Showing posts with label Rasputin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rasputin. Show all posts

Thursday, September 9, 2021

Thirty Historical Events That Never Happened (or Didn't Happen the Way We Were Taught They Did)

     Many events that we were taught about in history class as children, have been distorted; by the rose-colored glasses through which the American, capitalist, imperialistic public school system chooses to see them, and wishes its servants to see them. This is done in order to elicit national pride, and to do away with the qualms we have about submitting to that system.
     Here is a list of thirty historical events - between 1916 and 2018 - that either never happened, or else happened in a completely different way from how we were told they unfolded.





     Myth #1:

     The evil sorcerer Grigory Rasputin cursed the Romanov family in December 1916.


     Why It's a Myth:

     Rasputin did not curse the family. Rather, he predicted his own death, and said that the Romanovs would die if Rasputin's death was caused by the Romanovs' kinsmen.
     Moreover, Rasputin was not evil, nor a sorcerer, but a monk, a medicine man and healer, a holy man, a horse whisperer, and a person intimately concerned with the struggles of poor and Jewish people in Russia, as well as with the bleeding disease hemophilia, from which Alexei Romanov suffered.
     The extent to which there was a falling-out between Rasputin and the Tsar has been greatly exaggerated. It's entirely possible that the Tsar only sent Rasputin away on a pilgrimage - temporarily, not permanently - due to the immense pressure he felt from his other advisors to do so.

     Source: http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/history-and-mythology/grigory-rasputin/

     For more information, read my August 2019 article "Why Some Believe Anastasia Survived, and Other Strange Facts About the Romanovs and Rasputin":




     Myth #2:

     Vladimir Lenin took over Russia for communism, 1917-1924.


     Why It's a Myth:

     Kaiser Wilhelm II, the first cousin of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, financed Lenin's move from Switzerland to St. Petersburg in early 1917. Furthermore, the Soviet Union never achieved full communism, but only significant collectivization of agriculture.




     Myth #3:

     The U.S.S.R. was established in 1917-1918.


     Why It's a Myth:

     The U.S.S.R. was not established until 1922. The entity that took over Russia in 1917-1918 was the R.S.F.S.R. (the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic).



     Myth #4:

     The Winter Palace in St. Petersburg was stormed in 1917.


     Why It's a Myth:

     The "storming of the winter palace" was not a real historical event, but rather a "mass spectacle" which was staged by Russians for propaganda purposes in 1920. Tsar Nicholas II was not removed through an overnight coup wherein huge masses of people stormed the palace; rather, he was forced to abdicate, and then Alexander Kerensky's Provisional Government was elected. The Romanovs were allowed to take many of their belongings with them when they left Tsarskoe Selo (the Tsar's palace); they were not rushed out and forced to flee overnight.





     Myth #5:

     Anastasia and Alexei Romanov were murdered with the rest of their family in July 1917.


     Why It's a Myth:

     The fact that Alexei's corpse, and the corpse of Anastasia or one of her sisters, weren't discovered until 2006, suggests that Anastasia and Alexei may not have been murdered along with the rest of their family in July 1917. The book The Myth of the Basement Massacre explains that all members of the family might not have even been shot in the same room.

     For more information, read my August 2019 article "Why Some Believe Anastasia Survived, and Other Strange Facts About the Romanovs and Rasputin":





     Myth #6:

     Stalinists sabotaged the Spanish republican revolution from 1936 to 1939.


     Why It's a Myth:

     The idea that Stalinists sabotaged the Spanish revolution on purpose, was the opinion of Leon Trotsky and others. But this is not so.
     The Stalinists provided military aid to the Spanish republicans, in exchange for a set of conditions. These included allowing the Soviets to gain influence over military operations in Spain, and the imposition of labor discipline, and the provisions that soldiers may not become drunk (because it would lower their guards when they needed to be ready to fight). Another cause of the Spanish resistance wearing-down was that the republican soldiers had so much democratic power that they could vote their commanding officers out of power. To the Stalinists, who sent them military aid (albeit delayed and insufficient), this was intolerable. Another reason why the Stalinists cannot be blamed for sabotaging the republicans' efforts, is that the Soviets needed to save military equipment for themselves, having tens of millions more people to protect than the Spanish did.

     For more information, read my February 2018 article "Reflection Upon the Use of Forced Labor Camps by Anarchists and Communists":




     Myth #7:

     Josef Stalin capitulated to Nazism in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in August 1939.


