Cult of Anastasia fueled personal, political fantasies

ON July 17, 1918, the former czar and czarina of Russia were slain with their five children, three servants and faithful physician, Dr. Yevgeny Botkin, in a cellar room of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg. It was so brutal and absolute a crime -- setting such a gruesome precedent for Russian politics -- that many Russians, both in exile and at home, refused to believe reports of it. The slaughter of the entire family felt unreal. In the ensuing months, rumors surfaced of the survival of one or more daughters of the czar, the four grand duchesses: Tatiana, some thought, or Marie, or Olga, but most often Anastasia, the impish youngest daughter.

Into this girl-shaped void stepped Franziska Schanzkowska, a Polish factory worker born in 1896 and, as “Anna Anderson,” the most famous of the Anastasia Romanov pretenders. Anna inspired plays, novels and movies, and she was dubbed “the reigning enigma of Europe” by the New York Herald Tribune. Her amazing -- at times, jaw-dropping -- story is recounted in Frances Welch’s “A Romanov Fantasy.”

Fished by a policeman from the Landwehr Canal in Berlin after an apparent suicide attempt, Franziska was checked into the Dalldorf Asylum as Fraulein Unbekannt (“Miss Unknown”) in February 1920. We know her identity only from later research: There was nothing in her pockets; there were no labels in her clothes. She spoke to no one for six months. She learned the value of silence at the asylum, however, since her mute, albeit somewhat grand manner excited the attention of a fellow inmate, Clara Peuthert. On reading a newspaper article speculating on the survival of one of the grand duchesses, Clara accused Franziska of being Tatiana Romanov.

Soon the patient’s “true” identity emerged. She had never said she was Tatiana, she explained. She was Anastasia. Clara became the first convert to the cult of Anastasia, and, like many to follow, threw herself into the effort to establish her friend’s claim. She enlisted Russian refugees in her cause and found elegant hosts for Anastasia (now called Anna), who soon proved to be a contrary and demanding houseguest. Eventually Anna would be brought together with Gleb Botkin, a childhood playmate of Anastasia’s and the son of Dr. Botkin, who was serving the Romanovs when he died. No one needed Anastasia to have survived as much as Gleb Botkin did. His recognition of Anna as Anastasia made the entire farrago possible.

The Anastasia phenomenon depended not only on grief and wishful thinking but on preconceptions (and, in some cases, first-hand knowledge) about the behavior and bearing of Russian royalty. A stickler for aristocratic protocol, the haughty and capricious Anna seemed every inch a princess -- specifically, a princess of about 10 years of age, as Anastasia was when Gleb Botkin first met her. Among her supporters, Anna’s imperiousness was regarded as potent evidence of her aristocratic upbringing. Berlin police inspector Franz Grunberg, who was her host for five months in 1925, wrote that he had “come to the firm conviction that she is a lady from the highest circles of Russian society and that she is most probably of princely birth. Every one of her words and movements reveals so lofty a dignity and so absolutist a bearing that it cannot be asserted she has acquired these characteristics in later life.” There were also marked physical similarities between Anna and Anastasia, including a malformation of the foot called hallux valgus.

Although Anna did not convince the czarina’s sister, Princess Irene, who was probably Anastasia’s closest surviving relative, Anna’s claim to whatever remained of the Romanov fortune was weighty enough to result in the longest-running German court case of the 20th century, which in the end went against her. DNA tests after Anna’s death in 1984 found no relationship between her and the Romanovs, but “a 100 percent match, an absolute identity” with a relative of Franziska Schanzkowska’s.

“A Romanov Fantasy” is a conscientious and often riveting account of Anna’s story, but Welch resists interpreting Anna’s motives or mental condition. In a rare analytical passage, the author explains that “it is difficult to know to what extent Franziska was able to gauge the effect of this decision” -- to assume the identity of Anastasia Romanov -- “upon the rest of her life. . . . There is every likelihood that she simply dimly grasped the idea that her life, and the lives of everybody around her, would be richer were she Anastasia. A fantasy soon solidified into belief.”

This hands-off approach to Anna’s inner life would be more satisfying if Welch had left her readers in suspense for a while about Anna’s actual identity. But we are quickly told that Anna was Franziska. Like one of those magicians who lets you in on the secret of the lady sawed in half, Welch doesn’t waste a word sustaining the Anna illusion. This flattens our perceptions of Anna and her courtiers -- to the point where they seem only laughable eccentrics with a bent for empire. What saves the book -- as he “saved” Anna -- is Gleb Botkin, whose suffering is the real thing.

Regina Marler is at work on a life of Edgar Allan Poe.