dynasty came to be replaced by the Soviet Communist regime of Vladimir Lenin (Ulyanov).
The film begins in 1916 at a grand ball, wherein the Romanov dynasty is celebrating 300 years on the throne. However, the Romanov dynasty
actually celebrated its 300-year anniversary, not in 1916, but in February 1913, three years earlier. The 1997 film placed that ball in 1916 in order to get the event closer to the death of Rasputin, and closer to the date when the Tsar was forced to abdicate the throne (March 15th, 1917). This was likely done in order to condense the plot, and to prevent the film from being too long.
The 1997 film also shows the entire Romanov family being chased out of the imperial palace (called Tsarskoye Selo) after Rasputin curses Nicholas's family in an act of revenge for banishing him from the palace. Rasputin is shown placing a curse on the Romanov line, and hordes of Russian civilians are shown storming the palace. Next, the whole family - Anastasia, her grandmother, and the rest - are forced to flee Tsarskoye Selo, with Anastasia's paternal grandmother (the Empress Dowager Marie Feodorovna) telling Anastasia that they will meet again in Paris.
Nothing about the preceding paragraph could be further from the truth; because: 1) Rasputin did not curse the family; 2) Romanov rule was not replaced by Communist rule anywhere near as quickly, nor directly, as portrayed in the film; and 3) Russians never stormed the royal family's palace.
First of all, Rasputin
did not place a "curse" on Tsar Nicholas II and his family and line. The idea that Rasputin placed a curse on the family, comes from the fact that Rasputin wrote a letter to Tsarina Alix (Alexandra, the Tsar's wife) in which Rasputin predicted that he would be murdered. That letter read in part, "if it was your relations who have wrought my death, then none of your children will remain alive for more than two years". An alternate translation of the letter reads, "If I am killed by common men, you and your children will rule Russia for centuries to come; if I am killed by one of your stock, you and your family will be killed by the Russian people!" While this could be interpreted as a
warning to the family that they urge each other not to kill him, there is no historical evidence which suggests Rasputin intended this as a curse rather than merely a prediction. Additionally, Rasputin was correct; his assassin was a Romanov prince (Felix Youssoupov, also spelled Yusupov), and the Romanovs were assassinated on July 17th, 1918, just over a year and a half after the death of Rasputin (on December 30th, 1916).
Second, the Romanovs
were not kicked out of the palace by Russian civilians. As explained above, Tsar Nicholas (1868-1918) was forced to abdicate on March 15th, 1917; while Lenin did not take power until the day after the October Revolution (on November 7th, 1917, in the New Style Gregorian calendar), several months later. After the Tsar's abdication, and before Lenin took power on November 8th (as Chairman of the Councils of People's Commissars of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic), Alexander Kerensky held the reins of power. From July to October 1917, Kerensky (1881-1970) served as Minister-Chairman of the Russian Provisional Government, which took over in the Tsar's stead, following the February Revolution of 1917 which resulted in the Tsar's abdication.
Third, the October Revolution took place with little bloodshed - and
no rushing of the palace by Russian civilians - occuring overnight, through a series of discreet murders of palace guards, and replacement of those guards by Bolshevik sympathizers. Thus, the idea that Lenin and the Bolsheviks
directly and immediately replaced the Romanovs as rulers of Russia, is completely false, because it ignores that transition period between February/March and October/November 1917, and omits Kerensky, the Duma, and the Provisional Government from the narrative.
Additionally, and problematically, the plot of the 1997 film
Anastasia (as well as the new musical which is based on it) seems to imply that the Romanovs were chased out of the palace by Bolsheviks, and that most of the Romanovs (except Anastasia and her grandmother) were murdered instantly. That did not happen. Tsar Nicholas abdicated on behalf of himself and his son Alexei, the family was non-violently ordered to leave the palace, and they were sent into exile, eventually ending up in the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg.The Ipatiev House was known as the "House of Special Purpose"; the Romanovs spent their last 78 days alive there, where they were eventually murdered nearly a year and a half after Nicholas's abdication.
