By ...BUT DID ANASTASIA SURVIVE??? on Thursday, February 15, 2001 - 10:01 am: |
By indigo on Thursday, February 15, 2001 - 07:16 pm: |
no. she was shot too.
By The Crank on Thursday, February 15, 2001 - 08:47 pm: |
i reckon she pretended to be dead and escaped off the truck carrying their bodies. why was her body never found and the rest were?
By Eddy on Friday, February 16, 2001 - 03:17 pm: |
If I was forced at gun-point to bone one of them it would be the one on the far right.
By The Crank on Friday, February 16, 2001 - 06:21 pm: |
lol@Eddy. yeah, me too now that you mention it. Is that one Anastasia? if so, it all makes perfect sense that she escaped. she would have fucked her way outta the situation.
By The Occifer on Saturday, February 17, 2001 - 08:29 am: |
Ahh we all have similar taste. But apparently Anastasia is the younger one behind her.
By Fried~Butter's Thinly Veiled Threat.... on Monday, February 19, 2001 - 02:34 pm: |
...to dogmatically ~ even relentlessly ~ argue The Case for Anastasia's survival!!!!1 ~ despite the obvious futility of such an undertaking (since, let's face it, no one gives a toss here except me). Admittedly, Maria (the one on the far right) is prettier ~ as Ze Darling Occifer, Cranker & My Dearer the Dear New Zealand Tsar Eddy have observed. Plus, Maria is a far saner name.
I find it kinda sad the way people are always so ready to believe the worst. I don't mean like when those hateful people write letters to newspapers about some murder being 'a sign of the times' or ~ arguably more pompous ~ 'it's an indictment of our era'... even though murders were happening a million years prior to some hateful plod hitting upon this real original notion that murders never happened when they were a young 'un in the fifties. Then ~ incredibly ~ fantasizing that this is enough of a produndity to actually BOTHER writing down ~ on GOOD paper, mind you!!!1 ~ before rushing gleefully off to the post~box ~ complete with stamped envelope, name & address defiantly supplied, all decked out with memories of how groovy the death penalty was, not to mention those inevitable trenchant allusions to how everything sucks now, so why should they put up with it "AS A TAXPAYER?" for some right wing newspaper to...
.....OK, CUT.
Sorry. I wrote all of the above whilst my mum was screeching down the hall, "Quick! Come and look at what Pauline Hanson's wearing on TV! Say what you like about her, but Pauline Hanson IS a good dresser! YOU THERE? YOU'RE MISSING PAULINE HANSON!"
So...erm, oh yeah ~ I find it simply so heavenly to believe in fairy tales based upon reality (yeah, REALITY!). Moot points & real~life~thing ~a~ling~a~dings. ALMOST historically proven, but not beyond all doubt.
I refuse to apologise for sounding cheesy when I do declare...nothing ever snuffs out the beauty of Good News (not the Good News in the Bible ~ I've forgotten what the good news in the Bible actually turned out to BE, come to think of it... anyone remember?)
Erm...um, OK...therefore (if you're still with me), Grand Duchess Anastasia definitely survived. Behold the 'Malenkaya' herself in 1930...celebrating such wondrous, magical good, good news...
By indigo on Monday, February 19, 2001 - 04:16 pm: |
who started this topic?
By Anastasia on Monday, February 19, 2001 - 05:11 pm: |
me of course!
the one that got away
By The Occifer on Tuesday, February 20, 2001 - 04:48 pm: |
I saw what Pauline was wearing. She makes Natasha Stott Despoja look positively staid.
Thinking back to before she was famous though - she was nothing but a jeans, cheap sandals and white blouse from Katies type girl. Oh, but she always had that torrent of rapidly flowing red hair to attract attention from each and every quarter. Some things will never change.
I vividly recall her sitting in the bleachers at an athletics track and giving me a death-stare because I beat her beloved Adam in a 400m race. Adam actually pushed himself so hard that he fainted into the arms of some old guy just past the finish line. I think the fact that he collapsed gave me more satisfaction than winning the race. I never liked him, but we did have a short phase of being matey-mates.
By The Crank on Tuesday, February 20, 2001 - 07:13 pm: |
I just found a song on Napster called "I Am Anastasia Romanov" but it's shit metal and it's a man singing.
By Travis on Wednesday, February 21, 2001 - 09:14 am: |
Since that very pretty picture at the top of the page happens to be the wallpaper on this very PC, I strongly suspect this topic was created by someone exceedingly near (and dear) to me. Don't want to anger you, luv, but come on, let's face it...
NOBODY TAKEN DOWN TO THE CELLAR THAT NIGHT CAME OUT ALIVE!
I repeat,NOBODY!!
How do I know this? Because I was flicking through a book on the Russian revolution in Dymocks last week and came upon a photo taken at the very site where the Emperor and ALL his family were buried, after the assassination. The photo clearly shows six blood drenched corsets, riddled with bullet holes. SIX women faced that firing squad-the Tsarina, the four daughters, and one lady-in-waiting. SIX women=SIX corsets!
Indigo is right. Anastasia was knocked off too. The girl rescued out of that Berlin canal simply went on to assume her identity, in the process conning nearly everyone - the police, the psychiatrists, the people who'd known the Romanov's; alas, like that fat guy says at the beginning of Titanic, 'it's just another giant fraud, like that Russian babe, Anastasia!'
Still, it was an achievement in itself, and anyone who managed to waste thirty years of a Supreme Court's time plus fooling half of Europe's royalty is a winner in my book.
I hope we're still sharing sedatives after you've read this!
By Fried~Butter on Thursday, February 22, 2001 - 02:29 am: |
Good grief. If ever I have seen a more obvious attempt at Marcia, Marcia, Marcia~ing my ass, I need go no further then that last message.
I already knew about the photo of the six bloodied corsets, smart alec, but did this mysterious book in Dymocks not feature a caption explaining who'd been wearing them, or was the author as ill~informed as you?
The four girls ~ Olga, Tatiana, Maria & Anastasia ~ were wearing two sets of corsets. They'd hidden diamonds and jewellry in between the seams. The photo you mentioned is therefore of six corsets worn by THREE of the four girls. One might therefore deduce that one of the daughters was missing at the burial site, but I'm rather weary of this argument, so I shan't pursue it too vigorously.
We're not sharing sedatives because I don't have any, but then you already knew that.
Oh, and Attesting Occifer! Pauline Hanson giving you a death~stare? That must have been frightening. Do you think she'll hold a grudge when she becomes Ruler of Austrayia, refusing to count you as 'mainstream Austrayian'? According to a secret ASIO document, The Hanson Work Camp, AKA 'The House Of Hanson Purpose' is already being built. I hear say (as Anne Boleyn said) it contains enough cells to imprison ALL enemies of Pauline ~ these include boat people, Asians, Aborigines, the unemployed, same~sex oriented peeperama's, those who like cats better then dogs, single mothers, fans of recreational drugs, Rose Hancock~Porteous, people who did sick shit in the seventies, girls who've had sex with Shaun Ryder and possibly boys who can run 'too fast'. Pauline's wrath towards such spritely lads is said to have baffled even her own colleagues, but you've provided the missing link...
By The Occifer on Friday, February 23, 2001 - 10:03 pm: |
"Basically, Austrayia is goin' to the dogs with all this democracy stuff."
I'd like to place a bet that something of that nature is uttered in her maiden speech as Absolute Dictator. Did you know that she believes the Port Arthur Massacre was not the crime of an disturbed man but some kind of international (foreign) conspiracy? Don't ask me to elaborate because I wont be able to. But it's true, all true! Someone told me...
It's a long time since I've been as drunk as I was last night. But I'm feeling rather chuffed because my 'joke' Letter to the Editor got published. Considering the fact that it started off with "As one of the sexier members of my generation, I..." I didnt think there was any chance they would run it. I just thought it may provide some light comedic relief around the office. Anyway, I was entering a pseudo-intellectual debate which has been raging for the past few months about the level of noise in a certain night-spot area of my city which also has residential housing nearby. After establishing my credentials right away in the first sentence I then proceeded to deliberately and flagrantly misquote very famous quotes from William Borroughs and Oscar Wilde - changing only one word in each, but consequently their meanings, to suit my fabulously fucked'n'flawed argument. I credited Borroughs, but earnestly claimed Wilde's (mis)quote as being all my own. (Saying, "and you can quote me on that one!")
My only regret is that I used a pseudonym. I really should've used my own name rather than Jonathon Trumpette.
By The Lad on Tuesday, February 27, 2001 - 02:54 pm: |
you lot gotta be taking the piss. what do an Aussie politician and a load of unshaggable, dead chicks with or withOUT their flippin' corsets on got to do with Blur?
At least the footy talk brought us all together, and yes, that IS relevant, coz Damon likes it.
By TWI 1002 on Saturday, March 3, 2001 - 10:36 am: |
Yeah!
By Cranky on Sunday, March 4, 2001 - 08:09 am: |
Cunt.
By Westminster Chambers on Sunday, March 4, 2001 - 10:23 am: |
The Lad:
Australian politics is a concern at the moment. More of a concern than British football is. Who cares? Have you not noticed the majority of topics on this board don't have anything to do with blur? we can discuss what we like, when we like. It's called freedom of speech. Deal with it.
By TWI 1003 on Sunday, March 4, 2001 - 12:55 pm: |
YEAH!
