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Anna Anderson

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{{inappropriate tone}} '''Anastasia Manahan''' (her official name in later life), usually known as '''Anna Anderson''' (circa 1900 - 4 February, 1984) was the best known of several women who claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia, the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and Alexandra of Hesse Empress Alexandra. She possibly believed the claim herself. Anastasia was born on 18 June, 1901 and was presumed executed with her family on 17 July, 1918. Others have identified Anna as '''Franziska Schanzkowska''' (born 16 December, 1896 - disappeared in 1920). Both identifications are controversial. DNA testing conducted after her death seemed to prove that Anna was not Anastasia, but Franziska, but some believe the results have lost some of their validity.

Appearance
She was first discovered after having attempted suicide in the Landwehr Canal in Berlin in 1920. Her story states that she walked to Berlin to seek out her aunt, Princess Irene. She reached the palace where Irene lived, but, fearing no one would recognize her, didn't try to enter and attempted to take her life. She then became a patient in a mental hospital, Dalldorf, under the name '''Fräulein Unbekannt''' (aka '''Miss Unknown''') for two years before claiming to be the Grand Duchess after several patients and staff at the hospital noted a resemblance. Some people, including a few relatives who knew Anastasia very well and some acquaintances of the Imperial family, were convinced that she was indeed Anastasia. Miss Unknown, who called herself Anastasia Tschaikovsky, made the assertion that she has somehow been rescued, in spite of massive gunfire and repeated bayonet attacks, from the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg where the Imperial family was murdered, by a Russian Polish soldier named Alexander Tschaikovsky, whom she had later married and with whom she moved to Bucharest, where he was killed in a street brawl. There is no evidence for the existence of Alexander Tschaikovsky. Anderson also claimed that she had a child with Tschaikovsky, but gave him away. She claimed to have fainted behind her sister, Tatiana, and that a bullet grazed her ear. Many believed her story. Many did not.

Disputed identification
One day while in the asylum, a fellow psychiatric patient there, Clara Pluethart, stopped Anna saying that she recognised her as the Grand Duchess Tatiana from a royalty magazine that she read. Anna later confided she was not Tatiana, but Anastasia. When Baroness Buxhoevden came to identify her, the baroness pulled Anna up and claimed that she was "too short to be Tatiana". In 1925, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, the younger sister of Tsar Nicholas II and Anastasia's Aunt, who had survived the Revolution and settled in Denmark, came to Berlin to meet Tschaikovsky. She spent several days with the patient and after much hesitation, she and former Imperial tutor Pierre Gilliard denounced the young woman in the hospital as a fraud, saying that she was "not who she believes she is." Other people, who knew the young Anastasia quite well, like Anastasia's childhood nurse Alexandra (Shura) Gillard and Empress Alexandra's close friend Lili Dehn, identified Anna as Anastasia. Gleb Botkin and Tatiana Botkin, close childhood friends of the Imperial family, recognized her without hesitation. Anna had notable similarities to the young Grand Duchess Anastasia such as a foot deformation, hallux valgus. She also had birthmarks and scars in locations identical to where Anastasia had them, and asked her nurse for a forehead massage with a special oil, something Anastasia had enjoyed from childhood. Botkin tested her by asking her about an old childhood game. In this game, Botkin would paint watercolors and Anastasia would make up stories to go along with the paintings. When shown these watercolors, Anna not only recalled the game, but was able to remember the stories that went along with the pictures. Botkin proclaimed Anna to be Anastasia for the rest of his life. Certain people would question her, having trick questions such as "The billard table on the second floor was destroyed" and Anna would reply "I believe the table was on the first floor". At around the same time, Anna recalled a visit by Anastasia's Uncle, Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine (Alexandra's brother) to Russia in 1916 during World War One. If this were indeed proven to be true, it would be considered treason. So Ernst hired a private investigator to discover her real identity. They stated that she was in fact '''Franziska Schanzkowska''', an ethnic Polish Pomeranian factory worker in Berlin, who had disappeared at around the same time that '''Fräulein Unbekannt''' was discovered. Schanzkowska was said to have multiple scars due to an explosion accident in a hand grenade factory during World War I, thus explaining the scars on Anderson's body. Anderson claimed that they were from the execution that she barely escaped. (Later documents suggested that Franziska had not been injured in this explosion). In 1938, Anderson initiated a suit in German courts to claim an inheritance which was handed out to relatives of Empress Alexandra who declared all to the Imperial family to be dead. Anderson's lawyers declared that Grand Duchess Anastasia was still alive. Her supporters valiantly fought for her claim. The case dragged out until 1970, when the court determined that she had not proved herself to be the Grand Duchess, nor had it been disproven. Her critics pointed out that she was unable to speak Russian, although other witnesses at Dalldorf swore to have heard her speak it. She defended this by saying that she was unwilling to use the language spoken by the people who murdered her family, as they were not allowed to speak any other language in the Ipatiev House. Certain things she knew seemed to be things that only someone very close to the imperial family could have known. Felix Dassel, who was nursed by young Anastasia back in Russia, recalled that Anderson knew about a man they referred to as "the Man with the Pockets", and was convinced that nobody but he and Anastasia could have known about it. After the scientific method of examining various photos it was determined that Anna and the real Grand Duchess Anastasia had identical ears, and handwriting samples of Grand Duchess Anastasia and Anna were also identical.