The plots of the film and musical
also seem to imply that the Romanovs were driven out of the palace
with Rasputin chasing after them. This did not happen,
could not have happened (given the timelines), and is nothing more than a flight of fictional fancy and poetic license. In the opening scene of the 1997 film, the Tsar tells Rasputin "You are a traitor, get out!" when Rasputin returns to the palace after being banished. But there is little evidence to suggest that the Tsar had anywhere near that much antipathy for Rasputin. Both the Tsar and his wife Alix referred to Rasputin as "our friend", and considered him a trusted spiritual advisor and confidant. Hoping to cool-down tensions regarding Rasputin, the Tsar
temporarily exiled him in 1911-12 (sending him on a pilgrimage to Ukraine, Istanbul, and the Holy Land), but the Tsar only sent Rasputin into
permanent exile after being pressured to do so by members of his family and the royal court. Those people felt that Rasputin's presence was disruptive,, and threatened to weaken the already rapidly decreasing stability of Romanov rule.
In fact, the Tsar was so skeptical about the idea that Rasputin's influence was negative, that when other members of the Romanov family sent Nicholas a letter demanding that he break ties with Rasputin, the Tsar
forwarded the letter to his wife instead of responding to it,
warning her that members of their family were conspiring against the couple and their friend. Additionally, in 1911, an Russian Orthodox priest, Iliodor, was even defrocked for conspiring against Rasputin. Even after Rasputin became suspected of having an
affair with the Tsarina (while the Tsar was away running Russia's involvement in World War I) - and even after the Tsarina appointed several incompetent ministers recommended by the anti-war Rasputin, overriding the Tsar's vehement objections - the Tsar and Tsarina
still waited as long as possible to distance themselves from Rasputin. Information regarding when this falling-out actually occurred - and, indeed,
whether it occurred at all - however, is hard to come by; as it appears from Rasputin's 1916 letter to Tsarina Alix that they were
still on good terms with one another.
III. Strange Facts About Rasputin and the Romanovs
There are many strange facts about Rasputin and the Romanov family which have been under-reported. Let us first turn to several facts, to which I have alluded above; concerning: 1) the occult; 2) Rasputin's influence on, and alleged affair with, Tsarina Alix of Hesse; and 3) the murder of Rasputin and the possible dismemberment of his corpse.
1) Occult, spiritual, and religious elements:
As explained above, the new musical
Anastasia was almost completely devoid of spiritual elements, and was totally devoid of references to the occult. The 1997 film
Anastasia included Rasputin casting spells and curses, but avoided referencing the Russian Orthodox Church, which played an important part in the stories of both Rasputin and the Romanovs.
For one, the "Crow Sisters" (Princesses Milica and Anastasia of Montenegro, also jointly nicknamed "The Black Peril") were interested in the occult, and introduced the Romanovs to Rasputin. Before that, the Crow Sisters also introduced the Tsarina to the family's
previous faith-healer
before Rasputin, a Martinist priest named Maitre Philippe de Lyon (full name Anthelme Nizier Philippe).
Additionally, the Tsarina (Empress Alix of Hesse, 1864-1918) was obsessed with magic trinkets, charms, and symbols; from lockets bearing pictures of Rasputin, to the swastika (a Hindu symbol signifying good luck and long life, distinct from the Nazi
hakenkreutz, which means "crooked cross" and is an
inverted swastika).
2) The possible affair between Rasputin and Alix:
Rasputin was rumored to be having an affair with the Tsar's wife. Rasputin's predilection for sex and womanizing was well-known; he gave hugs and wet kisses to ladies of the court, and was even charged with raping nuns when he was young. The Empress wrote a letter to Rasputin which read in part, "Only then is my soul at rest when you, my teacher, is sitting beside me and I am kissing your hands and leaning on your savory shoulders." This letter was mimeographed and appeared in newspapers in late 1911, and allegedly Rasputin supplied fodder for this rumor by boasting about it in public, reading her letter, and claiming that the affair was real. Scandalous cartoons appeared in Russian newspapers, depicting Rasputin holding the Tsar and Tsarina like marionettes, and depicting Rasputin in amorous caress with the Empress. However, there is no solid evidence that Rasputin and Alix had such an affair. Alix of Hesse was the prim and proper granddaughter of Queen Victoria, and she was deeply in love with the Tsar, with whom she had five children. Alix would have had little reason or time to have such an affair, because she was preoccupied with spiritual matters, the sickness of her son Alexei, her own sickness, improving her reputation at court, and (later) making decisions in the Tsar's absence.