By Plain~Butter & THE TROOTH on Thursday, March 8, 2001 - 04:33 pm: |
Now, listen here, Mr/Miss Evil Eye! If you care to argue the validity and/or lack of it as regards sympathy for Diana and (yes, I know this is stretching it ~ the House of Windsor) let's stick to a Monarchist topic!!!!1
Oh, and to The Lad ~
The Aussie politician matters a lot, and according to my very dear friend Occifer, is really kind of a nice lady, though she can be a little on the wanky side.
By Plain~Butter's Troothful P.S on Thursday, March 8, 2001 - 04:36 pm: |
Obviously the fate of Grand Duchess Anastasia matters too. AND A LOT!
A thought: if the House of Windsor were taken down to the cellar at Buckingham Palace, shot & stabbed (Ok, BAYONETED) to death, do you think a mythology/legend/conspiracy theory would evolve out of the theory that one of the British royals escaped? And if so, which one would become the fabled reputed survivor?
Yeah, I needn't answer that last question. I think so too.
By Germaine Greer on Friday, March 9, 2001 - 01:44 pm: |
When we can weep uncontrollably for days on end about Princess Diana, we should be able to manage mourning aloud for a day or two about the violent deaths of thousands of men, women and children the world over. The British authorities are STILL reeling from the convulsion of grief for Diana, a convulsion that awed the world in August/September
1997, and has not spent its force yet. Even the most hard boiled of the lifestyle feminists realized that this thunderous explosion of grief was a phenomenon & bickered in the media for weeks about whether the Princess had actually deserved it (as if any individual could actually have deserved it). The mourners said over & over, 'She was one of us. She identified with us.' It doesn't take a post graduate degree in psychology to grasp that what they were actually saying was that they identified with HER. Her suffering, as a wife disliked & scorned, as a lover betrayed & humiliated, was theirs. Her death gave mute people licence to sob for their own pain.
By The Occifer on Sunday, March 11, 2001 - 12:48 pm: |
Hi Germaine.
By Butter~Girl on Monday, March 12, 2001 - 09:00 am: |
The first time I ever decided that Graham was my favourite boy from Blur was an interview Blur did for the NME, many tunes ago. Circa 1996, I believe. Damon & Alex were a little too predictably sniggering about Diana (since it was, of course, so very suave to do back then). Any how, Graham just wouldn't have it. He defended Diana & expressed his sympathy and tenderness in a very noble, un~politically correct & oddly beautiful fashion. Damon & Alex were struck dumb. Dave was struck so dumb it was like, not even funny. But Graham persevered, unfurling compassion ~ via a clanger of even MORE amazingly unfashionable dimensions ~ by even saying nice things about Paula Yates (both of which cried out Clanger Quote of the Year, so far as where Di & Paula fitted into the NME scheme of things, pre~snuffing it).
By Toby on Monday, March 12, 2001 - 10:46 am: |
England has some faults, but it's not as bad as people make it out to be eh.
By TobyZ on Monday, March 12, 2001 - 02:02 pm: |
I believe there may be two Toby's. I don't know which Toby was here first, but lot's of people, especially those from Brazil, seem to hate Toby, so you might want to disassociate yourself from the name.
Anyways, to end confusion, I'll now post as TobyZ, so the Brazilians and the Lad know that they're attacking the right person.
By nathallie on Tuesday, March 13, 2001 - 01:22 am: |
yeah, graham's b-day! (at least in england it is.. it's just 8:30 on the 12th where i'm at). let's all raise a glass and celebrate, 'cos the world gave us something beautiful... hope he's happy wherever he is & with whatever he's doing...
and a great day to all of you!
love, nat.
By shellie on Tuesday, March 13, 2001 - 11:09 am: |
graham's b-day! wow, i never knew graham was a pisces. cute little fish!
By Rhonda on Wednesday, March 14, 2001 - 09:05 am: |
What has this got to do with Anastasia?
By Hot, Fresh Soup~Mix on Wednesday, March 14, 2001 - 02:00 pm: |
Oooh, don't tempt me. I can tell you ALL about Anastasia, you mark my words.
By Rhonda on Wednesday, March 14, 2001 - 02:03 pm: |
Right on, c'mon, tell me.
So did she die?
It was all because of Tsar Nicholas' fault was it?
By This Isn't About Anastasia Either ~ on Wednesday, March 14, 2001 - 09:19 pm: |
It is my sincere prayer that the following conversation is not representative of the English. Well, I already KNOW it isn't, since so many Brits are very eloquent, clever & imaginative. All the same, I would like to know ~ is the essential point I am attempting to make here THAT hard to grasp?
SONYWANKERS easy now
Soup~Mix Eh?
Soup~Mix Hello Mr/Miss Sony.
SONYWANKERS easy now = hello
Soup~Mix Ah, must be an English thing
SONYWANKERS london ting yeah
SONYWANKERS where you from then?
Soup~Mix When I was in London, I remember everyone says "yeah" at the end of every sentence
SONYWANKERS ?
Soup~Mix Well, I was born in France but I've lived in Australia most of my life, I'm afraid.
SONYWANKERS WOW
Soup~Mix Wow?
SONYWANKERS what does everyone in london say?
Soup~Mix Not EVERYONE
SONYWANKERS what
Soup~Mix But a lot of people finished sentences by saying "yeah", like you did...up above.
Soup~Mix Ie, "I'm going out tonight, yeah"
SONYWANKERS saying what?
Soup~Mix Saying "YEAH!"
SONYWANKERS ????? what?
Soup~Mix Oh for chrissakes...you must be taking the piss
SONYWANKERS seriously what you saying?
Soup~Mix It's really not that hard to understand
SONYWANKERS well I dunno what the hell you mean. Everyone says yeah??????? what?????
Soup~Mix HOW can you not know what the hell I mean?
SONYWANKERS i dont think that makes any sense about people here.
Soup~Mix Oh, well, never mind. Can we change the subject?
SONYWANKERS just say it!
Soup~Mix All I said was...well, it's not worth hearing twice
SONYWANKERS I aint heard it once!
Soup~Mix I'll say it slowly then!
Soup~Mix In
Soup~Mix England
Soup~Mix I remember
SONYWANKERS k
Soup~Mix A lot of people
Soup~Mix Put "yeah" at the end
Soup~Mix Of their sentences
SONYWANKERS WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN???????
Soup~Mix WHEN SOME BRITISH PEOPLE FUCKING TALK
Soup~Mix JESUS!
SONYWANKERS when people talk they only say that?
Soup~Mix Not ONLY that. Imagine somebody saying to you, "I'm going down the pub, yeah."
Soup~Mix I found it funny, that's all.
SONYWANKERS what that people say
Soup~Mix Oh, will you PLEASE just forget it.
SONYWANKERS I certainly will!
Mr Williams, eat your heart out...
By HRH Princess Anastasia on Sunday, March 18, 2001 - 05:33 pm: |
I escaped and became a cab driver. Now I am happy, if ageing, Blur fan!
Woo hoo!
By Soup~Bowl on Monday, March 19, 2001 - 01:34 pm: |
I haven't had an answer to my question yet. Thank~you all from the pit of my burning, nauseous stomach.
By TobyZ on Monday, March 26, 2001 - 02:19 pm: |
I think I, like, get it, ya know. English people put "Yeah" at the end of , like, all their sentences, ya know.
I can't, like, say that I, ya know, know that's true or not, ya know, but, like, I'll be happy to help propogate an idiotic sterotype, like, if you wish, ya know. Just like, ya know, all Americans, like, always, like, say "like", ya know, and "ya know", ya know?
By indigo on Monday, March 26, 2001 - 09:44 pm: |
My mates have all told me that they will shoot me if I ever start saying yeah all over the place. Weird thing... theres a school down the road where EVERYBODY says "fucking" like oher people say "yeah". Sample conversation I heard at the bus stop:
fucking hell!
fuck! havent seen u in fuckin ages!
fuck no!
so where u fucking fucked off to then?
been down in fuckin Wycombe inni?
fuck, yeah, Wycombes so fucking crap
fuck off its the fuckin dogs fucking bollocks!
shut the fuck up youre really fuckin me off you fuckin know that?
(continue for 2o minutes)
By shellie on Monday, March 26, 2001 - 09:57 pm: |
so did princess anastasia survive hehe?
By The Sexual Athlete on Friday, March 30, 2001 - 10:08 am: |
i dont know shellie hehe
By The Maudlin Histaulin on Saturday, March 31, 2001 - 08:27 pm: |
She DID, Shellie (and Rhonda)! Let me tell you, in part, why I think so...
Let us skip the numerous and probably legitimate reasons the Russian people had for forcing Russia's last Emperor, Nicholas II, to abdicate the throne. In short, Russia clamoured for change, yet the Emperor, by all accounts a kind man within his immediate family, was an autocratic & rather inflexible Tsar (he referred to political reformers as "senseless dreamers").
As events demonstrated all too clearly, his reign was an unmitigated disaster.
OK, let's skip the rest of the social context bollox and get to the joocee bits, eh? Yeah. Let's!
Following the abdication, the revolutionaries who had overthrown his government immediately arrested Tsar Nicholas, his wife - Empress Alexandra, their 14~year old son - Tsarevitch Alexei, as well as the Tsar's daughters - the four young princesses – Tatiana, Anastasia, Olga and Maria, declaring the entire Royal family "enemies of the Russian people". Indeed, public opinion in Russia at that time was vehemently anti~monarchist. As the family were transported via train under armed guard from St. Petersburg, a furious mob stood at the train station, and were heard to chant, "Show us the Romanov’s!" and "Down with bloody Nicholas!"
