Review: The Resurrection of the Romanovs by Greg King and Penny Wilson

Anna Anderson. To say her name--even today--summons thousands of dissenting opinions about what may be one of the most controversial royal mysteries in recent memory. Was she the Grand Duchess Anastasia, miraculously saved from a horrible fate at the hands of her family's executioners? Or was she a pretender, complicit in a hoax that captivated millions for the better part of the 20th century? All evidence points to one conclusion: Anna Anderson was not Anastasia. DNA testing in the 1990s on the discovered remains of the Romanov family and on multiple samples of Anderson's DNA concluded that she was not related to the Romanov family. Who, then, was she? Why did she claim to be Anastasia? And why would people, especially those who had some connection to the real grand duchess, believe her story? How did a lie which had no factual basis become an inescapable legend firmly rooted in the minds of the public?

In The Resurrection of the Romanovs: Anastasia, Anna Anderson and the World's Greatest Royal Mystery, Greg King and Penny Wilson tackle the answers to these questions about the woman who became known as Anna Anderson and her claim to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia with meticulous detail. King and Wilson begin by recounting the short life of the real Anastasia, who was born into a world of unimaginable privilege and ended her life in captivity with her parents, siblings, and a handful of loyal servants. In the aftermath of the Romanov execution, uncertainty was born. There was no official resolution to the fate of the family. Rumors of survival and execution traveled around the world, from mainstay newspaper publications to the gossip of former Russian courtiers in Berlin apartments.

It was in this atmosphere of uncertainty that a young woman, who had been hospitalized after a suicide attempt in Berlin, claimed that she was the Grand Duchess Anastasia. But her claim, which may have gone unnoticed as a mere wild statement by someone with a mental instability had circumstances gone otherwise, took on a life of its own--soon, she was living with courtiers, being discussed by newspapers around the world, being addressed as Her Imperial Highness, and living in European castles. She traveled around Europe, to America, to Germany, and back again. Her story was made into books, plays, and feature films during her lifetime. She was supported by some, reviled by others, and pitied by a few. This woman would be known by many names throughout her life: Fraulein 'Unknown,' Fraulein Annie, Frau Anastasia Tchaikovsky, Anna Anderson, and Anastasia Manahan. The name she was born with was, in the end, Franziska Schanzkowska.

Throughout their dissection of the story of 'Anna Anderson,' King and Wilson are quick to debunk many of the myths which made her story so enticing and so believable--not only to readers following the story in books and newspapers, but even to some who knew Anastasia or her family. Much of the information released to the public about Anderson and her claim was, at best, edited. Published evidence of Anderson's claim was often revised by one of her most prolific supporters, Harriet Ellen Siderowna von Rathlef-Keilmann, who removed details which might produce suspicion about Anderson and added details which supported her claim. Her book about Anderson was widely printed, while books which debunked the myth were left to go out of print, or left untranslated.

King and Wilson cover ample ground with Anderson's claim and her long life, which ended at the age of 87 in the 1980s. From there, they discuss the discovery of the remains of the Romanovs in 1990s and the decision to test Anderson's DNA against the remains of the Romanov family. And finally, the discovery that she was Franziska Schanzkowska is revealed in the final chapters, where her real life--and the reason why her identity was obscured--are finally revealed.

In many ways, The Resurrection of the Romanovs is not just the story of Anna Anderson's claim to be Anastasia. It is a resurrection of the real Anna Anderson, the real Franziska Schanzkowska, who had been lost to history through a hoax of her own making.  I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Romanov history or royal history--it is essential reading for anyone interested in Anastasia, for her story, for better or worse, would not have reached so many were it not for this imposter and her claim. I will end with this apt quote: "It is the greatest irony in Franziska’s tale: the farm girl from an obscure German village turned the real grand duchess, whose name appropriately meant “Resurrection,” into a modern legend."

Confessions of a Ci-Devant: Missing Royals and Murder Mysteries

I am in the middle of reading a book about the infamous Anna Anderson case, The Resurrection of the Romanovs (which I hope to review this month!) and I came across an interesting post by Gareth Russell about the enduring legacy of the survival of Anastasia and the persisting  'romance' of other survival stories that found their beginninigs in the secreative deaths of royal children.