Of course, the Tsar's absence (running the Russian army during World War I) certainly gave Alix
space to have an affair, if she wanted to. However, many Russians, - including people of the court - were concerned that Alix and Rasputin were German spies, given rumors about Rasputin, and given the fact of Alix's German heritage and her difficulty learning Russian. So even if a brief affair did occur, it still would have been very difficult - as well as risky - for Rasputin and Alix to continue such an affair for any significant stretch of time, without anyone finding out.
Some sources claim that Rasputin's influence on the royal family was limited to helping to soothe and cure Alexei's ill (hemophilia), while others claim that his influence was much greater. As explained above, Rasputin suggested several ministers for appointment, and Alix pushed those suggestions through and approved them, despite the objections of her husband and other advisors who felt that those ministers were incompetent. By most accounts, Rasputin's influence on the
Tsarina (at least) was very significant; some say his stare (and his ability to dilate his pupils at will) had the power to put people in trances. If Rasputin really did have as much influence on Russian politics as he is said to have had, then it seems likely that Rasputin's influence weakened the royal family's grip on power, and therefore made Russia susceptible to revolution.
3) The dismemberment of Rasputin's corpse:
As explained above, the priest Iliodor (real name Sergei Michailovich Trufanov, 1880-1952) was dispossessed of his power, after the royal family discovered that he and other priests were conspiring to kill Rasputin. Supposedly at one point, Iliodor even beat Rasputin with a large cross. According to Douglas Smith's 1996 book
Rasputin: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs, a midget priest named Blessed Mitya tried to grab Rasputin's penis. It has been alleged that Mitya did this in order to try to rip Rasputin's penis off of his body. Iliodor allegedly grabbed Rasputin's penis too, telling him to stop thinking with his penis and to instead start thinking with his brain. Whether these accounts are fictional or not, Iliodor and Mitya were certainly angry about Rasputin's debauched ways, and the possible damage which his behavior could cause to the church and the royal family, so they would have had plenty of reason to confront Rasputin. Although Iliodor might have had nothing to do with the 1914 attempt on Rasputin's life by Khioniya Guseva (a follower of Iliodor), Iliodor hatched his own plan to kill Rasputin in 1916, with the help of a politician named Alexei Khvostov. Thus, Iliodor's antipathy for Rasputin was well-known, and he certainly had murderous intent at at least one point, so it's entirely possible that the accounts about the cross beating and Blessed Mitya have some truth to them.
After Rasputin's murder, there were rumors that his penis was cut off; either by the assassins themselves, or else by angry crowds who gained possession of his corpse. However, St. Petersburg senior autopsy surgeon Dr. Dmitry Kosorotov reported finding Rasputin's penis intact. Despite Dr. Kosorotov's report, St. Petersburg's Museum of Erotica claims to be in possession of the preserved penis today. However, some say the preserved penis at that museum is actually some sort of pickled vegetable, and that it is not really Rasputin's penis. On the other hand, according to Rasputin's daughter Matryona Rasputina (1989-1977), Rasputin's penis was 12 or 13 inches long, so given the immense size of the preserved "penis", it's possible that it's real. We may never know.
Rasputin's daughter, by the way, led a life almost as strange as her father's. She worked as a cabaret dancer, and as a lion tamer with the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus. She allegedly found a group of women in Paris who were in possession of her father's penis, venerating it as if it were a holy charm that could give fertility, and giving pieces of it away to people. If there is any truth to the idea that parts of Rasputin's penis were cut off in the 1920s, then the preserved penis on display in St. Petersburg could not possibly be his real penis, because it appears to be fully intact.