In 1918, Lenin (who had, "of course", seized control of Russia) ordered the Romanov's to the stark seclusion of Siberia. In the mining capital of Ekaterinburg, the family were imprisoned in a house known as the Ipatiev House until the Bolshevik’s re-named it "The House Of Special Purpose".
Their captors harshly treated the Romanov's – some of the indignities seemed spiteful, indeed merely childish, such as the occasions they were forced to stand in unison singing popular anti-monarchist ballads. In addition, pornographic pictures were stuck upon the walls, some of which were drawings depicting the Empress and Rasputin (please don't let's get started on Rasputin). Having lived in a 1,000 room palace, the grotty little House of Special Purpose must have come as a terrible shock to them. The family were fed only left overs from the guard’s meals. The Grand Duchesses were followed to and from the bathroom, and the guards delighted in making them state precisely WHAT they were using the toilet for. It was even rumoured that the four daughters were subjected to rape, but this has never been proven.
Russia's last Imperial family (OK, so I called them the "Royal" family before, but it's arguably more or less the same thing), along with three servants, and the family doctor were held prisoner in the "House of Special Purpose" for just over two months. Some time after midnight, on the night of July 16th, 1918, they were awakened and ordered down to a cellar.
Believing they were to be photographed, the eleven prisoners were instructed to stand in two rows. Anastasia stood in the second row, next to Tatiana, who was carrying her pet Spaniel, Jemmy. Eleven armed soldiers then entered the cellar, each with instructions to kill a specific person.
Bolshevik General Yurovsky proceeded to read aloud a death warrant:
"Nicholas Romanov, for high crimes against Russia, the Ural Soviet has hereby sentenced you and your family to death. Your lives are finished."
Nicholas stood up, turned to his family, then turned back to Yurovsky. "What?" he exclaimed. "WHAT?" The firing squad aimed and opened fire, killing him instantly. (Apparently, all the soldiers had been most eager to go down in history as "the man who killed the Tsar".
The Empress Alexandra and Grand Duchess Olga apparently had time to genuflect before they too were killed, both shot in the forehead. The family Doctor also died quickly, as did two of the servants.
Less fortunate were the remaining Romanov children ~ the Grand Duchesses Maria, Tatiana, Anastasia, Tsarevitch Alexie, and their maid, Anna Demidov. As fourteen-year-old Alexei lay groaning on the basement floor, his sisters and their maid ran about the tiny cellar screaming, clutching their hands over their heads and pleading for their lives.
Unbeknownst to their assassins, the princesses had sewn jewellery and diamonds into their corsets, in the hopes of being able to use them as a kind or "ransom" to obtain freedom. They wore two sets of these "bullet~proof" corsets, keeping much of their bodies remarkly well protected. Thus, the bullets bounced off the three girls, ricocheting onto the walls and seemingly having no effect. Astounded, the men continued to shoot wildly at them. The cellar was so packed with smoke, it was difficult for them to even see where to aim. One eyewitness later wrote of dimly discerning Anastasia crouched against the cellar wall, clutching her hands over her head and sobbing.
Finally, General Yurovsky shouted at the soldiers, "Stop firing! Finish them off with bayonets!" Tatiana and Maria were then savagely stabbed to death with bayonets, as was Anna Demidov, who had been believed dead, but apparently showed "a sign of life". (One can only wonder at why the servants were killed at all, and not granted freedom on the basis of being nothing more then oppressed victims of ruling class employers.)
Eventually, all eleven victims lay lifelessly in "thick pools of blood" on the cellar floor; it seemed the "special purpose" had been accomplished. As the smoke from the firing cleared a little, the murderers began to inspect the bodies. Yet there were two unexpected survivors. According to General Yurovsky’s own account, all were thought to be dead until 14-year old Alexei was heard groaning. Eyewitnesses reported that Yurovsky walked over to the little boy and "calmly" shot him in the forehead. At that point, again by Yurovsky's account, 17-year old Anastasia abruptly sat up, stared around in horror at the bodies of her family and began to scream, taking the soldiers by surprise. Like her unfortunate sisters, she was then repeatedly stabbed, presumably until she was dead.
Before removing the bodies, a soldier took some chalk and wrote upon the back wall: "F*** YOU NICHOLAS, HERE'S YOUR REPUBLIC!"
Yurovsky went on to describe how the eleven bodies were carried out to a cattle truck, then driven to a site known as the Four Brothers; the bodies were stripped naked and thrown down an abandoned mineshaft. It was then that the soldiers discovered the "bulletproof" corsets worn by the girls (their reactions can only be imagined). As a final cynical little gesture, a soldier added the corpse of Tatiana’s little dog Jemmy to the grisly pile. Later, Yurovsky changed his mind and ordered that the bodies be retrieved. Hauled up out of the mineshaft, they were again placed onto the truck and driven out to a Forrest.
The truck carrying the bodies began to overheat in the hot weather, and eventually simply broke down. Impatient, Yurovsky decided to dispose of the corpses on the spot. After dismembering them, soaking them in petrol and attempting to burn them, the bodies were thrown into a mass grave, dug haphazardly into the centre of a road. Sulphuric acid was added to hasten decomposition. The grave was filled in, and sand carefully smoothed over to hide its existence. Yurovsky later gloated in his memoirs, "No one will ever know what we did with them!"
(The forlorn remains of Tatiana’s dog, along with clothing and some jewellery belonging to the family, were left behind down the mineshaft, only to be recovered by the White [or "pro- monarchist"] authorities soon afterward. A photograph of "six bloodied corsets" taken at the mineshaft was, for many years - and indeed to this day [see above], seized upon as proof that all six women led down to the basement that night had perished. Yes. Perished. In reality, this was a moot point, since it has now been established that on the night of the execution, the four princesses had been wearing DOUBLE sets of corsets. The photo actually depicts the corsets worn by three of of the Tsar's four daughters.)
To suggest that anybody escaped this butchery seems, on the face of it, extremely far-fetched. Certainly, the eyewitness accounts make no mention of anybody having escaped. Yet when the remains of the Romanov’s were exhumed in the 1990’s, it was found that two of the bodies were missing. The anthropological and forensic consensus reached was that the two missing bodies were those of the youngest children, the Grand Duchess Anastasia and her little brother, Tsarevitch Alexei. Was it possible either did somehow survive? Most historians say no; aside from the fact that poor Alexei suffered from haemophelia, the skeletal remains of the Romanov's showed evidence of such terrible injuries - entire skulls smashed in, arms and legs hacked to pieces, dozens of bayonet thrusts through the ribcages - for anyone to have walked away from such a brutal and sustained attack certainly does stretch credulity. Nonetheless, the deaths of the Tsar’s youngest children cannot be said to have ever been conclusively proven.
Whatever became of Anastasia and Alexei - at the very least, the location of their bodies ~ remains a mystery. Common sense dictates that they were simply buried separately from the rest of their family. But numerous and highly extensive efforts to locate this alleged separate grave have, to date, all been unsuccessful.
To people familiar with the bewildering & bizarre odyssey of Anna Anderson, especially those who believed in her identity, Grand Duchess Anastasia's absence from the mass grave was no mystery at all, but made perfect sense. (In addition, one can imagine the sighs of relief from any of her "converts", if they had ever harboured any doubts at all.)
The seventy year saga surrounding the identity of a woman who called herself Anna Anderson began on the night of February 17th, 1920, less than two years after the murders of the Russian Imperial family. In Berlin, Germany, at 9 o’clock, a policeman on his beat spotted a young girl leaping off a bridge, into a canal. He rescued her from what (she later admitted) was a suicide attempt, and took her to a hospital.
She had no ID and absolutely refused to state her name, age, or occupation. When challenged that such behaviour was very childish and silly, that suicide was a moral crime, that she might even be liable to prosecution, she declared imperiously, "I have asked for nothing." She added mysteriously that "she had her reasons" for remaining anonymous and the authorities "may believe what they like". A subsequent medical examination reported that she was no longer a virgin, and that the numerous scars upon her torso suggested she had at some point been a victim of violence ("many lacerations", the report read). There were also signs of a skull fracture. Her age was estimated to be "about twenty" (at that time, Grand Duchess Anastasia would have been nearly nineteen). Eventually, the authorities simply gave up. The young girl was given the name "Fraulein Unbekannt" ["Miss Unknown"] and sent to a mental asylum.
In the autumn of 1921, a fellow patient in the asylum came to suspect, from Miss Unknown’s "regal, cultivated manner", as well as her remarkable resemblance to the Russian Imperial family, that she was none other then Grand Duchess Tatiana, Anastasia's elder sister. Initially, Fraulein Unbekannt neither confirmed nor denied this identity; she made no remark at all.
The question of "A Daughter of the Tsar In A Lunatic Asylum?" quickly captured the attention of the Berlin media, as such stories do, and one of Empress Alexandra's ladies-in-waiting went to see her. But the young girl proved most unco-operative, darting beneath a blanket and refusing to say a word. The lady-in-waiting, wrongly assuming Fraulein Unbekannt was claiming to be Grand Duchess Tatiana, forcibly dragged her to her feet and pronounced the verdict : "She’s too short for Tatiana!" Shouting that she was an impostor, she stormed off. It was only then that the morose, somewhat pathetic young woman remarked, "I never said I was Tatiana.") But one of the Empress’s closest friends, Zinaida Tolstoy, who had known all of her daughters, met with the young woman and declared she truly was Anastasia. These two conflicting opinions were only the first of dozens; it had the effect of transforming 'Fraulein Ubekannt' into an international celebrity, but created a deep division within Berlin’s Russian monarchist community, eventually extending as far as the royal family itself.
