The early 20th Century was an odd time, the entire world balancing on a knife’s edge of magic or science, hope or despair. A good example of this was the Romanov family: the Russian Tsar, his wife and children. Mystery and intrigue followed them in life, and mystery and intrigue followed them in death. Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra were crowned Tsar and Tsarina in 1896. They were viciously executed in 1918, thus marking the last Russian Tsar and Tsarina.

Perhaps their legend truly starts when they died. Or perhaps it starts when they met their beloved family friend, and later advisor, Grigori Rasputin. Rasputin was an unusual man with unusual beliefs. Rasputin was acquainted with all of the Romanov’s friends and family, called the Tsar and Tsarina “mama” and “papa”, and prayed with the family. His oddball ways may lead some to believe he was harmless, but he was anything but. In fact, some believe that it was through him that the Romanovs fell from power.

Rasputin was known as a “Starets,” part of the religious “Startsi” group. The Startsi were seen as religious leaders, charismatic ‘fathers’ of a sort who got their wisdom from God, much like a modern day pastor, but on a larger and more important scale. Rasputin wasn’t exactly what could be called a family man, despite having had a wife and seven children (only three of whom survived into adulthood). The youngest was born in 1898, whereas Rasputin had left in 1897 to pursue religion. Sometime in the early 1900’s, between 1902 and 1904, Rasputin gathered a reputation for being wise who could help people with their spiritual issues.

Despite the mostly good PR, there were also many who disliked him, and it seems that nearly all but the immediate royal family disliked him once he advanced that far. There were many vicious rumors about him, that he controlled the royal family and was sleeping with the Tsarina and/or her daughter. In either 1905 or 1906, Rasputin became healer to the Tsar’s youngest child, his son Alexei, who suffered from hemophilia, the phenomenon in which blood does not clot, and thus a person suffering from a simple nose bleed or cat scratch could die of blood loss and bleed for many days due to the deadly disease.

According to legend, Rasputin was asked to pray for Alexei by the Tsarina, who had been convinced by close friend Anna Vyrubova that he was a successful faith healer. Alexei had been suffering from an internal hemorrhage that likely would have killed him. Rasputin was called to pray for the child. He was healed the next morning. In 1912, Alexei developed hemorrhaging in his thigh and groin, and the Tsarina sent out a frantic letter to Rasputin. He told her that the child would be fine, and to make the doctors leave him alone. Alexei’s bleeding stopped two days after the letter. There are many speculations on how Rasputin healed Alexei, many writers and historians coming up with different theories, although none have been proven.

Rasputin was well loved by the Tsar, Tsarina and their children, although the extended family felt the opposite. In late December of 1916, Rasputin was invited to Grand Duke Dmitry Romanov’s home, under the false lure that his wife, Irina wished to see Rasputin. With his co-conspirators, Prince Felix Yussupov, Russian Parliament member Vladimir Purishkevich, and Dr. Lazaret, Rasputin was taken down to the basement and told to rest and eat while Irina finished up with her guests.

Despite initially refusing, Rasputin ate the pastries and wine, which unknown to him at the time, was laced with the deadly poison potassium cyanide, that by all rights, should have killed Rasputin on its own. Rasputin showed no obvious ill effects, although he may have felt something considering he later asked for tea to replace the wine. Panicked, the would-be murderers shot Rasputin in the back. Upon checking on the body however, Rasputin jumped up and attacked Prince Felix. The prince ran for the gun, and upon turning back around, saw that Rasputin was slowly climbing up the stairs, like something out of a horror movie.

Rasputin threatened to tell the Tsarina of what had occured that night and Prince Felix attacked once more in a wild craze. He missed two shots, but hit twice as well, hitting Rasputin’s back and head. He began to beat Rasputin with a rubber truncheon, which is a stick that police often carry in cartoons and old movies. Rasputin, however, was still alive. The men then took Rasputin to the freezing Niva River, in which he finally died. Based on the state of his fingers and nails when he was found on December 30th, it is thought that he tried to claw his way out of the icy river.

This is the version of events given in the book by Prince Felix, written in his exile to Paris in 1920. However, much of this legend has been called into question. Historians claim that the entire legend can be explained away.

Alexei’s miraculous recovery, for example, can be explained by several factors. For one, aspirin was viewed as a panacea in those times, and the side effect of blood thinning was unknown at that time. Hemophilia would have been worsened by aspirin because of this, and thus Rasputin telling the doctors to leave Alexei alone would be seen as a recovery. Historians also claim that Rasputin gave Tsarina Alexandra immeasurable confidence, which gave Alexei confidence, and thus willed him back to health. Those who lived in that time believed that it may have been the calming atmosphere Rasputin created when he prayed, or that he possibly used peasant medicine used to treat internal bleeding in horses.

As for Rasputin’s miraculous survival up until his drowning, it is believed that the mixture in the wine was weak, and that Rasputin would not have eaten the pastries. According to a book written by Rasputin’s daughter many years later, he did not enjoy sweets and would not have eaten the cakes given to him.

The autopsy reports do not include drowning or poison, oddly enough. This may indicate that neither happened to begin with, if not for the confessions of the men who killed him and for how and where they found the body.