Next, we shall turn our attention to several facts to which I have not yet alluded in this article; namely: 4) Rasputin's relationship with Tsar Nicholas; 5) Rasputin's relationship with Tsarevitch (tsar-evident; crown prince) Alexei; 6) other miscellaneous facts about Rasputin and his assassin; 7) the role of the Germans and Kaiser Wilhelm II in the destabilization and collapse of Romanov rule; and 8) the Romanovs' status in the Russian Orthodox Church.
4) Rasputin's relationship with the Tsar:
Towards the end of Tsar Nicholas II's life and reign, he became addicted to several drugs, including cocaine, opium, and morphine. The Tsar would take cocaine to treat his colds, and opium and morphine to reduce stomach pain. Rasputin's participation in orgies, some of which may have been fueled by drugs, have led researchers to suggest that Rasputin may have been
supplying these drugs to the Tsar, even prescribing them for his maladies. If Rasputin did supply those drugs, then the dependency which that relationship would have caused, should help explain why the Tsar was so reticent to dismiss Rasputin from his service. The Tsar's use of opium and morphine to soothe his stomach troubles, and the acceptability of the use of raw forms of opioids in medicine at the time, could also help explain why Tsarevitch Alexei's doctors had no reservations about prescribing him Aspirin, a pain reliever and anti-inflammatory medication which was considered a new "miracle drug" at the time.
5) Rasputin's relationship with Alexei:
Tsarevitch Alexei (1904-1918) was born with hemophilia, a disorder in which the blood does not clot normally, leading to prolonged bleeding. Alexei inherited this disorder from his mother Alix (females are carriers of hemophilia), and in turn, Alix inherited the disorder from her mother Princess Alice, who got it from her mother Queen Victoria. Queen Victoria's encouragement of incest among her progeny resulted in the birth of heirs who were inbred, and thus predisposed to inheriting recessive disorders (of which hemophilia is one).
Rasputin is often portrayed as having used "faith healing" to reduce Alexei's bleeding. Rasputin was known for slowly waving his hands in front of his patients' eyes, and had a unique ability to soothe people's worries and discomfort using this method. Alix believed Rasputin to be the only person capable of helping Alexei. Why this was so, was considered a mystery. Some believed that Rasputin's holiness (he claimed to have seen apparitions of the Virgin Mary) was the only possible explanation.
However, there
is a purely scientific and medical explanation for Rasputin's effect on the boy. As explained above, Alexei's doctors had been giving him Aspirin, to treat the discomfort and pain which he was experiencing (alongside prolonged bleeding) as results of his injuries. So severe was Alexei's hemophilia, that the slightest scraping of the knee could cause him to bleed profusely for days at a time.
Although it makes sense that his doctors would prescribe Aspirin to relieve pain, the Aspirin actually had a
negative effect on Alexei's hemophilia overall. Aspirin thins the blood, and slows-down the process of blood clotting. This caused the prince to heal from injuries more slowly, delaying the clotting and scabbing which Alexei needed. This explains Rasputin's 1912 letter to the Tsarina, which read in part, "Do not allow the doctors to bother him [Alexei] too much."
Without Rasputin's interventions, Alexei's doctors would have continued prescribing him Aspirin, which, despite soothing his pain, was only making his condition worse. Thus, Rasputin's influence on Alexei and his family was as far as one could imagine from sinister, manipulative, and scientifically baseless.
6) other facts about Rasputin, Anastasia, and Rasputin's assassin:
First off, most people pronounce "Rasputin" incorrectly. In the 1997 film
Anastasia, and in the musical - and in the non-Russian-speaking world in general - Rasputin is pronounced "rass-PYOO-tin", with the stress on the middle syllable. However, the actual pronunciation - given correctly in the 1970s disco song "Rasputin" by Boney M - is "RAHS-poo-tyeen", with the stress on the
first syllable.
While we're at it,
Anastasia is not pronounced like "Anna STAY-zha", nor like "honest Asia". It's pronounced "ah-nah-stahy-SEE-yah", with the stress on the second to last syllable. Anastasia is spelled "Anastasija" in Romanized Russian.
