Credit: Ati
Since 1918 many women presented themselves as the missing Anastasia. However only two women gathered substantial support. See an earlier post about Anna Anderson and the other pretenders.
Alexander Palace, 1916
Anna Anderson was suicidal and was sent to Dalldorf Mental Asylum in Berlin in 1920. One of the patients believed Anna was the Grand Duchess and two years later Anna also started believing the story. So the Czarina of Russia’s brother, Ernest Louis Grand Duke of Hesse, hired private investigator Martin Knopf in 1927 to discover who she really was.
He found she was Franziska Schanzkowska, who’d worked in a munitions factory in WW1. After her fiancé was killed at the front, a grenade fell out of her hand and exploded. She had head injuries and a foreman was killed in front of her.
In 1928 she moved to USA and lived off Russian Princess Xenia Georgievna, a distant relative of the Romanovs. But Anna had to return to Germany. For 20 years she struggled to get her name recognised by the European courts.. and failed. In 1968 she moved back to the USA where she married a wealthy man. Anderson died in the USA in 1984.
More recent events
Canonisation of the dead Romanovs in Nov 1981 notified the world that the Orthodox Church made them saints. This was based on the belief that all the royal family were all totally, irrevocably murdered.
The bodies of Tsar, Tasarina and 3 of the daughters were found in the woods outside Yekaterinburg in 1991. Exhaustive post mortem examinations confirmed that the bodies were indeed the Romanovs, so they were quickly was buried in a vault in Saints Peter & Paul Cathedral, St Petersburg. But this did not end the rumours because the son and one of the 4 daughters might still have been alive.
Anna Anderson was suicidal and was sent to Dalldorf Mental Asylum in Berlin in 1920. One of the patients believed Anna was the Grand Duchess and two years later Anna also started believing the story. So the Czarina of Russia’s brother, Ernest Louis Grand Duke of Hesse, hired private investigator Martin Knopf in 1927 to discover who she really was.
He found she was Franziska Schanzkowska, who’d worked in a munitions factory in WW1. After her fiancé was killed at the front, a grenade fell out of her hand and exploded. She had head injuries and a foreman was killed in front of her.
In 1928 she moved to USA and lived off Russian Princess Xenia Georgievna, a distant relative of the Romanovs. But Anna had to return to Germany. For 20 years she struggled to get her name recognised by the European courts.. and failed. In 1968 she moved back to the USA where she married a wealthy man. Anderson died in the USA in 1984.
More recent events
Canonisation of the dead Romanovs in Nov 1981 notified the world that the Orthodox Church made them saints. This was based on the belief that all the royal family were all totally, irrevocably murdered.
The bodies of Tsar, Tasarina and 3 of the daughters were found in the woods outside Yekaterinburg in 1991. Exhaustive post mortem examinations confirmed that the bodies were indeed the Romanovs, so they were quickly was buried in a vault in Saints Peter & Paul Cathedral, St Petersburg. But this did not end the rumours because the son and one of the 4 daughters might still have been alive.
Questions remained: had Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov really escaped from Russia and later re-surfaced as Anna Anderson? Tissue samples were kept after Anderson died, so plans could finally made for post-mortem DNA tests. In 1994 DNA tests on a lock of Anna's hair and surviving medical tissue samples showed that her DNA did NOT match any Romanov remains.
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So who WAS Anna Anderson? Instead Anderson's mitochondrial DNA was compared to that of Carl Maucher, a great-nephew of Franziska Schanzkowska via the maternal line. The DNA profiles from Anderson and Maucher were a close match, providing strong evidence that Anna Anderson was indeed Franzisca Schanzkowska. We may never know the reasons she claimed to be a Romanov, but perhaps her mental illness led her to believe that she truly was a Grand Duchess.
Unexpectedly, in 2007, the 4th daughter and the son were found cremated near Yekaterinburg. It was never verified if the 4th sister was Maria or Anastasia, but ALL 4 girls had been proven by DNA testing to be part of the royal family.
Her story has been adapted into plays, cartoons and films including the film Anastasia (1956) that earned Ingrid Bergman an Oscar for her role as the Romanov princess. And the award-winning film Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna (1986). But remember that the DNA tests from the above studies had not been carried out before the plays and films were made. The true DNA profile of Anna Anderson had not been confirmed, or denied, before 1994.
Thanks to allthatsintersting.
This claim was investigated by comparing Anna’s DNA with the DNA extracted from the Romanov skeletons. Maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA, which is passed unchanged from mother to child, was analysed from each of the samples. If Anna had really been Anastasia, her mitochondrial DNA should have been a perfect match to her mother’s and sister’s DNA. As most historians expected, multiple differences were detected between Anna’s DNA profile and the DNA profile of her mother and sisters. Anna Anderson was just an imposter!
So who WAS Anna Anderson? Instead Anderson's mitochondrial DNA was compared to that of Carl Maucher, a great-nephew of Franziska Schanzkowska via the maternal line. The DNA profiles from Anderson and Maucher were a close match, providing strong evidence that Anna Anderson was indeed Franzisca Schanzkowska. We may never know the reasons she claimed to be a Romanov, but perhaps her mental illness led her to believe that she truly was a Grand Duchess.
Unexpectedly, in 2007, the 4th daughter and the son were found cremated near Yekaterinburg. It was never verified if the 4th sister was Maria or Anastasia, but ALL 4 girls had been proven by DNA testing to be part of the royal family.
Her story has been adapted into plays, cartoons and films including the film Anastasia (1956) that earned Ingrid Bergman an Oscar for her role as the Romanov princess. And the award-winning film Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna (1986). But remember that the DNA tests from the above studies had not been carried out before the plays and films were made. The true DNA profile of Anna Anderson had not been confirmed, or denied, before 1994.
Thanks to allthatsintersting.
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1 comment:
I have heard of Franziska Schanzkowska/ Anna Anderson so some of this I knew some I either didn't know of or I have forgot it
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