My essay on Anna Anderson

The family is led down the stairs and into another dirty room.  They find themselves lined up against a wall, as a group of criminals may stand before a firing squad.  They did not know how close they were to that fate.  First to go was the father, once the mighty Czar of Russia.  Next they open fire on the Czar’s wife and children.  They are all dead in minutes.  Now all there is left to do is dispose of the bodies.  Can you imagine a young princess and haemophilic, adolescent boy escaping this situation?  In a Disney film, yes, this is perfectly possible, but in a heartless environment it unlikely even the young princess, Anastasia, would survive.  Making it across the harsh environment of Russia and through the revolutionary cities and towns was another matter.  Beyond the enormous amount of obstacles, there is also her DNA comparison, possible true identity, and her doubting past relations.

Even though some of the Russian royal family and the American tabloids believed in Anna being the Russian princess, many of Anastasia’s relatives and friends did not.  Most of Anastasia’s family claimed Anna Anderson (then calling herself Anna Tschaikovsky) was an impostor.  Apart from them them was Anastasia’s French language tutor, Pierre Gilliard, who met with her at the wishes of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, Czar Nicholas II’s younger sister.  On July 27 of 1925 they met with her at St. Mary’s Hospital in Berlin, Germany where Anna was being treated.  While his first impressions were that she had very similar physical attributes, he quickly changed his mind.  Anna did not recognise him, claiming that she could not because he had shaved off his beard, and then she would not tell him about her past when he asked.  Later, Anna mixed up the two women who would be her Aunts, Olga and Shura, who came along with Pierre.  In later writings, Pierre referred to Anna as ‘the invalid.’  So while many met with her and were amazed by her princess-like mannerisms and stature, those who truly mattered denied any possibility.

Of course, people denying Anna is Anastasia is not enough to eliminate the possibility.  And so we look to Anna’s DNA for answers.  When Anna Anderson passed away scientists gained access to her remains.  Throughout her life Anna refused requests to do DNA tests multiple times.  This alone  leads you to believe she knew she was not who she claimed to be.  Anyways, using the DNA of a close relative of the Romanov family they tested Anna.  The results were not in her favour, however.  The great mystery was solved and Anna Anderson was revealed as a fake.

But if she was not Anastasia, who was she?  Years before Anna’s death, people were speculating who she might really be.  In 1927, Earnest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse (the grandson of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom), began a private investigation of Anna.  They identified her as a Polish factory worker named Franziska Schanzkowska.  The Polish woman had a history of mental illness.  A photograph was found of the woman in question and compared with those of Anna Anderson.  The two photographs had their subjects at the same angle, perfect for the comparison.  When melded together with a computer program the two women’s faces fit perfectly with each other.    The width of the glabella, eyes, nose, and other facial features matched and it could be debated that the two women were the same.  Studies have shown that no two person’s ears are alike.  Similar tests were done comparing Anna’s ears with Schankowska’s.  Once again, perfect matches were found.  Despite the similarities of Anna Anderson and Anastasia Romanov, these newfound comparisons were much more incriminating.

Before Anna died and we gained access to her remains, people across the world believed wholly and truly that she was Anastasia.  So what exactly made them so adamant throughout the debate that was her life?  First off, we have to consider that some of the royal family did believe that Anna was who she said she was.  Then there were those who met with her and went out saying she could not not be royalty with how she acted.  If the media got ahold of such information, which they undoubtedly did, suddenly Anna was confirmed Anastasia by her family and she was Anastasia in every regard.  The newspaper alone could have persuaded the majority of people and with the dawning of televisions news could spread much faster even if it were not true.  There are a lot of people in the world that are waiting for the day that a princess will come out of the wood works.  Anna Anderson gave the world a chance to see that even the most unlikely soul could become royalty, just like in the fairy tales.  She was that princess that the populace wanted to show up in the real world, and with her extensive story it seemed all the more possible.  The people of the world need things that seem impossible to happen to keep hope alive.  And because of that, the human mind wants to believe these things and so when they do seem to occur, it does.  You know that feeling when you first start watching a show or read a Dan Brown book about the occult and your mind is temporarily immersed in the belief that everything is a conspiracy and that the English royal family are reptilian humanoids?  Well it plays a part in the widespread belief that Anna had to be Anastasia.  This need of human nature for the impossible that occurs in stories probably benefitted Anna’s ploy for a very long time.