One more fact about Anastasia: Anastasia took some of the first teen "selfies" (self-portraits), seen below. The children had Kodak Brownie cameras, and took them nearly everywhere they went. This helped them become perhaps the most photographed children in the world at the time.
Another interesting fact about Rasputin is the possibility that he is an ancestor or relative of Vladimir Putin, the current president of Russia. Putin's ancestors were named Putyatin, coming from the Tver region of Russia. However, the Tver region is over 2,000 miles from Pokrovskoye, the Siberian town in which Rasputin was born, and Putin's lineage is difficult to trace, so it's unknown whether the Putyatin family had ties to the region in which Rasputin grew up. Vladimir Putin's paternal grandfather was named Spiridon Ivanovich Putin, died in 1965, and was born in 1879 (ten years after Rasputin was born, making them contemporaries).
On the other hand, the Putyatin family is a family of Russian nobles, which makes Putin distantly related to all members of the Russian royal family. Additionally, Rasputin was photographed with a member of the Putyatin family in 1911. There is also a striking similarity in resemblance between Vladimir Putin and Tsarina Alix.
From left to right:
Prince Mikhail Sergeyevich Putyatin,
Grigori Efimovich Rasputin,
and Colonel D. Loman.
A young Vladimir Putin (left), and a young Alix of Hesse (right)
While none of these facts, by any means, conclusively proves a direct lineage from Rasputin to Putin, the aforementioned facts should
still prompt us to wonder the following: 1) whether Rasputin and Putyatin discussed and acknowledged their family ties when they were photographed together; 2) whether they discussed Vladimir Putin's grandfather Spiridon, who would have been 31 or 32 at the time; 3) whether Rasputin could have impregnated one of Putyatin's female relatives, resulting in a child of noble birth, claiming Rasputin as father; and 4) whether one of Vladimir Putin's ancestors could have been the result of an affair between Rasputin and the Empress (if such an affair did occur, which is dubious).
Rasputin may have learned how to soothe human patients through whispers, from having been a "horse-whisperer" when he was younger. He was also a horse-thief as a youth. On one occasion - in 1883, when Rasputin was 14 years old - he helped catch a horse thief and helped return the horse to its owner. Some people present for that event believe Rasputin did so with the help of God. This was the first story about Rasputin's exploits which led to rumors that he had holy powers. Later in his life, however, many people grew to suspect that his power came not from God, but rather from the Devil.
One interesting piece of information about Rasputin is the possibility that he was involved in a sex cult called the khlysts / khlysti. The khlysti were a radical Christian sect, which was known for engaging in ecstatic rituals, including orgies.
Many sources on Rasputin claimed that he belonged to the khlysti; however, there is no evidence that supports this. However, Rasputin did know about - and meet - the khlysti, from his time as a wandering
strannik. After marrying and having children, Rasputin began throwing orgies in his basement - orgies which allegedly included very young women - much to the dismay of his wife.
Finally, Rasputin's lead assassin, Prince Felix Yusupov, was a bisexual and a cross-dresser / transvestite. While attending Oxford as a youth, he was into the occult, attended seances, and claimed to have had premonitions. Yusupov's family claimed descent from the prophet Muhammad, as well as from the rulers of ancient Egypt.
7) The Germans' role in the destabilization of Romanov rule:
As explained above, both Rasputin and Tsarina Alix were suspected of being German spies. On the other hand, Rasputin has also been alleged to have been working on the behalf of Jewish Communists (which is dubious because Rasputin was not Jewish, but which is nonetheless possible because of Rasputin's opposition to Russian involvement in World War I, and because of the possibility that Rasputin
intended his actions to destabilize Romanov rule).
Whatever the cases, the German threat against Russia was real. In World War I, Tsar Nicholas found himself at war with
his own cousin, German Emperor and Kaiser Wilhelm II. Assisting Russia in that war was the United Kingdom, headed by King George V. George's mother was Alexandra of Denmark, whose sister Maria Feodorovna (known as Dagmar) was the mother of Tsar Nicholas II.