     Why It's a Myth:

     Stalin did not allow the Nazis to gain control of Soviet territory, nor control of its soldiers. Stalin's U.S.S.R. was the last country to attempt a treaty with the Nazis, after nearly every single country in Europe had already capitulated, and handed territory over to Germany. Stalin knew that Hitler would eventually violate the treaty. Making a deal with Hitler allowed the Soviets to buy time, move industries eastward, and trade the Nazis the weapons and materiel they needed to eventually destroy each other. Stalin's regime could be described as a dictatorship, and perhaps even as anti-Semitic (especially in the last three years of Stalin's reign), but those facts alone do not mean that it was fascist; certainly not Nazi.

     For more information, read my April 2019 article "Stalin Killed Fewer People Than Hitler Did, and How Stalin Tricked Hitler with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact":



     Myth #8:

     The Nazis and Soviets held a joint military parade in Brest-Litovsk in September 1939.


     Why It's a Myth:

     Brest and Litovsk are not now - and were not then - a single city called "Brest-Litovsk". Rather, they are two cities; the then German city of Brest, and the Soviet Russian city of Litovsk. The military "parade" was not a single joint military parade, but two different parades; one held in Brest, the other in Litovsk. The militaries did meet, but there was uneasy tension between them. Also, they did not collaborate, nor help train one another. The Soviet training of the German air force ended in 1933, the same year Hitler took power. The cities of Brest and Litovsk are now located in the country of Belarus.



     Myth #9:

     The Soviet Union invaded Poland in September 1939.


     Why It's a Myth:

     The Soviet Union's takeover of eastern Poland, in late September 1939, followed the Nazis' takeover of western Poland by a full two weeks. The Soviet Union arguably "invaded" eastern Poland in order to protect it from becoming occupied by the Nazis, and because the Nazis had recognized eastern Poland as within the Soviet sphere of influence in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Later, the Soviets salted the earth in eastern Poland as they retreated, but this was done in order to make the land less valuable to the Nazis, not as an act of war against the Polish people.

     For more information, read my April 2019 article "Stalin Killed Fewer People Than Hitler Did, and How Stalin Tricked Hitler with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact":




     Myth #10:

     Poles were targeted for genocide in the Katyn Forest Massacre in March 1940.


     Why It's a Myth:

     The twenty-two thousand Poles killed in the Katyn Forest Massacre were not targeted due to their ethnicity; they were targeted specifically because they were military officers, who had been given opportunities to give up information about the locations of enemy Nazi troops, and refused to collaborate with the Soviets against the Nazis. Less than a thousand of those killed were civilian noncombatants.

     For more information, read my April 2019 article "Stalin Killed Fewer People Than Hitler Did, and How Stalin Tricked Hitler with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact":




     Myth #11:

     The Japanese shot first in the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7th, 1941.


     Why It's a Myth:

     A Japanese submarine snuck into Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7th, 1941. When that submarine was discovered, a U.S. naval officer fired the first shot in the Pacific theater, killing the Japanese submariner inside. The wreckage of that sub was discovered decades later, and reported in the New York Times.




     Myth #12:

     Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941.


     Why It's a Myth:

     Hawai'i was not one of the United States during the attack on Pearl Harbor; it was a territory of the United States, and was considered as "belonging" to the United States at the time. Hawai'i did not become a state until eighteen years later in 1959.

     Source: Daniel Immerwahr's "How to Hide an Empire"





     Myth #13:

     Pearl Harbor was the only Japanese attack on American targets during World War II, December 7th, 1941.


     Why It's a Myth:

     Japan also attacked Wake Island, Guam, and the Philippines on that day.

     Source: Daniel Immerwahr's "How to Hide an Empire"





     Myth #14:

     The Pearl Harbor attack of December 7th, 1941 was the only successful attack on U.S. military forces during World War II.


     Why It's a Myth:

     On April 8th, 1942, German U-Boats successfully sank three American ships, with torpedoes, off the coast of St. Simons Island, near Georgia. These ships included the oil tanker Oklahoma, and the Esso Baton Rouge. Twenty-three American crewmen were killed in these attacks.






     Myth #15:

     The Soviets raised their flag over Berlin during the capture of Berlin in early 1945.


     Why It's a Myth:

     The Soviets did assist in the capture of Berlin, but the famous photo of Soviet troops raising their flag, high above the city of Berlin, was staged for propaganda purposes.





     Myth #16:

     Japan refused to surrender to all Allied Forces in August 1945.