Marriage and death
After moving to the United States, Anderson lived for several years on Long Island with Princess Xenia, a daughter of Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia and Princess Maria Georgievna of Greece. In 1968 upon returning to the U.S., Anderson married wealthy American supporter John Manahan. He was 49 and she was around 70. They lived in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she died of pneumonia in 1984. Her body was cremated in accordance to her wishes. Obviously, they had no children.

DNA tests
In 1991, the bodies of the royal family were exhumed, and it was discovered that Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich of Russia Alexei, and according to Dr. William Maples, Anastasia, were missing from the grave. DNA testing was done to make sure that the remains were actually those of the imperial family, but also to compare Anderson's DNA and see if it matched. The mitochondrial DNA of the bodies, presumed to be those of Alexandra and three of her daughters, were compared to those of the Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh Duke of Edinburgh, whose maternal grandmother Princess Victoria of Hesse and the Rhine was a sister of Alexandra. This proved to be a match. Anderson's DNA, however, did not match that of the Duke of Edinburgh, meaning that if the tissue sample being tested belonged to Anderson, she could not be Anastasia. Another DNA test, comparing her DNA to that of Carl Maucher, a great nephew of the missing '''Franziska Schanzkowska''', was a total match, making the identification originally made in the 1920s a very likely one. Many scientists now believe that Anna Anderson and Franziska Schanzkowska were one and the same. Anna's DNA was taken from tissue obtained during a 1979 operation Anna had undergone at the Martha Jefferson Hospital of Charlottesville, Virginia for an intestinal blockage. About one foot of her intestines had been removed, and about five inches of it, preserved in formalin, remained in the hospital's pathology department from that time. It was obtained by the testers following a long and complicated court battle between Gleb Botkin's daughter, Marina Botkin Schweitzer, and the '''Russian Nobility Association'''. Later, someone claimed to have hair samples of Anna Anderson that came from an envelope at the bottom of John Manahan's old bookstore. These hairs were likewise subjected to DNA tests and found to have the same mtDNA sequence, although no Short tandem repeat STRs were derived from the hair.