"Fraulein Annie Unbekannt", a name she mercifully got rid of before too long, was released from the asylum in 1922. She lived on the charity of various sympathizers and Russian monarchists, though she grew to loathe the "gawking" Russians who flocked to see her in droves, endlessly quizzing her with "test" questions in order to ascertain her authenticity, which obviously still remained in doubt.
After finally "admitting" to the identity of Anastasia Romanov, she eventually described her dramatic, almost romantic escape from the Imperial family's assassins. (Her account was so vague & confused, however, that it is more then likely that her "friends" put a great deal of words into "Anastasia's" mouth so as to form a coherent, convincing narrative.)
She had been shot and bayoneted, "Anastasia" said, but survived because the soldiers', in their haste to dispose of the bodies, did not realise she was still breathing. Finally, a soldier named Tschaikovsky noticed that she was alive. During the chaos of that night, he somehow rescued her. The woman said Tschaikovsky took her to Romania. Her story was exceedingly muddled, but it seems that at some point she may have married Tschaikovsky - despite the fact he had apparently raped her. After he was killed in a street fight she gave birth to his son. She was so ashamed of having conceived out of wedlock, let alone to a BOLSHEVIK (!!1), she refused to have anything to do with the boy and immediately placed him in an orphanage. (Years later, she felt - or claimed to feel - great guilt over this.)
Alone, the destitute princess (presuming you believe her) 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. Instead, in a near hysterical panic, she decided to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge.
Surprisingly, some evidence did emerge to support this rather far fetched story. A man named Heinrich Kleibenzetl, who had also been a prisoner of war in Ekaterinburg in July 1918, claimed to have seen Anastasia wounded but alive, after the massacre of the Romanov's. Kleibenzetl had worked as "apprentice to the tailor" in a building directly opposite the "House Of Special Purpose". Late one night, he had heard gunshots, screams, and the voice of a young girl crying out: "Mamma!" Later, upon returning home, his land-lady told him after some hesitation that “Anastasia, the Grand Duchess” had been brought to the house by a Red soldier, badly wounded but still alive. She ushered him into a bedroom, where, in a bed, he recognized "one of the young women" he had seen in the House of Special Purpose:
"The lower part of her body was covered with blood, her eyes were shut, and she was groaning…She remained in the house for three days…The Bolshevik’s came looking for her. We were scared, but they knew us too well to search the house. The third day, a Bolshevik guard came and took her away, one of the same men who brought her, Frau Boudin said."
Count Carl Bonde, head of the Swedish Red Cross, also declared under oath:
"In my capacity as chief of the Red Cross in Siberia in July 1918, I had occasion to travel on a private railway. At one town, the name of which escapes my memory, the train was stopped and searched by members of the Bolshevik army for Her Imperial Highness, the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicolaevna, daughter of Nicholas II. The Grand Duchess, however, was not aboard the train. Nobody knew where she had gone."
The woman Miss Unknown claimed was her Aunt, Princess Irene, did meet with her eventually, but denied that she was Anastasia. The Princess would later weep recalling the meeting, admitting, "She is similar, she is similar." Irene's son Prince Sigismund, a childhood friend of Grand Duchess Anastasia, literally subjected the enigmatic young woman to a "twenty questions" test. NOBODY, he insisted, could possibly know the answers unless they were one of the Tsar's daughters. The unknown woman answered every question correctly, and the Prince was convinced.
'Fraulein Unbekannt', who began calling herself Anna Anderson in the 1920s, attracted innumerable supporters, and just as many deniers. The matter of her identity became something of a causé celebére, with nearly everybody holding an opinion, and the principal “characters” being unable to agree, and often unable to decide. Crown Princess Cecilie, the daughter-in-law of the former Kaiser and a relative of Anastasia, believed unequivocally that Anna was Anastasia. Cecilie's son Prince Louis Ferdinand and his wife, Princess Kyra, did not believe; Princess Kyra went so far as to describe Anna as "repellent", adding rather pompously that Anna's English was dreadful, in stark contract to the English used in "the family". Similarly, Rasputin's assassin, Prince Yussupov, wrote dramatically to his uncle:
"I am convinced you would recoil in horror at the notion that this FRIGHTFUL young woman could POSSIBLY be a daughter of the Emperor."
Anna’s most famous "confrontations" were those with the Tsar’s sister, Grand Duchess Olga, Pierre Gilliard, Anastasia’s tutor, as well as Grand Duchess Anastasia's lady-in-waiting, who the young Anastasia always referred to as "Shura". Eyewitnesses to the meetings stated that Gilliard, the Grand Duchess and Shura in particular all definitely seemed to recognise Anna as Anastasia. Gilliard, extremely shaken, was later quoted verbatim: “My God, how awful! What has become of Grand Duchess Anastasia? She’s a wreck, an absolute wreck! I want to do everything I can to help Her Imperial Highness!” Shura asked if she could take a peek at Anna's feet (!), and literally gasped as she exclaimed that Anna's feet were identical to those of Grand Duchess Anastasia : the Tsar's youngest daughter had been born with a minor but somewhat unattractive foot deformity, known as hallux vulgus. If she was a fraud, Anna had apparently been born with the same deformity. And again, as with Grand Duchess Anastasia, the condition was far more noticeable in Anna's right foot then the left.
Grand Duchess Olga, apparently both deeply puzzled and deeply moved, felt that Anna resembled Tatiana more then Anastasia; she remarked that if she had been told Anna was her niece Tatiana, she would believe it immediately. Nonetheless, after three visits to Anna, she seemed to be verging towards believing Anna truly was Anastasia. Her words, like Gilliard's, were also quoted: “My reason cannot grasp it, but my heart tells me that the Malenkaya is Anastasia.” (“Malenkaya”, meaning “little one” in Russian, was one of Anastasia’s nicknames.)
Gilliard and Grand Duchess Olga later protested they were merely moved by “the invalid’s” condition, whomever she might be (“one might say full of tenderness”, Olga wrote at the time). Yet Olga did send Anna five sympathetic letters, writing in one, “You are not alone now and we shall not abandon you,” ~ a peculiar comment to make to a pretentious, opportunistic stranger with an identity crisis, presuming this was her opinion.
A few months later, the Grand Duchess issued a public statement, declaring that the “unknown woman of Berlin” did not bear “the slightest resemblance to her niece Anastasia” and was merely a “poor highly strung invalid”. Gilliard also completely changed his mind about Anna, condemning her in a full length book, The False Anastasia, as "a first rate actress and a cunning psychopath."
Former ballerina Mathilde Kschessinka, Tsar Nicholas's mistress before his marriage, who later married Nicholas's cousin, Grand Duke Andrew, believed Anna was Anastasia. She said Anna had Nicholas's eyes, and looked at her with "the Emperor's look."
The long parade of witnesses who had known Grand Duchess Anastasia and either recognized or rejected her in Anna were never-ending. To an outsider, the inability of Anastasia's surviving friends and relatives to make up their mind unanimously, one way or another, seems baffling.
Some of her supporters suspected that those who refused to recognise Anna only did so because she, the apparent daughter of Tsar Nicholas, had guilelessly admitted to conceiving a child out of wedlock, and still worse, by a Bolshevik soldier. Self-interest played a part, too, since there was the matter of the Romanov inheritance ~ for the Tsar was one of the wealthiest men in the world ~ to consider. Those who denied Anna’s claim countered that Anna’s supporters were either gullible, acting out of self-interest themselves, or had not known Anastasia well enough to form an opinion. But this cannot be said of “witnesses” such as Nicholas II's cousin Grand Duke Alexander; upon meeting Anna, he exclaimed, "I have seen Nicky's daughter! I have seen Nicky's daughter!" Andrew had been close to Nicholas and all his immediate family at a much later date then most of the Royals, and maintained he simply could not be mistaken in recognising his niece. He wrote in bewilderment at the time: “I simply cannot understand why she has not been recognized sooner. It is completely incomprehensible...”
Other supporters were Anastasia's cousin Princess Xenia, and Gleb and Tatiana Botkin, whose father was murdered with the Imperial family. Xenia and the Botkin’s had been childhood playmate’s of Anastasia, and Gleb recalled how his childhood drawings of animals in court dress had delighted Anastasia. When he first met Anna she asked about his "funny animals," convincing Gleb of her authenticity. Tatiana Botkin wrote that she “instantly recognised Anastasia”, and did not need to be convinced, but like her brother, cited examples of Anna’s apparent memories as evidence. She later wrote of an occasion when she said to Anna, who was at that time seriously ill, “I shall put you to bed as my father did when you were ill.” Anna replied, in an off-handed manner, “Yes. Measles.” Tatiana wrote:
“On one occasion, when the Imperial children had measles, and only once, it happened that my father tended the Grand Duchesses alone, put them to bed and performed nurses duties’ for them. This fact had never been published anywhere, and apart from my father, I alone knew anything about it.”
Knowledge such as this (and look, this would be even MORE stupefyingly dull were I to mention how many other intricate and accurate "memories" Anna spouted over the years), mostly pertaining to trivial details of life as a young Russian Grand Duchess, amazed and impressed many, but certainly didn't convince everyone: sceptics argued that anything Anna knew - and even the largely sceptical Supreme Court of Germany conceded that she certainly knew a lot - could have been uncovered via "extensive research".