     Why It's a Myth:

     The reason Japan refused to surrender, during its first opportunity to do so, was that the U.S.S.R. was not a signatory of the Allied Forces' invitation to surrender. The Soviet Union did not declare war on Japan until August 11th, 1945; two days after the American bombing of Nagasaki.






     Myth #17:

     Mao Tse Tung took over China for communism on October 1st, 1949.


     Why It's a Myth:

     Mao's "revolution" was backed by Western financial interests; he was funded by the "C.I.A. at Yale" (i.e., segments of Yale University which were involved with the Office of Strategic Services, which later morphed into the C.I.A.). This occurred after the U.S. backed the nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-Shek, which Mao deposed. Additionally, there is debate over whether China ever achieved full communism, and debate over how in-control of China's revolutionary forces Mao was.

     Source: http://www.jstor.org/stable/44326232





     Myth #18:

     Capitalists formed the resistance to the Soviet invasion of Hungary in October 1956.


     Why It's a Myth:

     Hungarian socialist workers, whom were opposed to the Soviet system, formed the resistance to the Soviet invasion; not capitalists.





     Myth #19:

     John F. Kennedy was assassinated by a single bullet, fired by a single assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, on November 22nd, 1963.


     Why It's a Myth:

     John F. Kennedy was shot by at least two bullets that day. Oswald claimed that he was a "patsy" (that is, a pawn or "fall-guy") between his arrest and his own murder. Some theories assert that it took an entire team, of as many as eight people, to carry out the assassination. Also, the single-bullet theory (or "magic bullet theory") is impossible; for one, magic isn't real, and two, a bullet cannot take a turn in mid-air between penetrating the body of Texas Governor John Connally and entering J.F.K.'s body.





     Myth #20:

     "Tank Man" stopped a line of Chinese tanks with the intent of preventing them from continuing to oppress the Chinese people at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on June 5th, 1989.


     Why It's a Myth:

     "Tank Man" stood in front of a row of tanks because he wanted the tanks to stay in Tiananmen Square; not to prevent them from continuing to oppress the Chinese people.

     For more information, read my June 2019 article "Eight Things You Might Not Know About the Tiananmen Square Massacre", at the following link:





     Myth #21:

     Iraqi soldiers threw hundreds of babies out of incubators, and stole the incubators, in 1990, during Iraq's attack on Kuwait.

     Why It's a Myth:

     This claim was made by 15-year-old Nayirah al-Sabah, in what came to be known as the "Nayirah testimony", delivered to the U.S. Congressional Human Rights Caucus on October 10th, 1990. In 1992, she was revealed to be the daughter of U.S. Ambassador to Kuwait, Saud al-Sabah. Premature babies did die during Iraq's attack on Kuwait, but Nayirah's claim that "hundreds" of babies were thrown out of incubators, which were stolen, could not be verified.





     Myth #22:

     The attacks of September 11th, 2001 were committed by Muslim members of the al-Qaeda terrorist group.


     Why It's a Myth:

     For one, al-Qaeda is a database of U.S.-backed Afghan militants, which America has kept as a bulwark against the Soviets since the late 1970s. Second, the first bombing of the World Trade Center (in 1993) was reportedly spearheaded by Ramzi Yousef, who had apparently been plied into committing the attacks with alcohol and strippers, hardly the behavior of a devout Muslim; therefore, the narrative about "radicalized Muslims committing 9/11" is dubious. Third, numerous evidence exists which supports the presence of Israeli footprints during and after 9/11, such as the "dancing Israelis" seen celebrating the attacks, and the numerous American Zionists who were in power beneath George W. Bush when the attacks occurred.





     Myth #23:

     The attacks of September 11th, 2001 were the first successful attacks on a U.S. military target since Pearl Harbor.


     Why It's a Myth:

     Although the Pentagon was targeted on 9/11, it was not the first successful attack on a U.S. military target since Pearl Harbor in 1941. As explained above, twenty-three U.S. sailors were killed by German U-Boats off the coast of the state of Georgia in 1942. Also, the U.S.S. Cole was bombed on October 12th, 2000, in an attack for which al Qaeda supposedly claimed responsibility. Other U.S. navy ships have been targeted as well, including the U.S.S. Stark incident in 1987 (carried out by Iraq), and the U.S.S. Liberty incident in 1967 (carried out by the State of Israel). The attacks of 9/11 could be described as the first successful attacks on a U.S. military target on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor, but not as the first successful attacks on a U.S. military target in general since Pearl Harbor.