While luck seemed to play a big part in her ability to maintain the lie, Anna Anderson also had the air of a royal.  Many of the people that met with her or knew her during her life commented on how much like a noble she was.  Anna was described as being demanding and arrogant and is multi-lingual.  These were common attributes of royal figures of the time and would not have been ordinarily found in a  mentally unstable peasant from Poland.  She spoke  English, French, German, and may have spoken Russian.  While these are quite interesting, they hardly prove anything about her being Anastasia as she may just be an extraordinary lunatic and have a rude disposition.  But when handwriting comparisons were done, they found identical samples, according to calligraphic experts.  During her life Anna never once gave up being Anastasia, and this incredible feat of lying gave her a very large following of friends and family who believed she was Anastasia.

Sixty-three years of her life were spent trying to persuade the world she was Anastasia.  In the end Anna was proved to be a fake.  No one knows how she may have reacted at this revelation because of her death in 1984.  Her slight mistakes over the years, refusal to have a DNA test, and miniscule changes of her story in the beginning led many to believe that Anna was lying.  But perhaps she was not truly lying, but was really insane and fully believed she was the lost princess.  Anna first revealed that she was Anastasia in an insane asylum in Germany after attempting suicide and her true identity, Franziska Schankowska, had a history of life in a mental institutions for various reasons.  However, Anna never forced her belief on anyone and it was actually a fellow patient who told a nurse that Fräulein Unbekannt (Miss Unknown), as they referred to her when she refused to reveal her identity, was Grand Duchess of Russia.  And later she confirmed her belief that she was Anastasia as if she realized she could not conceal the truth anymore.  She apparently did not remember her attempt at suicide.  I speculate that Franziska lied to her own self with such conviction that she believed her own lie.  She was said to have possibly suffered multiple mental deficiencies including dementia, and these probably helped the lie along in her own mind.  People can persuade themselves quite effectively, and we know that people can be brainwashed.  So if a woman managed to brainwash herself that she definitely was Anastasia, then she could become her in her own mind.  And using the knowledge she already knew of the princess formulated a powerful lie.  Once she had fully convinced herself that she was Anastasia she must have been able to “remember” her experiences as Anastasia as if they were her own memories.  When Anna met with people that she had not met, though, her mind would not be able to compensate, hence her inability to recall who the family and tutor who initially visited her.  She had known that the two women were sisters and so her mind just guessed who was who using the knowledge she had.  And when they told her that the man she did not recognise was supposed to be her French tutor, she came up with another lie that could be applied and come across quite realistically.

After years of her adamancy that she was Anastasia, the truth was out and Anna was dead and unable to explain why she tried to be Anastasia.  The DNA test was what got her in the end and even her supporters had to succumb to the truth.  All of the little things that people had been trying use to prove that Anna was not who she said she was were true.  The two sides of the argument were quite evenly matched for a very long time and every time one side got the upper hand, the other would find a legitimate refutation.  But now all of the believers had their beliefs lose all foundation.  Anna had looked just like Anastasia, but at the same time had a perfectly matched facial structure with Franziska Schankowska.  Now that we know the truth we can say that it is obvious that her face would match Franziska’s more than Anastasia’s.  Everyone that argued that Anna was a princess because of her royal demeanor was forced to join the real royals that denied Anna was Anastasia.  Among the believers were Tatiana Botkin, Anastasia’s childhood friend, and Princess Xenia, her cousin.

So, where do your beliefs in the fate of the lost princess lie now?  Now that you have seen the truths of her family’s doubts, her true identity, and the irrefutable DNA test.  Now that you know she was once in and out of the looney bin, and she mixed up the identities of people the real Anastasia would have known.  Perhaps you have lied to yourself almost as well as Franziska/Anna and still believe in Anna’s ploy, or perhaps you always knew she was not the young princess.  I am sure everyone at some point believed, or at least wanted to, in the incredible lie that Franziska accomplished so well.  And you must say, that because she took it to her death she succeeded personally.  We can only wonder if she is looking down on us now and saying “What a bunch of suckers.”  Or perhaps she is now housed in a different sort of psychiatric hospital frantically repeating “I am Anastasia” over and over as winged nurses watch over her....