Her most infamous claim regarded Grand Duke Ernst of the German House of Hesse. She said he had visited Russia in 1916, when his country and Russia were at war. Ernst angrily denied making the visit, but the Kaiser’s stepson, as well as the Crown Princess Cecilie, both testified in court in 1966 that Ernst did secretly made the trip. Anna’s claim, in effect, was tantamount to accusing Ernst of treason; this was not the sort of claim an impostor, eager to achieve the approval of her “relatives”, would have been likely to make. And since this “memory” was corroborated by reliable sources, how - if Anna was a fraud - could she have possibly known about it?
Determined to prove that Anna was an impostor, Ernst backed an investigation that suggested she was, in reality, a Polish factory worker and farm worker, Franziska Schanzkowska, who disappeared shortly before “Fraulein Unbekannt” was rescued from the Berlin canal. A woman named Doris Wingender declared that Franzizka, her former tenant, had disappeared early in 1920, only to return some two years later in a state of great distress.
According to Doris, Franzizka was frantically attempting to escape a group of Russian monarchists who had “apparently mistaken her for somebody else”. Franzizka seemed both afraid and somewhat fed up with all these Russians confusing her for a princess, so much so that Doris Wingender expressed concern that Franzizka "might be being held against her will." However, Doris's story lost some credibility when it emerged that she had been paid for her testimony.
Ernst also commissioned a graphologist to conduct handwriting comparisons between Anna and Anastasia. Unfortunately for him, the graphologist concluded that the handwriting was identical and had definitely come from the same hand. The German House of Hesse had these results supressed for many years.
Although she depended on the good will of her supporters, Anna was haughty, demanding and wildly unpredictable in nature. (Ironically, these same "difficult" traits helped convince Princess Xenia that Anna was indeed her cousin Anastasia - for Xenia described the young Anastasia as something of a tyrant, "frightfully temperamental, wild & rough" - quite unlike the romantic "fairy-tale" princess she later came to symbolise.)
Anna appeared to suffer from a severe persecution complex, at times to a farcical extent. Occasionally she attacked people with sticks or ran around naked on rooftops. Even her good friend Gleb Botkin referred to her “perfectly ludicrous accusations” and “nonsensical statements”. In 1930, in a tragicomic twist worthy of a novelist, Anna herself was taken in by an impostor, a woman named Jill Cossley~Batt; Jill claimed to be a “Countess” who’d seen Grand Duchess Anastasia at an opera in St Petersburg. Jill clearly hoped to benefit financially from Anna’s notoriety, and when this failed, wasted no time abandoning the increasingly desperate, confused and paranoid Anna. After “throwing heavy objects out her ninth story window in an unsuccessful attempt to attract the attention of the police” she was declared “dangerous to herself and others” and forcibly institutionalized.
The breakdown came in the wake of a statement released to the world’s media by the Romanov’s some eighteen months after Anna travelled to the United States, where her claim had been endorsed by Princess Xenia. Billed as ‘the Declaration of the British Royal Family & the Russian Imperial Family Concerning The Tschaikovsky Affair’ (Anastasia Tschaikovsky was another of Anna’s alias’s), the statement was described as the Royal family’s ‘unanimous conviction that the woman currently living in the United States is not the daughter of the Tsar’. The statement was taken at face value by the media, despite its distinctly spurious nature: only twelve members of the family signed their names to the document, and of those twelve, only one member of the Imperial family ~ Grand Duchess Olga ~ had ever even met Anna. Furthermore, members of the royal family who had recognized Anna as the Tsar’s daughter, such as Grand Duke Andrew and Princess Xenia, were not consulted when the statement was written.
Predictably, Anna’s subsequent mental breakdown was seized upon as evidence that she was merely a demented impostor rather then a presumed dead Russian princess. Yet it would hardly be surprising if a teenager who had witnessed the massacre of her own family developed psychiatric problems, whether she was a princess or not. Contemporary psychiatrists also believed that, in spite of her instability, she was not an impostor or insane, or an opportunist deliberately perpetuating a fraud.
Psychiatrist Theodore Eitel was emphatic on this point:
“Even at crucial moments, she has almost always behaved in the exact opposite way from what you might expect of an impostor, and certainly not out of calculation…I regard it as utterly unthinkable that this woman has emerged from some lower circle of society. Her whole nature was so distinctive – so thoroughly refined that one must, without knowing anything at all about her origins, recognise her as the offspring of an old, highly cultured, and in my opinion, highly decadent family.”
One doesn't need to hail from Royalty to have a "refined nature", of course, and it was another psychiatrist, Doctor Hans Willige, who wrote somewhat more tellingly:
“To be able to impersonate another would require a surpassing intelligence, an extraordinary degree of self-control, and an ever-alert discipline: all qualities [Anna] in no way possesses.”
The cause for the greatest doubt and scepticism in Anna’s claim was the argument that she could not even speak a word of the Russian language. However, there are well-documented examples of her having spoken Russian on occasion, using Russian words and phrases, and even speaking fluent Russian “without impediments”. More significantly, when she was addressed in Russian, she understood but would reply in other languages. This peculiar idiosyncrasy was observed so often & by so many witnesses, that it is simply incorrect to suggest that Anna, who ever she was, did not understand Russian. Yet the point was usually overlooked in claims that she did not ‘know’ the Russian language. Her own claim was that she hated speaking the Russian language, because it was the language spoken by those who had killed her family. Even Grand Duchess Olga, who did not believe Anna was Anastasia, wrote in a letter, “Curiously, she seems to understand Russian, but will answer only in German. Not a single Russian word…” She spoke English, German and apparently, on occasion, even French - unusual for an apparently uneducated Polish factory worker.
HEARD ENOUGH YET SHELLIE??!! HEHE!!!!11
I'm sure there's acres & acres of spelling errors in this, but I really can't be stoofed reading over all this to check. After all, no one else will, will they? Eh?!
By stereopop on Saturday, March 31, 2001 - 08:33 pm: |
Thank you for clearing that up.
By Maudlin Histaurin on Saturday, March 31, 2001 - 10:01 pm: |
You're perfectly welcome, my dear. Not that I really answered the question IN FULL!!!11 Ha ha!! *rubs hands evilly together* You better watch out, 'coz Part Deux is comin' up!
By TobyZ on Sunday, April 1, 2001 - 08:43 am: |
I think your time and our's would be better served if you explained to us all what the hell is (and has been) going on in Northern Ireland. I know the basics, and assume even more, but why don't you have a go at it.
By Wateva on Sunday, April 1, 2001 - 09:01 am: |
I bet that this historians busily flipping the pages of a big thick history book.
As a matter of interst, was anyone actually bothered about Anastasia?
By indigo on Sunday, April 1, 2001 - 09:43 am: |
Maudlin Histaulin, you have too much spare time. But then I read the entire thing so what can i say. When i finish my essay on Pitt, Wellington, Ireland and Catholic emancipation in the 19th century, i'll be sure to post a copy.
(and thats a thret, not a promise!)
By Maudlin Histaulin on Sunday, April 1, 2001 - 02:44 pm: |
Thank you for taking the time to read it, Miss Indigo, despite the disdainful verdict.
I don't quite see how it appears to have been construed as an historical essay, though. (Ie, by TobyZed - by the way, are you a Virgo TobyZed? You seem like a ruddy great nit-picker, amongst other things.)
Granted, I initially wrote it for a certain teacher to use as a comprehension exercise, but *sobbing* I TRIED to spice it up for the benefit of all you loveable Copers! I really DID!
To me it is more of an unsolved mystery, ala Loch Ness Monster, though with considerably more substance & basis.
*Meekly* And all I was doing was answering Shellie's question hehe!
By Wateva on Sunday, April 1, 2001 - 02:48 pm: |
One question- did Shellie really want to know? I mean, did any of us actually want to know.
But you have done a great job Maudlin.
Errmm, one more question, where exactly did you spice it up, because I don't think that there was enough of that spice.
By Maudlin Histaulin on Sunday, April 1, 2001 - 04:50 pm: |
I refuse to answer to anybody who all too clearly demonstrates via such a purposefully annoying name that no matter HOW worthy any "rebuttals" to their rudely phrased questions are, he or she is guaranteed to say something rude & rather unimaginative back.
For the record (and we all know that one), I could not give the slightest toss about football, for instance, yet Coping is chock full of rambling diatribes written by the likes of Micky, all about football. Oh, but that's all right, since it's just a "lad" thing, right?
Have a sense of irony, you guileless fool.
By TobyZ on Sunday, April 1, 2001 - 09:31 pm: |
Horoscopes are bullshit. Why don't you go Trepan yourself and be done with it.
And don't badmouth Micky, he makes the rest of us look smart.
By Travis on Sunday, April 1, 2001 - 10:56 pm: |
It's a pathetic indictment of this place when you all get stuck into a person for demonstrating some actual knowledge and intelligence, as opposed to the usual shitty,short and misspelt messages clogging up so many topics here.
Don't mean to insult everyone (you're not ALL culprits) but comeon, give the Maudlin one a break. I love the Anastasia story, but by Christ that Disney movie sucked.
By WaTeVa on Monday, April 2, 2001 - 03:08 am: |
A fool are those who say others are.
i guess a little bit of fun can't hurt anyone.. i mean there has to be a little bit of humour right?
Actually I did want to know about it, and the next day after this topic went up, I did go ask one of my historian friends to tell me, althoughh I never really got to know anythingelse morre than waht was already on this page. That ws due to some people who kept on interrupting. In fact they never went over the argument on whether Anastasia was found or not.
And, I will apologise if my name seemed so purposefully annoying name to anyone. That was not the intended effect. However, I did read that posting of yours, that carefully examined that event, so perhaps, I had phrased my comment rather rudely, but you wouldn't look that polite if I weren't rude, even though I am not.