     Myth #24:

     The attacks of September 11th, 2001 were the only attacks against U.S. military targets committed by a foreign country since the end of World War II. / Muslims or Afghanistan "declared war on the United States" on 9/11.


     Why It's a Myth:

     There is no evidence that any particular national government planned or carried out the 9/11 attacks (unless you count the State of Israel). In 2001, the Afghani Taliban hardly had the resources to carry out such an attack, and there is no concrete evidence that Afghanistan was harboring Osama bin Laden (despite its claims that it wished to turn bin Laden over to the United States). It's possible that the U.K., Saudi Arabia, Israel, and/or Pakistan had advanced knowledge of the attacks - or even participated in committing them - but they could have not done so without knowledge by, and help from, the United States. The 9/11 attacks were thus not an act of war, because no single foreign national government committed the attack without U.S. complicity (or at least foreknowledge).




     Myth #25:

     The Afghan Taliban sheltered Osama bin Laden in late 2001.


     Why It's a Myth:

     On October 3rd, 2001, the Chicago Tribune published an article titled "Taliban maintains refusal to turn over bin Laden".

     On October 14th, 2001, The Guardian published an article titled "Bush rejects Taliban offer to hand bin Laden over".

     Well, which is it? Did the Taliban offer to turn bin Laden over to American authorities, or didn't they? If both articles above are correct, then if this did happen, then it must have happened between October 3rd and 14th.
     The Guardian article says that Haji Abdul Kabir, "the third most powerful figure" in the Taliban in Afghanistan, said that the Taliban "would be ready to hand him over to a third country" if they found evidence that bin Laden was behind the 9/11 attacks.

     It's possible that bin Laden was in Afghanistan in late 2001, as American authorities claimed. But the fact that bin Laden was reportedly killed in Pakistan (in a town called Abbottabad) in 2011, suggests the possibility that bin Laden was never in Afghanistan to begin with.
     The fact that opium production dropped the year before 9/11, and skyrocketed back up again after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, suggests that opium poppies (as well as lithium deposits, and perhaps also the country's underage male sex trade) were the real reasons behind America's invasion of Afghanistan, rather than getting bin Laden.
     Moreover, bin Laden's father had business ties to the Bush family. It's probably more likely that bin Laden was an intelligence asset of the United States, than Afghanistan.



     Myth #26:

     The World Trade Center collapsed on September 11th, 2001 because its steel was melted by jet fuel.


     Why It's a Myth:

     Burning jet fuel is hot enough to melt steel beams in a manner that weakens them, but not hot enough to cause them to collapse on its own. Witnesses reported seeing construction crews enter the World Trade Center in the several weeks leading up to the attack. Physical evidence has confirmed that electric charges were placed on many of the steel beams near a 45-degree angle, allowing the top portions of the beams to slide off of the bottom portions. Numerous videos show that the towers fell nearly at free-fall speed, which is commensurate with what happens during a controlled demolition. Towers 1 and 2 may have been destroyed in a controlled demolition because Building 7 was indisputably demolished intentionally. We know this because World Trade Center owner Larry Silverstein admitted that he told firefighters, "pull it" after World Trade Center Building 7 underwent significant fire damage.



     Myth #27:

     The Pentagon was hit by a plane on September 11th, 2001.


     Why It's a Myth:

     Only five frames of film show an object hitting the Pentagon. None of those five frames show an object large enough to be a plane. All other video tapes were confiscated by the government from local convenience stores and gas stations. Numerous theories suggest that a missile hit the Pentagon rather than a plane. No airplane wreckage was ever recovered from the Pentagon. The hole in the Pentagon was too small and too neat to have been caused by an airplane with wings. For a plane to have hit the Pentagon, it would have had to fly over a highway, where it would have been seen by hundreds of people.



     Myth #28:

     Saddam Hussein's Iraq had W.M.D.s (Weapons of Mass Destruction) in 2003.


     Why It's a Myth:

     Despite the persistent claims of some supporters of the second Iraq War - years after that war ended - that Saddam Hussein allowed W.M.D.s to be smuggled out of Iraq, and into neighboring countries, before the U.S. was able to invade, no weapons of mass destruction were ever found in Iraq. Granted, Hussein gassed Kurds with mustard gas and nerve agents in Halabja in 1985, but that was the same year that America ceased arming Iran exclusively, and began arming both sides of the Iraqi-Iranian War (which lasted from 1981 to 1989). It's possible that the U.S. not only supplied Hussein with the gas, but in fact wanted him to commit those attacks against the Kurds in northern Iraq (whom were allied with Iran at the time). U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell famously held up a vial of anthrax to urge the world to support the war, but that vial was only a model vial, and did not contain real anthrax, much less anthrax from Iraq. Moreover, the documents which indicated that Hussein sought to purchase "yellowcake" uranium from Niger, were later shown to have been forgeries, obtained through officials in Italy, France, and the U.K..