That's right; Kaiser Wilhelm found himself at war with his first cousin Tsar Nicholas II, who was married to Tsar Nicholas's own third cousin Alexandra, whom herself was another first cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
To put it another way, Wilhelm went to war with his own two first cousins - Nicky and Alix - whom were third cousins who had married each other. And at the same time when he was at war with George V, who was the first cousin of
both Nicholas
and Wilhelm. That's because Wilhelm's father was Frederick VIII of Denmark, whose sister Alexandra of Denmark was the mother of George V.
You can learn more about the relationship between George and Nicholas, and more about the many relatives of Queen Victoria, by reading the following two articles, which I wrote:
- My April 2019 article "Regarding the Surviving Royal Families of Europe", at the following address:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2019/04/regarding-remaining-european-royal.html - My April 2021 article "Prince Philip's Death Prompts Realization That He and Elizabeth Were Incestuous Imperialists", at the following address:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2021/04/prince-philips-death-prompts.html]
Not only that; Wilhelm's actions arguably
directly caused the assassination of his first cousins Nicholas and Alexandra, and of their children (Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei). The children were Kaiser Wilhelm's first cousins once removed -
i.e., the children of his cousins - but they were even more closely related to him than that, because they were his first cousins once removed
through both of his first cousins Nicholas and Alix.
While Vladimir Lenin was in exile in Switzerland, the Kaiser funded the publication of Bolshevik propaganda, and supplied the funds (in gold) which Lenin needed to get to Russia. Once in Russia (thanks to the Kaiser's help), Lenin was able to reconnect with the Russian Bolsheviks, and spread his influence and gain power, eventually ending up as Chairman of the S.F.S.R..
While there is no concrete evidence proving definitively that Lenin directly ordered the murder of the Tsar's children, it's possible that he at least ordered the murder of the Tsar, who was nearly universally hated throughout the country, and whom even the reformist Kerensky advocated assassinating. Some researchers believe that Lenin, Yakov Sverdlov, and Felix Dzerzhinsky gave instructions on how to kill the Romanovs; while ither researchers believe that Lenin was
vehemently opposed to murdering the Tsar's family (possibly owing to the remoteness of the possibility that his daughters could come to pose any real threat to Bolshevik power, and also to the fact that Nicholas abdicated in favor of both himself and his son and primary heir, thus nearly neutralizing the threat from Alexei). If Lenin truly
didn't issue
any such order - that is, if he didn't issue orders to assassinate
any member of the Romanov family - then the order to carry out the assassinations must have come from the Ural Regional Soviet. It's also possible that the Ural Soviet sent-out an order to kill the Tsar, but
not the rest of the family, and that the Bolshevik assassins (led by Yakov Yurovsky, a Jew from Siberia, and Yekaterinburg native Peter Ermakov) took it upon themselves to kill all of them. Some of the executioners recalled that, on the eve of the murders, they received a telegram from Moscow ordering them to kill the Tsar but not the rest of his family, while the issue of what to do with the family was left up to the local Soviet government (the Ural Soviet). Greg King and Penny Wilson, authors of
The Fate of the Romanovs, believe that the orders to murder the family came from the Ural Soviet.
While Rasputin, Kerensky and company, and Lenin, are among those usually chiefly blamed for the abdication and assassination of the Romanovs, the role of the Germans (and especially of Nicholas's own first cousin Kaiser Wilhelm) should not be downplayed, given the Kaiser's assistance of Lenin, and the wearing-down of the Russian army by the German army during the first few years of World War I.
8) the Romanovs' status in the Russian Orthodox Church:
On November 1st, 1981, the Romanov family - Tsar Nicholas, Empress Alix, and their five children - were declared to be "new martyrs" by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. According to a Time Magazine article from 2018, "the Patriarchate in Moscow initially resisted recognition of the Romanovs as Saints, but finally followed suit in 2000".