And The Lad, yeah, don't bad-mouth him. A lot of humour came out from him.
By Travis on Monday, April 2, 2001 - 04:14 am: |
The fate of 'Her Royal Highness', Anastasia Romanov has a romantic potency I've experienced at first-hand. Indulge me, and get this: a bloke who lives down the road from us went around blabbing for years that Anastasia escaped and was his gran, and not this 'Anna Anderson' person at all. She lived in Berlin around the same time as 'Anna Anderson', and he reasoned that Anna must have known his gran, found out her identity, listened to her stories about the royals, memorized them, until low and behold: one fine day she amazed everybody with her "memories".
The only problem was, this bloke actually paid to have his Gran exhumed to see if her skull matched over photo's of Anastasia, using computer imaging...and well, it didn't. Her skull did, however, match quite well over photo's of Maria, Anastasia's prettier but alas, less celebrated sister. So, this bloke triumphantly went to the local papers, declaring that it was actually Maria not Anastasia who escaped, and that since Maria was his gran, she was goddamned ROYALTY, and by extension, so was he. 'Now we're only waiting on the DNA tests,' he commented triumphantly. (Yeah, he even paid for DNA tests.) He got one, sure enough, but the results weren't exactly the type he'd been hoping for: there was no DNA match between his Gran & the Queen's old man (whats his name? Philip?) at all. Last I heard, the guy's been peddling his story on FoxTel.
And they say only in America...
By Maudlin Histaulin on Monday, April 2, 2001 - 01:08 pm: |
Thank-you for clarifying our apparent misunderstanding, Wateva. The way you kept asking if anyone gave a toss about the fate of Anastasia sounded like a put down to me, but who knows? Maybe you meant it in earnest. Sorry I was rude too. I do have a forgiving nature, spice or no spice.
Oh, but Indigoe, give me some credit, please! I didn't sit down and seriously spend hours writing all that, just so I could post it here for the benefit of you lot. Being a part-time student, yes I do have some time on my hands, but not THAT much! I cut'n'pasted it from my 'Essays' folder.
Sorry if I didn't add enough spice.
As for you, Mr Virgoian TobyZed, why don't YOU treat us to an opus regarding the plight of Northern Ireland? I know relatively little about it; this in itself is ironic, but that's another story.
By TobyZ on Monday, April 2, 2001 - 01:31 pm: |
England moved in on Ireland's turf and treated the Irish like shit.
The Irish slowly fought back. . . but in the intervening time, the Northern Irish became indoctrinated/English-ified.
So now the Irish are fighting England and the Northern Irish who caved in and lost the faith.
There.
Not bad ehh? It's called condensing and getting to the fucking point. You should try it sometime.
By The Occifer on Monday, April 2, 2001 - 02:27 pm: |
I'd love to be your sexual partner, Toby zed. A quick rip of undergarment and then a SHOVE-IT-UP-YER-HOLE one or two times and tu-da! Enough of this shilly-shallying about, let's get to the point already! How admirable & wise. If I email you a list of my personal problems, can you give me all the answers just like that, in a similarly glib reductionist fashion? Yeah?
All hail the new Prophet, Toby zed! He knows his shit!
By Maudlin Histaulin on Monday, April 2, 2001 - 02:38 pm: |
I really don't understand why my Anastasia opus has gotten you so riled up, TobyZ, but your thoughts are much appreciated all the same.
If you actually READ the whole of my'work', you'd see that it simply is not the kind of story that can be condensed into a dry synopsis.
Well, it COULD be, but that'd be extremely lazy & a total failure - at least so far as compelling or convincing saga's go. I mean, primarily I was arguing a CASE, not writing an essay on the Russian Revolution.
Yes, I can already predict you barking back in response that my 'Anastasia' effort was boring and verbose, but I don't care, TobyZ, because you sound like a self righteous, aggravating sod. But I love you, underneath it all.
By TobyZ on Monday, April 2, 2001 - 02:45 pm: |
LMAO!
I have a Bachelor's Degree in Advertising and Psychology, so. . . yeah. I probably could solve your many many many personal problems in 30 seconds or less.
By TobyZ on Monday, April 2, 2001 - 02:49 pm: |
And I like you too Maudlin. All I'm saying is that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.
And I've been told I'm a Gemini, which doesn't mean anything to me, but it sounds very Moody Blues so I guess it must be good.
By Maudlin Histaulin on Monday, April 2, 2001 - 06:48 pm: |
Solve my "many, many, many" personal problems for me NOW, TobyZed. I'm not being sarcastic. I'd love it if you'd hit me with a "tough love", honest diagnosis. (You seem like the "tough love" type; am I right?)
Spoonful of sugar? You SEEM to hold the monopoly on ten ton tanks chock full of bad-mannered battery acid thus far. (But this MAY well be a delusion on my part; oh yes, Sirree.)
And all because of a posting largely intended as a long overdue antidote to the self-indulgent, smarmy & incredibly boring postings this site has been cluttered with lately. I truly find it hard to believe you're SERIOUS, but it's a testament to your CHARISMA that I AM at least reading your postings & actually replying. No, really!!
I still love you though, Toby. You seem to know what's shit from what's not. So solve my problems. I'm truly curious to know what you think they are. Love you.
By indigo on Monday, April 2, 2001 - 09:02 pm: |
hi maudlin sorry i havent been back to this topic for a few days. i'm very sorry if I sounded a bit flippant, but my eyes were hurting from all the scrolling (does that make sense?) and I couldnt be bothered to wrie anything longer. I did assume that you hadnt just typed the whole thing out in Coping, which is why I thought it was an essay.
By TobyZ on Tuesday, April 3, 2001 - 01:33 am: |
A small penis seems to be your biggest problem. You feel the need to overcompensate for you 'short cumming' by posting overly long messages.
No offense meant. I just am the tough love type.
By The Occifer on Tuesday, April 3, 2001 - 03:10 am: |
A small penis! A small penis! A small penis, indeed. Yes, Toby zed, even you have outdone yourself this time.
Why, Miss Maudlin's phallus is SO small that I am not sure it even exists!
By TobyZ on Tuesday, April 3, 2001 - 05:59 am: |
Maudlin is a she? No matter. Just insert "Small breasts" for "A small penis". It's the same silly envy that some have with the same emotional debilitations and inferiority complexes.
I don't understand it really, 'cause I tend to prefer small breasted women.
By Scamp on Tuesday, April 3, 2001 - 10:22 am: |
So much for yer powers of perception then, eh Tobster? On yer Occifer! And keep up the good fight, Maudy!
By Wateva on Tuesday, April 3, 2001 - 10:33 am: |
What happened to part deux?
By TobyZ on Tuesday, April 3, 2001 - 04:33 pm: |
Hey, never once did I say I wasn't completely full of shit.
By The Lad {Micky} on Tuesday, April 3, 2001 - 06:27 pm: |
Footy is something of RELEVANCE Maud, you sad fucker (sorry ladies). People love it and I play it and play it damn well too.
And listen right,I reckon I'm a good judge of character, yeah, even one's I can't see, and I reckon there's no way this "Maudlin" dick is a bird! Most ladies are too sweet and sexy to sound that angry and willing to fight, specially not with blokes. It just ain't feminine. No bird would come out with half the wanky, pseudo educated but in truth BORING bollox he writes. No offense ladies, I ain't saying you got no brains, I'm complimenting u on not sounding like a Mr Bean lookalike probably in his late 40s yeah, spending all day in his local library coz he ain't got any mates.
Or if Maud is a bird, she's a dykey looking student minger who wears turtleneck tops, has no humour and no hope of a lad.
By Cheryl on Wednesday, April 4, 2001 - 09:32 am: |
I wear turtle necks too Mickyds
u only wear my undies.
By Bree on Thursday, April 5, 2001 - 08:25 am: |
Marie said you're a prostitute.
By Anne Boleyn's Last Letter To Henry VIII on Friday, April 6, 2001 - 03:29 pm: |
Your grace's displeasure and my imprisonment are things so strange to me, that what to write, or what to excuse, I am altogether ignorant. Whereas you send to me (willing me to confess a truth and thus obtain your favor), by such a one, whom you know to be my ancient professed enemy, I no sooner received this message by him, than I rightly conceived your meaning; and if, as you say, confessing a truth indeed may procure my safety, I shall with all willingness and duty, perform your duty. But let not your grace ever imagine that your poor wife will be brought to acknowledge a fault, where not so much as a thought ever proceeded. And to speak a truth, never a prince had wife more loyal in all duty, and in all true affection, than you have ever found in Anne Boleyn - with which name and place I could willingly have contented myself, if God and your grace's pleasure had been so pleased.
Neither did I at any time so far forget myself in my exaltation or received queenship, but that I always looked for such alteration as I now find; for the ground of my preferment being on no surer foundation than your grace's fresh fancy, the least alteration was fit and sufficient (I knew) to draw that fancy to some other subject.
You have chosen me from low estate to be your queen and companion, far beyond my desert or desire; if, then, you found me worthy of such honor, good your grace, let not any light fancy or bad counsel of my enemies withdraw your princely favor from me; neither let that stain - that unworthy stain - of a disloyal heart towards your good grace ever cast so foul a blot on me, and on the infant princess Elizabeth, our daughter.