     Myth #29:

     Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro burned trucks loaded with aid on a bridge connecting Colombia and Venezuela in March 2019.


     Why It's a Myth:

     In March 2019, a top member of the opposition to Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro told The New York Times that Maduro's forces had intentionally set fire to a convoy full of humanitarian aid (consisting of food and medicine), on the Francisco de Paula Santander Bridge between Colombia and Venezuela. Critics of Maduro claimed that Maduro ordered the convoy to be set on fire. Shortly thereafter, The New York Times retracted this story, after video footage and eyewitness accounts emerged, which showed that the convoy caught fire when it was hit with a Molotov cocktail. That makeshift bomb was thrown by a member of the opposition to Maduro, not by one of Maduro's supporters.




     Myth #30:

     A "migrant caravan", with Muslim jihadists hidden in its midst, sought to invade the United States in 2018.


     Why It's a Myth:

     Then-president Donald Trump claimed that "unidentified Middle Easterners" were among the Central American caravan of migrants which Fox News repeated was traveling through Mexico to the United States between March and October of 2018. Most of these migrants - about 80% - were from Honduras. No evidence exists to support the claim that "Middle Easterners", nor "jihadists", were taking refuge among the caravan. President Trump exaggerated the fact that many people in the caravan were "military-age males", leading people to believe that militant Muslims constituted a significant segment of the caravan's members. Trump likely did this in order to increase diplomatic tension between the U.S. and its close Central American neighbors, to pressure Mexico into supporting the continued construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, and to justify the use of U.S. military forces against the caravan and against countries appearing to assist it.







Written and published on September 9th, 2021

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Thursday, August 15, 2019

Why Some Believe Anastasia Survived, and Other Strange Facts About the Romanovs and Rasputin

Table of Contents

I. Introduction
II. Historical Inaccuracies in the Animated Film and Musical
III. Strange Facts About Rasputin and the Romanovs
IV. Tracking-Down Anastasia's Remains
V. Conclusion
VI. Sources




Content


I. Introduction

     On Saturday, August 3rd, 2019, I visited the Overture Center in Madison, Wisconsin, to see the musical Anastasia. The musical tells a fictionalized account of the life of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanov of Russia (1901-1918), and takes place mostly after the princess's death (i.e., the late 1920s).
     More details about the musical can be accessed at the following websites:
     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.
     But these facts do not necessarily prove that Anastasia's was the female corpse discovered in 2007, since: 1) no DNA test has yet confirmed that it is indeed Anastasia; and 2) the Russian Orthodox Church has still not yet accepted that the two bodies found in 2007 are Romanovs. 
     According to the Time article published on the hundredth anniversary of the Romanovs' assassination, in 2015, the Russian Orthodox Church "insisted that the Romanov bodies be exhumed so that additional samples might be taken for further tests to be conducted by its own, exclusively Russian scientists". That article in Time also stated that "so far no announcement of the church's findings has been forthcoming", and went on to explain that the American F.B.I. (Federal Bureau of Investigators) has used its own DNA samples to conduct research independently of Russian scientists.
     The F.B.I. did this with the help of former U.S. Navy captain Peter Sarandinaki, the president of the SEARCH Foundation (the Scientific Expedition to Account for the Romanov CHildren). The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad has named Sarandinaki the Official Representative of the church to the Commission for the Study of the Remains of the Imperial Family.
     Sarandinaki and his team have concluded that all eleven of those targeted for murder on July 17th, 1918 - and found in two different locations at Pig's Meadow - were murdered, and have been accounted for, including Maria, Alexei, and Anastasia. Sarandinaki's team believes that Body #6 is Anastasia's, not Maria's.
     But who asked the F.B.I.? How can the American Federal Bureau of Investigators even have jurisdiction over a murder that happened over a hundred years ago on the other side of the world? When will Russian scientists take those "additional samples" they need to conduct "further tests"? Will the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad accept the results of the Russian scientists, or its representative Peter Sarandinaki and his organization SEARCH?  What if the Russian scientists reach the same conclusion as Sarandinaki; will the church accept both or neither? Be wary of possible upcoming news about those possibilities - in Russian, British, and American news sources - over the next few months and years.
     We might just have to wait this one out. It might seem like a long wait, but it's been over a hundred years since the Romanovs' murders, so that makes a couple years seems like a short amount of time. Thankfully, we have all these articles, books, television shows, films, and musicals about them to read and watch in the meantime!