Missing Royals and Murder Mysteries: Anastasia and the Allure of Romance

All four of these young royals – Edward V, his brother Richard of Shrewsbury, Louis XVII and Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia – disappeared in times of turmoil and secrecy. Richard III could not reveal what he had done with the boys, or allowed to be done to them, without fears of toppling his own regime. The French Republic felt that drawing attention to the appalling treatment the little boy had suffered in jail would only inflame royalist sympathies and the fledgling Bolshevik movement were concerned that Kaiser Wilhelm II would back-out of his recent truce with them if he discovered what had happened to his cousins. The myths about their survival are therefore perfectly explicable by a process of historical logic: initially, no one knew exactly what had happened to them which led to them speculating about possible explanations. I suspect, of course, that it’s more than that and that the reason why so many people believed, or believe, in these fantastic tales of  imperial survival is because the allure of fairy stories never quite leaves us – however hard we try. We want to believe in royal glamour, excitement, danger and happily-ever-afters. We want to believe, I suppose, in some form of magic.

 What do we do with these stories, though, once we know they’ve been disproved?

Read more.

Featured Book: An Imperial Concubine's Tale by G.G. Rowley

Who doesn't love a bit of unique history? I'm a big fan of "hidden" history (as this blog would suggest!) and this upcoming title from Columbia University Press certainly fits the bill. An Imperial Concubine's Tale: Scandal, Shipwreck, and Salvation in Seventeenth-Century Japan by G.G. Rowley is the tale of a scandalous imperial concubine who finds herself banished, shipwrecked, and thrust into an entirely new life.

Amazon.com description:

Japan in the early seventeenth century was a wild place. Serial killers stalked the streets of Kyoto at night, while noblemen and women mingled freely at the imperial palace, drinking saké and watching kabuki dancing in the presence of the emperor's principal consort. Among these noblewomen was an imperial concubine named Nakanoin Nakako, who in 1609 became embroiled in a sex scandal involving both courtiers and young women in the emperor's service. As punishment, Nakako was banished to an island in the Pacific Ocean, but she never reached her destination. Instead, she was shipwrecked and spent fourteen years in a remote village on the Izu Peninsula, before being set free in an amnesty. Returning to Kyoto, Nakako began a new adventure: she entered a convent and became a Buddhist nun.

Recounting the remarkable story of this resilient woman and the war-torn world in which she lived, G. G. Rowley investigates aristocratic family archives, village storehouses, and the records of imperial convents to re-create Nakako's life from beginning to end. She follows the banished concubine as she endures rural exile, receives an unexpected reprieve, and rediscovers herself as the abbess of a nunnery. As she unravels Nakako's unusual tale, Rowley also profiles the little-known lives of samurai women who sacrificed themselves on the fringes of the great battles that brought an end to more than a century of civil war. Written with keen insight and genuine affection, An Imperial Concubine's Tale tells the true story of a woman's extraordinary life in seventeenth-century Japan.

Featured Book: The Salem Witch Trials by Marilynne K. Roach

I admit, like many people, that I have a certain fascination with some rather depressing and even gruesome aspects of history. I remember reading about the Salem Witch Trials when I was a young girl and was always fascinated by the sense of mob hysteria that took over th etown. A few years ago I purchased The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege by Marilynne K. Roach to help refeed my childhood fascination. The book is about what you would expect from the title--a day by day account of life in Salem as well as the nearby towns and villages, including (of course) the proceedings of the witch trials. Although I've had this book for a few years, I've yet to get through it... it is very, very thorough. Below is an excerpt of one of the smaller 'entries' included in the book.

September 9th, 1672; Friday; Salem Town

The Grand Jury heard testimony concerning Giles Corey. The court had summoned witnesses to testify about him and his wife, but if he were scheduled to stand trial today, he did not cooperate. Although pleading innocent to all the indictments as they were read, he refused to answer when asked the formality of how he would be tried. Giles was expected to answer "By God and my country." Until he spoke those precise words, his case could not proceed. This situation, despite his not-guilty plea, was technically known as a "standing mute" and, under English law, was punishable by [pressing under heavy weights] until he cooperated. ... The court postponed Giles Corey's trial.