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: Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy by Douglas Smith

 Lately, I've been on a little bit of a Russian history kick. And since I've always, like many people, had a fascination with revolutions and the concept of "fallen aristocracy," I thought that this upcoming book from Farrar, Straus and Giroux looked particularly interesting.

Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy by Douglas Smith recounts the story of the aristocrats of Russia, many of whom found their homes burned, their wealth and liveliehoods lost, and even their lives threatened--or ended.

From Amazon.com: 

Epic in scope, precise in detail, and heart-breaking in its human drama, Former People is the first book to recount the history of the aristocracy caught up in the maelstrom of the Bolshevik Revolution and the creation of Stalin’s Russia. Filled with chilling tales of looted palaces and burning estates, of desperate flights in the night from marauding peasants and Red Army soldiers, of imprisonment, exile, and execution, it is the story of how a centuries’-old elite, famous for its glittering wealth, its service to the Tsar and Empire, and its promotion of the arts and culture, was dispossessed and destroyed along with the rest of old Russia.

Yet Former People is also a story of survival and accommodation, of how many of the tsarist ruling class—so-called “former people” and “class enemies”—overcame the psychological wounds inflicted   dddby the loss of their world and decades of repression as they struggled to find a place for themselves and their families in the new, hostile order of the Soviet Union. Chronicling the fate of two great aristocratic families—the Sheremetevs and the Golitsyns—it reveals how even in the darkest depths of the terror, daily life went on.

Told with sensitivity and nuance by acclaimed historian Douglas Smith, Former People is the dramatic portrait of two of Russia’s most powerful aristocratic families, and a sweeping account of their homeland in violent transition.

Former People is due to be released on October 2, 2012.

Featured Book: From Splendor to Revolution: The Romanov Women, 1847--1928

From Splendor to Revolution: The Romanov Women, 1847--1928 by Julia Gelardi


This sweeping saga recreates the extraordinary opulence and violence of Tsarist Russia as the shadow of revolution fell over the land, and destroyed a way of life for these Imperial women.

The early 1850s until the late 1920s marked a turbulent and significant era for Russia. During that time the country underwent a massive transformation, taking it from days of grandeur under the tsars to the chaos of revolution and the beginnings of the Soviet Union.

At the center of all this tumult were four women of the Romanov dynasty. Marie Alexandrovna and Olga Constantinovna were born into the family, Russian Grand Duchesses at birth. Marie Feodorovna and Marie Pavlovna married into the dynasty, the former born a Princess of Denmark, the latter a Duchess of the German duchy of Mecklendburg-Schwerin. In From Splendor to Revolution, we watch these pampered aristocratic women fight for their lives as the cataclysm of war engulfs them. In a matter of a few short years, they fell from the pinnacle of wealth and power to the depths of danger, poverty, and exile. It is an unforgettable epic story.