Russian royal family escaped

[Franziska]

No I don't believe it and debunking it is my hobby. I started a thread about the conspiracy theory of Anna Anderson's intestines being switched in the conspiracy section. I'd also like to discuss this topic on its own.

[hgc]

Who is Anna Anderson, and what have her intestines to do with the Russian royal family?

So you want to discuss. Are you going to start any time soon?

[SDC]

I thought, now that the remains of the entire immediate family have been identified, that this was no longer an issue.

[Foolmewunz]

MODS:
This is a sort of duplicate (in subject) thread to the one started in CT. Could they be merged? (Belongs in History, but will get more attention in CT... do as you will, however.)

[dudalb]

Who is Anna Anderson, and what have her intestines to do with the Russian royal family?

So you want to discuss. Are you going to start any time soon?


Anna Anderson was the most celebrated of the people claiming to be Princess Anastasia. She got huge publicity during the 40's and 50's. Recently DNA tests prove she was a fake.
The film "Anastasia" with Ingrid Bergmann is loosely based on Anderson.

"The Romanovs:The Final Chapter" by Robert K Massie is the best book debunking the whole myth of the Romanov's surviving the Russian Revolution.
It details how the forensics examination made after the fall of the Soviet Union pretty much blows this legend into the water.

[headscratcher4]

Anna Anderson was apparently a Polish mental patient who was able to convince some very guilible people in the 1930's that she was the Grand Duchess Annastasia -- I believe after they fished her out of a German Canal where she tried to commit suicide. Strange story.

If the Russian Royal family wasn't dead in 1918, the chances are pretty good that they are now. Their murder was a terrible crime not excused by the fact that Nicholas II was an amazingly incompetent ruler...

[dudalb]

Anna Anderson was apparently a Polish mental patient who was able to convince some very guilible people in the 1930's that she was the Grand Duchess Annastasia -- I believe after they fished her out of a German Canal where she tried to commit suicide. Strange story.



The 1956 Classic film Annatasia, which Ingrid Bergman won her second Oscar for..is a very loose retelling of the Anderson story,and is ambigiious as to whether or not she was the real Annastasis. Questionable history, but a good movie.

It's not the first time this has happened..in the 19th century there were a number of people claiming to the the Dauphin...Louis the 16th's son who would have inherited the throne of France if not for the revolution,and who almost certainly died while a prisoner during the French Revolution.
Pretenders claming to be the Dauphin were so common that Mark Twain ridiculed them in "Huckleberry Finn" when he has his two con men call themselves "The Duke And The Dauphin".

[Franziska]

I'm back, should I go on here or just the thread in CT?

[shadron]

Anna Anderson was finally debunked after her death by a DNA analysis of a fragment of her intestine removed in a surgery some twenty years before. It showed her related to the Anderson family and definitely not to the Romanovs. I image that the CT's are explaining that by saying that her intestines were replaced before the part was snipped with Anderson's intestines, or perhaps just the piece was swapped, but back when the piece was taken DNA analysis wasn't a possibility. That is far, far fetched even on their usual flighty scale.

The last I heard the grave of the Romanov's was found in a mass grave near Ekaterina soon after the Soviet Union disappeared in 91. Unfortunately, there was one small person missing from the grave (likely Anna, though not positively). They were definitely Romanovs, and their remains fit the descriptions - gunshot wounds and all.

[SDC]

Anna Anderson was finally debunked after her death by a DNA analysis of a fragment of her intestine removed in a surgery some twenty years before. It showed her related to the Anderson family and definitely not to the Romanovs. I image that the CT's are explaining that by saying that her intestines were replaced before the part was snipped with Anderson's intestines, or perhaps just the piece was swapped, but back when the piece was taken DNA analysis wasn't a possibility. That is far, far fetched even on their usual flighty scale.

The last I heard the grave of the Romanov's was found in a mass grave near Ekaterina soon after the Soviet Union disappeared in 91. Unfortunately, there was one small person missing from the grave (likely Anna, though not positively). They were definitely Romanovs, and their remains fit the descriptions - gunshot wounds and all.

You are a little late. In the last year or two they found a couple more bodies near Ekaterinburg and the whole bunch (family plus companions) have been identified. Seems like that story is finally done. The last two were the son (Aleksei/ Alexis) and one of the daughters -- not Anastasia. She was identified with the larger group which had been known for some time.

I used to have some curiosity about the Russian monarchist movement but haven't heard a thing in some time. For many years, there was a formal ball every year in New York, called the Firebird Ball I believe, and (till at least 1980 or so) presided over by one of the last tsar's nieces... Princess Vera? Beats me. A guy from my office, who was a downscale descendant of a prominent American diplomatic family, would go every year.

[shadron]

Thank you, SDK. I stand corrected, and enlightened.

[Franziska]

It's true the other two bodies have now been found and positively identified as the last two children of the Romanovs. When the 1991 grave was found, 2 bodies were missing, the only son, Alexei, and one daughter. The Russians claimed it was Maria who was missing, using facial reconstruction on the skulls to detrmine they had the other three, including Anastasia (though the skull had no middle bones left, so to me this couldn't be accurate) the American and Brit scientists determined Anastasia had not been found because she was the youngest girl,, and there were no traits in the vertabrae found in the other three to show any of them was under 18, which Anastasia was. So, likely it was Anastasia who was still missing, but it doesn't matter now since all five children are now accounted for. The scientists have separate DNA profiles for each member of the family, which debunks some CT's that the new bones were just part of the old grave. The Bolsheviks wrote years ago they had burned 2 bodies and put the rest in a mass grave pit, and all these things have now been found, just where the Commies said they'd be. No more mystery, no conspiracy.