Thus, the Romanovs were recognized as saint-martyrs, and passion-bearers - that is,
they were canonized as saints - because they are considered to have died as martyrs, assassinated as punishment for their faith in Christianity. The idea that the Romanovs' assassination was an act of Christian persecution, is supported by the fact that many early Bolsheviks were atheists, who rejected religion, rejected the influence of church and state upon one another, and rejected the Tsar's claim that his authority was given to him by God.
There were also many Jewish Bolsheviks - and especially "Jewish atheist Bolsheviks" (that is, secular Bolsheviks raised by Jewish families) - whom shared many of those views on religion, and whom were involved with the party in those early days. But I do not intend to focus on the degree of Jewish involvement in either the Romanov killings, nor the Bolshevik revolution, in this article; that information can be found elsewhere.
IV. Tracking-Down Anastasia's Remains
The key pieces of evidence that suggest Anastasia could have survived, are the facts surrounding the botched disposal of the Romanovs' bodies, the confusion of Anastasia's body with those of two of her sisters at several points, and the fact that
there is still one Romanov daughter's body missing from the Russian Archives.
After their execution by firing squad in the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg on July 17th, 1918, nine bodies were loaded onto a truck. These were nine people, out of the eleven people whom were intended to be killed; seven Romanovs, plus their four attendants. The nine bodies were taken to the Kopyatki Forest, where they were stripped, mutilated, and doused with sulfuric acid. They were then dumped into an abandoned mine shaft, and moved the next day in order to relocate them to a more discreet place where they could not be found.
Yakov Yurovsky had decided to personally oversee the disposal of the bodies, due to Peter Ermakov's drunkenness, and some of the assassins' attempts to grope the genitals of the former Empress's corpse, and to seize some of the diamonds concealed in the children's clothes. Interestingly, the nearly
three pounds of diamonds in their clothes, provided them some level of protection against their assassins' bullets.
In 1919, after failing to find the Romanovs' bodies, investigators with the White Army concluded that their remains had been cremated at an abandoned mineshaft called Ganina Yama, where they had found evidence of a fire. Scholars believe that, after dumping the bodies into the mineshaft, the Bolsheviks tried to make it collapse by throwing grenades into it. This failed. At some point, the bodies were crushed. The name of the field in which the nine bodies were found, is "Porosenkov Log", or, in English, "Pig's Meadow".
Scholars say the Bolsheviks failed to cause the mineshaft to collapse, and therefore decided to move the bodies to a new location to prevent them from being found. While in transit to the new burial site, the truck got stuck in mud, leading the assassins to take two bodies off of the truck, and dispose of them in the forest nearby. Many people believe that those two bodies were those of Alexei and Maria. Those bodies are now buried at the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg.
Nine bodies were buried together; those of five of the Romanovs, and four of their servants and attendants. Those five Romanov bodies were found by "amateur researchers". Only five of the seven Romanovs lie in the St. Petersburg Cathedral today; Nicholas, Alexandra, and three of their five children, all daughters. Again, two bodies were missing, those of Alexei and one of his sisters; but
which sister that was, remains a disputed matter.
Some sources provide the date of the discovery of those bodies as 1976, while other sources say 1977 or 1979. In 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, tests were ordered to verify the authenticity of the bones. The location of the bodies, which had previously been kept a secret, was revealed. Aside from the conflicting reports about the date, there are
also conflicting reports about whether the bodies found in 1979 were found in an abandoned pit, or "near a cart track", or "under railroad ties on a county road" (probably a reference to Koptiaki Road).
An investigation surrounding the bones of those five bodies began in 1993, and closed in 1998, after the five bodies were tested. DNA tests confirmed that they were Romanovs, and the bodies were buried in the St. Petersburg Cathedral. There was just one problem:
two bodies were still unaccounted for; those of Alexei and one of his sisters. Which means that, while those DNA tests
did prove that the recovered bodies were Romanovs, those DNA tests
did not confirm the identity of the missing bodies (which would have been impossible to do, because they were still missing, and not available to be tested).