     V. Conclusions

     The difference between the real-life stories of the Romanovs and Rasputin, and the way they are portrayed in fiction, is full of paradoxes.
     On one hand, a depiction of the fall of the Romanovs is incomplete without an inclusion of the Bolshevik Revolution which precipitated and completed it. But on the other hand, a depiction of the Romanov dynasty's decline which focuses too much on the Bolsheviks, risks downplaying the importance of the Duma, the forced abolition of Nicholas II, and the Provisional Government, in the transition period between Romanov rule and Communist rule under Lenin.
     On one hand, a narrative which depicts Rasputin as a "mad monk" possessed by the Devil, issuing curses (like the narrative of the 1997 film Anastasia), risks downplaying the good Rasputin did for Alexei in the way of treating his hemophilia. But on the other hand, a narrative which depicts Rasputin as too helpful, risks downplaying the degree of his influence on Alix; and, in turn, his influence on the affairs of the Russian state, and on the weakening of its competence, credibility, stability, and power.
     On one hand, Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanov would be 118 years old today, and thus is almost certainly no longer with us. But on the other hand, Anastasia's remains have still never been positively identified in a manner which has been accepted by all relevant actors, so it's not really fair to say she's dead either. Moreover, the Russian Orthodox Church has made Anastasia - and her brother, sisters, and parents - saint-martyrs and passion-bearers. So to claim that Anastasia is dead, when her spirit lives forever, is patently absurd. What is dead may never die.
     Just like the loved ones you've lost, she and her family are alive as long as we remember them. Here's to a group of unforgettable, mysterious, fascinating people.



     VI. Sources

     You can learn more about Rasputin and the Romanovs by visiting the following links:


Rasputin: Khlysts, and German and Jewish spying (many claims in this article are dubious, and may be mere speculation)

Map of Rasputin's journeys
Rasputin's penis

The Tsar on drugs
http://encyclopaediaoftrivia.blogspot.com/2016/09/nicholas-ii-of-russia.html

Pronunciation of Anastasia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_4K3MggE3c

Alexei's illness
http://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/8fcdqz/rasputin_and_hemophilia/

The Kaiser funded the Bolsheviks
https://louisproyect.org/2017/06/17/did-the-kaiser-fund-the-bolsheviks/

Rasputin's exile and murder
http://www.headstuff.org/culture/history/grigori-rasputin-russian-mystic/
http://www.rbth.com/arts/history/2016/12/30/holy-devil-remembering-rasputin-on-the-100th-anniversary-of-his-death_670526

The ordering of the murders
http://www.myfavoritemurder.com/130-mike-is-right/

Deaths of the Romanovs
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2018/07-08/romanov-dynasty-assassination-russia-history/

Discovery of the Romanovs' bodies
http://www.macleans.ca/society/life/the-romanovs-may-finally-be-buried-together-after-98-years/


Documentary about DNA tests conducted on the bodies found in 2007
     (claims that all Romanov children's bodies are accounted for)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRWSIUQfahI


Time article on DNA tests ordered on bodies found in 2007
http://time.com/5340985/romanov-century-dna-myths/

Captain Peter Sarandinaki's SEARCH Foundation
http://www.searchfoundationinc.org/

2012 Wall Street Journal article






[Note:
     This article previously contained some inaccurate information regarding the family relationships between Nicholas II, Wilhelm II, George V, Alexandra of Hesse, Queen Victoria, and Christian IX. The author regrets the errors. These errors were corrected on April 16th and 28th, 2021.
     Additionally, this article previously stated that Alexei would have been "too young" to be the corpse, aged 10-13, which was found in 2007, but that has been corrected to read "too old" due to his age of nearly 14 at the time. Error corrected on January 1st, 2022.]




Written on August 15th and 16th, 2019

Based on notes taken between May 2019 and August 3rd and 8th, 2019

Originally published on August 16th, 2019

Edited on August 17th, 19th, and 21st, 2019;
edited, and source Added (re: "Anastasia" Pronunciation) on July 16th, 2020;
and edited on January 26th, 2021, and April 16th and 28th, 2021,
and on January 1st, 2022
at 2 comments:
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