Try me, good king, but let me have a lawful trial, and let not my sworn enemies sit as my accusers and as my judges; yea, let me receive an open trial, for my truth shall fear no open shame. Then you shall see either my innocency cleared, your suspicions and conscience satisfied, the ignominy and slander of the world stopped, or my guilt openly declared. So that, whatever God and you may determine of, your grace may be freed from an open censure; and my offense being so lawfully proved, your grace may be at liberty, both before God and man, not only to execute worthy punishment on me as an unfaithful wife but to follow your affection already settled - on that party for whose sake I am now here, whose name I could some while since have pointed unto - your grace being not ignorant of my suspicions therein. But if you have already determined of me, and that not only my death, but an infamous slander must bring you the joying of your desired happiness, then I desire of God that He will pardon your great sin herein, and likewise my enemies, the instruments thereof; I desire that He will not call you to a strait account for your unprincely and cruel usage of me at his general judgment-seat, where both you and myself must shortly appear; and in whose just judgment, I doubt not (whatsoever the world may think of me), mine innocency shall be openly known and sufficiently cleared.
My last and only request shall be, that myself only bear the burden of your grace's displeasure, and that it may not touch the innocent souls of those poor gentlemen, whom, as I understand, are likewise in strait imprisonment for my sake. If ever I have found favor in your sight - if ever the name of Anne Boleyn has been pleasing in your ears - then let me obtain this request; and so I will leave to trouble your grace any further, with mine earnest prayer to the Trinity to have your grace in his good keeping, and to direct you in all your actions.
From my doleful prison in the Tower, this 6th May,
Anne, Queen of England.
That one's for YOU, TobyZed
MaudlinHistaulin
By TobyZ on Saturday, April 7, 2001 - 10:28 am: |
Ha Ha Ha! I believe the words that come to mind are 'Suck me sideways'?
Oops, that's not nice. . . oh well, too late : P
By Fried~Butter on Sunday, April 8, 2001 - 03:35 am: |
I agree with TobyZ.
Maudlin stole my ~ squiggle, not to mention my masterplan to explain Anastasia's escape using Tobster's highly sensible condensing method.
TobyZ, I hate to whinge, & I always hate it when people post remarks like these, but why won't you reply to my email? Are my breasts too large?
By Fried~Butter on Sunday, April 8, 2001 - 03:58 am: |
I only just noticed & feel corny even pointing it out ~ but poor old Kurt Cobain, eh? Seven years today.
That was a truly lovely day for me, not because I disliked Kurt, but because it was the day someone I'd had a crush on for about four years actually paid me significant attention. I don't think I was even eleven years old ~ I must have been a little precocious, I guess.
The boy in question was deeply distressed over Kurt. I do recall saying, "I wonder what will happen to Courtney and Frances Bean?" He looked at me like I was the opposite of civilisation for a moment, and replied, "They were showing news footage of her and she had MAKE~UP on. She's such a bitch." Then, he added triumphantly: "You're going to see a headline that she's dead within a year though, thank fuck. She's a junkie just as bad as Kurt. Bet your life."
I'm glad I didn't.
By TobyZ on Sunday, April 8, 2001 - 05:03 am: |
Uhhhhhh. . . I think you scare me in general : )
Large breasts would just be the icing on the mammary.
By Fried~Butter on Monday, April 9, 2001 - 02:01 pm: |
Awww Tobster. Your displeasure is so strange to me, that what to write, or what to think, I am altogether ignorant. There's no icing on MY mammaries!
I'm sorry for scaring you. ("Boo!")
But after all, you've got one of those irritating email fonts that make it look like you've written a lot more then you actually have (not to slag the actual content) ~ so maybe all's well that ends well.
By TobyZ on Tuesday, April 10, 2001 - 01:23 am: |
What I write is usually more than it's mere physical phonetical construction. I'm, like, ya know, deep and stuff. . . yeah : |
By Ian on Sunday, April 15, 2001 - 08:07 pm: |
I didn't realise we could post history essays on this board to piss off fellow blur fans! With this in mind, here is a small extract from my A-Level coursework, "War is the locomotive of change ya da ya da" It is a work in progress and so any mistakes should be regarded as temporary.
It was Trotsky who said war is the locomotive of history, especially if the war is unsuccessful. The major effect of losing the Crimean War for Russia was that for the first time the Tsardom as a system of leadership was really questioned. Russia had seen little democratic development down the years- the Tsar was believed to be divinely appointed, a view that had long been abandoned in many other major European countries. It had undergone periods of harsh censorship, travel restrictions, and the secret police were often active. It had also been relatively untouched by the 1848 revolutions, and so the Crimean War came as a bit of a culture shock- and the Russian autocracy recognised the need to modernise somewhat in Russia. The war had highlighted many aspects of Russian inadequacy, which simply had to change. The political and economic system was afflicted with severe venality, for example some paymasters received a percentage of every military unit’s payroll, and a few contractors had sold shoddy materials and rotten food to the armed forces for extortionate rates. The transport system was found to be severely lacking (as shall be discussed later), and at the root of all the defects was the total malignancy of Serfdom.
It was Alexander II, the ‘Tsar Liberator’ who introduced some social reform in Russia, due to the surprise of the Crimean defeat. These ranged from the establishment of Zemstvo- a system of local self-government to a reformed judiciary. There were also hugely significant education reforms- a relaxation on books and periodicals, and the basis for entry into secondary schools was widened (which had previously been used exclusively by the nobility). These reform led to a more politically educated peasant class, one that wanted further change. Although these claims were ignored by the extremely repressive Alexander III, appointed in 1881, the Russians were now more informed about the position they were in, and perhaps had repercussions many years later (although other factors undeniably played a part). Another crucial reform in the aftermath of the Crimean War was the 1861 emancipation of the Serfs, for now there was no more slavery in Europe.
The Crimean War split the Holy Alliance (the rule which meant the monarchs of Russia, Prussia and Austria were to undertake as the precepts of the Christian religion as a sole guide) when Austria chose to side with Britain and France. This split helped reshape central Europe- Russian non-involvement as Austria were defeated by France in Italy (1859) and by Prussia in the Seven Weeks’ War (1866) proved crucial as both Italy and Germany unification was made possible by the two.
It could certainly be argued that the Crimean War was a locomotive for change in Russia, had they won the war their high status in Europe would have been maintained. This is in comparison with France, where victory for Napoleon III meant he held on to power, defeat would have resulted in the end (ironically, defeat in the Franco-Prussian War later sealed his fate) and the fact that although in Britain the war destroyed a government, there was no major social or political upheaval. This accentuates the certitude that war is a locomotive of change, but the difference between winning and losing can also prove immense. Despite the huge tasks that lay ahead for Russia the war was not disastrous enough for the ruling bureaucracy to suffer a huge loss of power. Nevertheless, Russia’s position in Europe did change significantly- for nearly a century. It had been a very powerful country, yet was now one among several Great Powers as France and even Austria were now her equals. The new German Empire (1870) proved to be on a par with Russia as well, if not stronger. The defeat in the war meant Russia would never be as powerful as it once was whilst a Tsar remained ruling her.
The war inevitably had consequences in Britain, though as already mentioned not on the same scale as Russia. The 1854-55 Sebastopol campaign exposed the fact that the British army was badly organised and supplied, and the Times’ William Howard Russell (the first ‘on the spot’ war correspondent) wrote damning newspaper articles about the intolerable conditions for the army in the war, whilst Karol de Szathmari and Roger Fenton were the first war photographers. The new communications meant that war could never be seen it the way it once was- the unglamorous and deplorable aspects of it could now be bought to a person’s doorstep. The reports helped to inspire Florence Nightingale to organise a group of nurses to serve in the Crimean War, where she found that the majority of soldiers were dying from disease rather than warfare. She implemented more sanitary conditions into the British hospital in which she was working and the death rate fell by 43%. Later she established a nursing school after returning to England, and is now regarded as the founder of modern nursing. The reports of Russell also proved to be key catalysts in the fall of Aberdeen and his government in 1855, he resigned after the carrying of Roebuck’s motion for a committee of inquiry into the conduct of the war. Subsequent to the resignation of Aberdeen came the establishment of a War Department, which handled military issues in a manner that was a lot more organised than before. This highlights the fact that war can certainly be a ‘locomotive of change’, not just in determining who is in power but in the case of Florence Nightingale, changing society for the better. Yet a counter-argument arises from the Crimean War, although Britain was successful, many of its gains proved to be short-lived- evidence of the fact that war can not change everything? Three examples in particular indicate this fact- Moldavia and Wallachia had been banned from unifying by Britain after the war, yet in 1858 the pair did unite and eventually became Romania. Secondly, the Turkish Sultan’s promise to Britain that he would improve the treatment of Christian subjects in his country was never implemented, and the demilitarisation of the Black Sea imposed by Britain ended in 1870, at the time of the Franco-Prussian War.
Like the Crimean War, the Boer War eventually took its toll on a British government. Unlike the Crimea, it also signalled the death of an entire political theory- Imperialism. Britain’s empire was world-encompassing and of the highest prestigious value entering the 20th Century, ‘the Empire on which the sun never sets’. Yet no event in history did more to damage the prestige of Imperialism than the war with the Boers did. By the end of the war in 1902 440,000 had been sent to Africa to overcome an army which never numbered more than 35,000 at any stage of the conflict. From hereafter, governments and the public would be less willing to accept the idea that actively extending boundaries of the Empire was the correct thing to do. After all there was a lot to suggest it wasn’t- Joseph Chamberlain, the Colonial Secretary, had claimed that the maltreatment of black Africans in the Transvaal was a justification for war, which contrasted with the fact that Balfour’s Government imported tens of thousands of Chinese ‘coolies’ into the Transvaal for Kaffir labour. When the Treaty of Vereeniging was signed with the Boers, the claims that the British were fighting for equality was further undermined by the fact that Article 8 deprived the blacks of political rights for nearly a century. The British had, in effect, overseen the groundwork for apartheid. The Boer War was also damaging to Imperialism through Kitchener’s horrendous use of concentration camps, the Boers only lost about 4,000 men in actual warfare, yet 20,000 civilians died from disease in the camps. Great Britain had perhaps never looked less ‘Great’.