There seems to be no dispute that the remains of the former tsar and tsarina, and their daughter Olga, now lie in the St. Petersburg Cathedral. In fact, new tests in 2015, ordered by the Russian Orthodox Church, confirmed
again that the tsar and tsarina's remains were among those recovered. However, the Russian Orthodox Church
refused to accept that two bodies found in 2007 were Romanovs. Those bodies were allegedly the remains of Alexei and the missing Romanov daughter, and since the church has not accepted them, they remain unburied. The reason why the Russian Orthodox Church is taking this so seriously, is because - since the Romanovs are now considered saint-martyrs - any acceptance of a Romanov body will mean the acceptance of a
holy relic into the church's possession.
On August 23rd, 2007, archeologists confirmed that they had discovered the remains of a male and female. According to the next day's issue of
The Guardian, a 46-year-old man named Sergei Plotnikov claimed to have found the bodies, and his friend Leonid helped him dig them up. They were found in a "wooded site" about 6 miles north of Yekaterinburg, not far from where the other nine bodies were buried. Researchers believe the murderers doused these two bodies in acid and then tried to bury them, before realizing it wasn't working, and deciding to bury the nine other bodies in some other location.
To repeat, a male and female were found at that location in Siberia. At the time of his death, Alexei was 13, and about to turn 14 the next month; while Anastasia was 17 years old in July 1918; Maria was 19, Tatiana was 21, and Olga was 22. The male corpse found in 2007 was reportedly between the ages of 10 and 13 at death, while the female was between 18 and 23. This means that Alexei was probably too old to be the male corpse, while Anastasia was probably too young to be the female corpse.
However, there have been conflicting reports surrounding the age ranges of those corpses. Another report put the male corpse between 12 and 15, and the female between 15 and 19. And if
those age ranges are correct, then it's entirely possible that the bodies belonged to Alexei and Anastasia.
However,
nobody ever claimed that the female corpse was Anastasia's. The bodies found in 2007 were reported to be the bodies of Alexei and
Maria. Which is feasible, because Maria was slightly older than Anastasia, and thus within that 18 to 23 age range (and so were Tatiana and Olga). So if
Maria's body was found in 2007, then why did people suspect that it was Alexei and
Anastasia who were missing? If Anastasia was so certainly dead in 1918, then why did anyone even
listen to Anna Anderson when she claimed to be Anastasia in 1922?
Since that discovery in Siberia in 2007, an American scientist, looking at dental and vertebral evidence, has concluded that
Anastasia and Alexei were the two missing bodies. However, a
Russian scientist, looking at photographic superimpositions, has concluded that
Maria and Alexei were the two missing bodies. Bone fragment evidence
suggests that it was Anastasia's skeleton which was found and examined, but the
photographic superimpositions suggest that
Maria was the youngest female corpse among those remains found in the 1970s. It's entirely possible that the researchers were just mistaken, and they examined the skeleton of Maria, and accidentally identified it as Anastasia's. The DNA evidence showed that the youngest daughter's corpse is that of a
Romanov, but it didn't prove
which one it was.
What this means is that even if Anastasia's body has still never been positively identified. That's because, for one, the bodies found in 2007 might not even be Romanovs' at all. Second, even if they
are Romanovs, and the male is definitely Alexei, then it's
still unconfirmed whether that female corpse is that of Anastasia or Maria. Also, it's still
unconfirmed whether the youngest female corpse in the St. Petersburg Cathedral - that is, the youngest female corpse among the five Romanovs found with the bodies of their four servants - is that of Anastasia or Maria.
The following page, from an unknown book, says it all. [Note: Plenty of information regarding skull, bone, and DNA evidence, can be found by simply typing "Anastasia Maria Romanovs bones" into the image search feature of an internet search engine.]
According to
The Fate of the Romanovs by Greg King and Penny Wilson, Maria was shot through the thigh. If true, this can only mean that Maria is body #5 in the image above, and that Anastasia was the female Romanov corpse missing from the other nine bodies.
DNA tests have, however, proven that the female corpse found in 2007 is almost definitely a sibling of the male corpse found in 2007, which has been identified as Alexei.