Supporters Cling to Hope
Supporters continue to argue that the tissue and hair could not have been from Anderson, because they do not believe that this woman could have been a Polish farm worker. They argue that she could not have known so much about the Imperial family's life, have so much inside knowledge of the imperial family, and were baffled as to why those who claimed that Anna was Franziska were all caught in their lies. Anderson biographer Peter Kurth, who had done considerable research into Anna Anderson's case, has countered the DNA findings with: 'They don't explain how she spoke "more English than German" already in the early 1920s, or how she arrived in America in 1928 speaking fluent English, having had only the most rudimentary "lessons" in the form of Mother Goose rhymes. They don't explain her intimate acquaintance with the history, customs and lore of the Romanov family and every royal house of Europe; how she could deal with hotel staff in French; play the piano with or without sheet music; walk, sit, stand or offer her hand in exactly the home-trained manner; how she recognised members of the Romanov family just by the sound of their voices; "walked through the garden calling the flowers by their quaint Russian names" etc.' Historian Greg King claims there is doubt on the continued validity of the DNA results. "Both nuclear and mitochondrial (mtDNA) testing was done. Nuclear testing is preferred as it renders better results and is considered more accurate, while mtDNA is less discriminating. Nuclear DNA tests showed that AA could not possibly have been a daughter of N and A, yet changes in the science make the 1994 verdict obsolete. Gill used a 6-point Short Tandem Repeat (STR) analysis of the nuclear DNA to arrive at these results. Within four years of these tests, 10 point STR testing was being done, and when results of 10 point STR testing were compared with 6 point STR tests, the 6 point analysis was shown conclusively to give both false positive and negative results-in other words, conclusions based on 6 point STR tests were proved faulty." "In 1999, the testing had gone from the 6 point STR tests of 1993-94 and the 10 point STR tests of 1998 to 12 point STR tests, the accuracy of which further undermined 6 point STR test results. Gill admitted this in a statement released in 2000, adding that FSS had changed from the old 6 point STR method to the 10 point STR method in 1999. In 2000, the STR tests were up to a 14 point system; in 2001, it was 16 points, and by 2002, the industry standard worldwide in STR testing was 20 point STR tests. Scientific studies have repeatedly shown that 6 point STR tests are unreliable and result in false matches and exclusions. The 6 point STR nuclear DNA tests that showed Anastasia Manahan could not have been a daughter of N and A, therefore, are now meaningless." "The mtDNA match to the Maucher profile is also now known to be less reliable than everyone believed. In 1994, mtDNA matches were believed to prove identity, and to be unique to related individuals. Last year, an extensive UK study showed that out of a random 100 persons, four completely unrelated subjects shared exactly the same mtDNA profiles; extrapolate that here, on a board with 400 members: of the 400 of us posting here, 40 of us-unrelated to each other-would have identical mtDNA profiles, thus "proving" that we're related. The odds of a random mtDNA match between the Manahan sample and the Maucher profile are indeed considerable given the size of the world’s population and the numbers involved. I suspect, based on the continuing evolution of the science, that future studies will show mtDNA profiles to be even more common than this." In Klier and Mingay's book which claims Anna and Franziska were the same person, they also claim that Franziska's sister, Getrude Schanzkowska, had a different mother than the other children. If this is true, then it would demonstrate a great error in the mtDNA match between her grandson, Karl Maucher, and Anna Anderson, as they could not possibly have been related. Historian Penny Wilson observes: There were six children from the marriage between Anton Schanzkowski and Marianna Wiscek: *Martin Christian, b. 16 November 1895, died in early childhood *Franziska, b. 22 December 1896 *Michal, b. 16 December 1899, died in infancy *Walerian, b. 25 April, 1901 *Feliks, b. 17 February 1903 *Julianna Marianna, b. 30 April 1905 These children were born in Borek, Klein Pomieske or Schwarz Damerkow, and all of their births were recorded at the local level. In recent years, Poland has centralized many records, including birth records of the children listed above. The marriage between Anton and Marianna was Anton's second. His first, to Josefina Peek, ended without issue. It is unclear how Anton and Marianna's marriage ended: Some sources have him dying circa 1910/1912, and some have them divorcing at that time. Marianna went on to marry again, though she apparently had no further children. There are also references to a third marriage of Anton's, which obviously couldn't have happened if his death ended his second marriage. Gertrude's birth record has not been found, despite searches at the national level, and searches in Borek, Butow, Klein Pomieske and Schwarz Damerkow, all places associated with the Schanzkowsky family. She herself claimed a birthdate of 12 November 1898, thus placing herself in birth-order (if a child of Marianna and Anton) behind Franziska and before Michael. However, Anton is known for having had many affairs, mostly when the family fell on hard times and he occasionally had to work as an itinerant farm worker. The possibility remains that Gertrude was a child of one of Anton's affairs -- which would explain many things, including Waltraut's statement that Franziska was the cleverest of the FOUR children. Minus the two sons who died young, there WERE four Schanzkowsky children: Franziska, Walerian, Feliks and Julianna Marianna. Curiously, when the German Court Investigator was in the Schanzkowsky family home in the late 1920s, Marianna, Julianna Marianna, Walerian, and Feliks were all present for questioning. When she was asked about Gertrude's whereabouts, Marianna said this was not an issue that concerned her, and that she and Gertrude's husband had agreed that she should stay away. It's not certain what interpretation can be placed on these remarks, but the implications are obvious, though the reason for keeping Gertrude away could be as simple as her having been pregnant at the time.

References
*''Anastasia: The Life of Anna Anderson'', Peter Kurth, Pimlico, 1995. [ISBN 0712659544] *''Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Anderson'', Peter Kurth, Back Bay Books, 1997? [ISBN 0316507172] *''Anastasia: The Lost Princess'', James Blair Lovell, Robson Books, 1998. [ISBN 0860518078] *''The Quest for Anastasia: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Romanovs'', John Klier and Helen Mingay, Citadel Press, 1999. [ISBN 0806520647]

External links

- Could Anna Anderson be Anastasia? - Anna Anderson DNA Tests lose 2/3 of their validity.
- Article by Peter Kurth - Anna Anderson's biographer takes a closer look at the 1994 DNA results.
- Article by Rey Barry - Supporting article by journalist Rey Barry - friend of Anna Anderson and Jack Manahan.
- Anastasia: Duchess in Disguise - Comparative photographs from HIH Grand Duchess Anastasia Historical Society.
- Anastasia and Anna Anderson - Article which tells of the mystery of Anastasia's death and Anna Anderson's identity. Category:1900 births Anderson, Anna Category:1984 deaths Anderson, Anna Category:Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov Anderson, Anna Category:Impostor pretenders Anderson, Anna de:Anna Anderson ja:アンナ・アンダーソン nl:Anna Anderson sv:Anna Anderson

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