The war changed more in Britain than just the idea of Imperialism, it was also a factor in political thinking. Although Salisbury had used the patriotism generated by the war in 1900 to help win the general election, the Conservatives lost to a Liberal landslide in 1906, a result that signalled years in the wilderness for them (yet they came back in the days of Baldwin, and dominated 20th Century politics- the war should be regarded as a blip in the history of the Conservatives rather than signalling permanent change), the conflict in Africa being an agent for this, though Balfour had also been criticised for various aspects of his domestic policy. The Liberals had obtained the working class vote, and although they did not claim they would introduce social reform, the Boer War had helped show that such a thing was a national imperative. It exposed not only military deficiencies, but also deficiencies within the political and social system- similar to Russia and the Crimean War. The undeniable fact was that recruits during the war were unfit, for example 8000 out of 12,000 volunteers in Manchester were rejected for military service, and only 1200 were fully fit. The findings of the Committee on Physical Deterioration of the Labouring Classes had shown that from 1893-1903, 34.6% of volunteers for military service throughout the country had been rejected. As a result of these findings, the committee stressed the need for free school meals and medical inspections, both of which were implemented by the end of 1907.
Yet the Boer War was not the only factor in the introduction of social reform- far from it. The emergence of a Labour Party to represent working class people in parliament, their pact with the Liberals, important social surveys by both Charles Booth and Seebohm Rowntree, and the move towards ‘New Liberalism’ were undoubtedly huge factors in the move towards reform as well, and ones that suggest such a thing was inevitable. It had been shown that Britain had a lack of allies in the world and that to survive Britain would need a stronger and perhaps more educated working class. There were concerns regarding National Efficiency when compared to Germany (who already had a system of social welfare, and a superior education system) and America. The Boer War highlighted the problems in a manner that politicians as well as the general public would find hard to ignore. It is in many ways the perfect example of how war can accelerate change rather than cause it outright.
By Hot, Fresh Soup on Monday, April 16, 2001 - 02:25 pm: |
That's interesting, Ian. My sole criticism, and it isn't even so much a criticism as a "warning" ~ at my uni we might get slagged for describing a country as "her". But then, things are jolly too politically correct over here.
By Maudlin Histaulin on Tuesday, April 17, 2001 - 11:50 am: |
In the Tower of London, large as life,
The ghost of Anne Boleyn walks day & night
Poor Anne Boleyn was once King Henry's wife
Until he made the headsman spill her gore.
Ah yes, he did her wrong, long, years ago
And she comes up at night to tell him so
With her head tucked underneath her arm,
She walks the Bloody Tower;
With her head tucked underneath her arm,
At the midnight hour
She comes to haunt King Henry; she means giving him what for ~
She's gonna tell him off for having spilt her gore
And just in case the headsman wants to give her an encoré
She has her head tucked underneath her arm.
Along the draughty corridors, for miles and miles she goes
She often catches cold, poor thing,
And it's awfully awkward for Queen Anne to blow her ruddy nose
With her head tucked underneath her arm.
Sometimes late King Henry gives a spread
The headsman carves the joints and cuts the bread
Then in comes Anne Boleyn to join the gloom.
She holds her head up with a wild, "WAHOOP!"
And Henry cries, "Don't drop it in the soup!"
The sentries think it's a football that she carries in
And when they've had a few, they shout, "Is Arsenal going to win?"
(They think it's Damon Albarn, not poor old Anne Boleyn
With her head tucked underneath her arm.)
She walks the Bloody Tower at the midnight hour
One night she caught King Henry, he was in the canteen bar
Snapped he, "Are you Jane Seymour, Anne Boleyn or Katharine Parre?
For how the bloody hell can I see who you are?
With your head tucked underneath your arm."
By Scamp on Wednesday, July 11, 2001 - 12:57 am: |
Oi Anastasia! I meant to tell you, I found a website all about the 'riddle' of HIH Anastasia Romanov, complete with photo comparisons, handwriting samples etc etc. I hope you haven't seen it already.
But geez, to those of you who slagged Ana's 'essay' up above, believe me, hers is genius compared to the prose of the guy who wrote this website, though his evidence is interesting,
especially the scientific stuff. Spot on at least to we lovers of conspiracy theories. Speaking of conspiracy theories, anyone see the documentary about Marilyn Monroe's spooky final hours the other night? Creepy.
Oh, the 'Anastasia DID survive' website is at
http://www.concentric.net/~Tsarskoe/
Btw, Occifer, your last post on this topic was hilarious. My sister laughed out loud at it, as did I.
By 'The Great Whore' on Thursday, July 12, 2001 - 01:47 am: |
I am here to die, according to the law, and by the law I am judged to die, and therefore I will speak nothing against it... I pray God save the King and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there never: and to me he was ever a good, a gentle and sovereign lord. If I have indeed offended His Majesty in life, surely with my death I do now atone.
I do not pretend I have always shown him that humility which his goodness to me merited. I admit I have had jealous rages and held suspicions of him, which I had not the discretion nor the wisdom to conceal. Yet if any person shall meddle with my case, I should hope that they shall judge for the best. And thus I take my leave of the world and of you all, and I heartily desire you all to pray for me.
O Lord have mercy on me, O Christ receive my spirit!
By Bree on Thursday, July 12, 2001 - 04:26 am: |
Marie said you're a prostitute. Now it has been proven.
By oldie on Thursday, July 12, 2001 - 06:35 pm: |
Marie is a drycleaner.
By Pipi on Thursday, July 12, 2001 - 09:26 pm: |
oldie is a cabdriver
By Maudlin Histaulin: The Revenge on Sunday, October 7, 2001 - 03:55 am: |
Anna and Anastasia shared a remarkable array of physical similarities. Anna had ‘a small white scar on the left shoulder blade’ resembling that of a cauterised mole. Grand Duchess Anastasia had a mole cauterised on her left shoulder blade when she was aged fifteen, in order to wear ball-gowns with straps rather then sleeves. Both also suffered from a minor deformity of the feet, congenital in nature and known as hallux valgus. In both women, the condition was far more pronounced in the right foot then the left. Amongst the various scars Anna claimed emanated from being shot and bayoneted she bore, behind the right ear, a scar ‘three and a half centimetres long and lengthened by a troughlike indentation into which the finger slides when touching it’. A ‘star shaped’ scar through the right foot, was also confirmed by medical experts to “correspond in shape and appearance to the mark that would be left by the triangular~pointed bayonets used by the Bolsheviks during the Russian revolution”. A doctor who treated Anna in the 1920's would testify that head X-Rays had shown strong signs of a skull fracture. Unfortunately by that time (the 1960s) the X-Rays no longer existed. Sceptics who testified at Anna's 'trial' countered that the scars were quite possibly self-inflicted, to make Anna's claim to identity seem more impressive, as indeed it seemed to.
In the absence of fingerprints and dental records and prior to the advent of DNA, ears were considered an excellent method of identification(and still are, particularly where DNA is not available). From exhaustive photographic comparisons, anthropologists found that Anna and Grand Duchess Anastasia’s ears matched at “seventeen anatomical points”, five more then is necessary to establish identity, under German and American law. One famous anthropologist, Dr. Otto Reche, testified in court that Anastasia and Anna Anderson had to be either the same person or identical twins.
Graphologists, who were not paid for their testimony, also swore that Anna was Anastasia.
Finally the court declared itself unable to decide one way or another, and ruled that their decision must be regarded as “unsatisfactory to both parties.” Even so, in 1977 a prominent forensic scientist, Dr. Moritz Furtmayr, identified Anna as Anastasia - he was only one of many scientists to recently affirm that, if one accepts that DNA has definitely proven Anna an impostor, she was an almost miraculously lucky one. As recently as 1997, forensic anthropologist Dr. William Maples also confirmed the extraordinary similarity between Anna and Anastasia’s ears.
hehe
By nat on Saturday, October 20, 2001 - 12:45 am: |
so her DNA test was false? (after anna died, they compared the DNA from a piece of her intestine they had kept from a previous operation with some DNA from one of the living relatives, or something like that ... it was in this children's book i read this summer, red covered, full of pictures anastasia had taken, etc. quite interesting, if general)
By Maudlin Histaurlin on Wednesday, October 31, 2001 - 08:28 am: |
Yep, that's right Nat. However, three DNA tests were done - one on the old bit of intestine, one on hair found in an envelope bearing the words: 'Hair of Princess Anastasia', and a blood sample. These all supposedly emanated from Anna Anderson. None of the samples matched with the DNA taken from the Romanov bones, yet only the hair and tissue sample matched each other, whilst the blood sample showed a different DNA type altogether. So whilst most historians concluded that Anna had merely been the most astonishing impostor of the 20th Century, the different results of the DNA tests strongly suggest that at least one of the samples could not possibly have been hers. Whilst not proving Anna was Anastasia, for her DNA to show two different results does mean at least one, if not both, had to have been false and therefore unreliable. So the mystery lingers hehe.
By Scamp! on Sunday, February 3, 2002 - 06:08 am: |
Last week at Elizabeth's Secondhand Book World I came across a decrepit old book about this.
I think it was called La False Anastasia.