Was Rasputin, the ‘Mad Monk’ actually a holy man? Or were his murderers simply incompetent? It’s a mystery that will unfortunately never be completely solved, and only theorized upon.

Rasputin was only part of the Romanov’s intriguing history though. Rasputin was a part of the Romanovs history in life, but it could be argued that the Romanovs became more famous and interesting than ever in death. After Rasputin’s death, it was realized that although the Tsar and Tsarina may have been greatly influenced by Rasputin, his death would not stop them from ruling their own way. By March of 1917, Tsar Nicholas II was overthrown. He and his family were confined in Alexander Palace and placed on house arrest. A little less than half a year later, the Romanovs were relocated to protect them from the revolution that was on the rise.

Three months later, the Bolsheviks came to power. The Bolsheviks were part of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, and under their rule, the Romanovs’ way of life grew stricter. Due to Alexei’s illness, the family was separated in April 1918 with Nicholas II, Alexandra, and their eldest daughter Maria moving on, and the other three daughters and Alexei staying behind until May, when they were reunited at Ipatiev House, also known as “The House of Special Purpose.”

On July 17th of 1918, the Romanovs and the four servant accompanying them were told to go the basement for their own protection, and operating under the panicked belief that the Czechoslovaks were attempting to enact a rescue, the Bolsheviks released fire on the Romanovs.

It is believed that the Romanov women survived the first round of shots due to the large amount of precious gems sewn into their clothing acting as a defensive armor. They didn’t survive for long, though. When the shots didn’t work at first, the Bolsheviks started spearing the bodies with bayonet rifles.

The bodies were originally dumped at a local mine, but when rumor started to spread, the soldiers panicked once more and came back to relocate the bodies. The corpses were stripped to avoid identification when found, and then set alight with kerosene. Their faces were disfigured with sulfuric acid and then buried in two small pits, one of which contained the servants and most of the Romanov family, and another of which contained Alexei and a woman. In some reports, it is thought that the woman was the servant Anna Demidov, while others believe it was Anastasia or Maria.

The official report given by the leader of the Bolshevik secret police who killed the Romanovs though, says that the body is of Demidov. The bodies of the family were not found until 1979 by some amateur Romanov enthusiasts. They kept this secret until 1991, which did not help to quell the rumors that one or more of the Romanovs may be around. The Bolsheviks tried to keep the deaths of all the Romanovs except for Nicholas II quiet until the bodies were finally found.

Up until that time, many women had attempted to pretend to be Anastasia, and there were a few who pretended to be Alexei who would have been the heir. All attempts failed, except for one. A woman who took on the name Anna Anderson. She was found in 1920 in a Berlin Mental Institution after a suicide attempt and not having spoken for several years. In 1922, she suddenly claimed to be Anastasia.

Anderson had scars covering her entire body, which she claimed had happened during her family’s execution. In this time, she was interviewed by several members of the extended Romanov family, many of who were impressed by the resemblance and the knowledge of small details of the Romanovs’ lives. However, she was also missing vital information of her childhood, and her ability to speak English, French and Russian was poor, whereas Anastasia was fluent in all three.

In 1928, ten years after the Romanovs’ deaths, Anderson made her way to the United States, claiming she was coming to have her jaw reset, something that had happened during her narrow escape from death. Upon coming to America, she was greeted by Gled Botkin, the son of the Romanovs’ family doctor who had died with them in the massacre. Botkin called Anderson “Your Highness” and claimed that this was definitely the girl he had played with as a child.

A private investigator was hired by the Grand Duke of Hesse, Alexandra’s brother, and thus Anastasia’s uncle. The private investigator announced to the world that this was not in fact Anastasia, but was instead Franziska Schanzkowska. He explained away the scars citing a factory explosion Schanzkowska had been in in 1916. Schanzkowska had disappeared in 1920, accounting for the timeline.

By the 1950’s, a french play about Anastasia was released, and a couple years later an American movie as well. By this point in time, Anderson had been involved in several court cases to try and get recognition as a Romanov. All of them failed. In 1968, Anderson married to J.E. Manahan, an American history professor. The last court case was in 1970, which Anderson lost one last time.

Anderson died in 1984. Had she survived only 7 more years, she would have lived to see all but two of the Romanovs’ bodies. By 1993, DNA had identified the bodies found. Inside the unmarked grave was Nicholas II, Alexandra, Olga, Tatiana and Anastasia. The missing bodies belonged to Princess Maria and Prince Alexei. Anderson was not Anastasia.

It wasn’t until 2007 that the bodies of Maria and Alexei were found. This marked the last of the Romanovs, and any who may have claimed that one of the Romanovs survived-whether out of some sense of hope, or some sense of greed, is ultimately wrong.

The Romanovs have been dead for more than 100 years now, and they are finally being put to rest.

 

More Info

Topic: Did one of the Romanovs survive?
https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4263
https://www.britannica.com/story/did-duchess-anastasia-survive-her-familys-execution
https://gillpaulauthor.wordpress.com/2016/09/12/romanov-conspiracy-theories/
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/anastasia-arrives-in-the-united-states
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_of_the_Romanov_family

Topic: Rasputin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Rasputin
https://www.damninteresting.com/the-death-of-grigory-rasputin/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/murder-rasputin-100-years-later-180961572/