Romanov claimants
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A number of people have claimed to be members of the Imperial Russian family that was, by most accounts, killed by Bolsheviks in Ekaterinburg, Russia on July 17, 1918.
Remains were found in the forest outside Ekaterinburg in 1991 that have been identified through DNA testing as the Romanovs and their servants. The Romanovs were later buried in St. Petersburg in 1998 and have been declared passion bearers by the Russian Orthodox Church. However, two sets of remains were missing from the mass grave. Scientists identified the missing family members as Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich of Russia, who was a few weeks shy of his fourteenth birthday at the time of the mass killing, and either Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia or Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia, who were seventeen and nineteen respectively at the time of the killings. The report of two missing bodies continues to fuel speculation that one or more members of the family could have survived.
On August 23, 2007, a Russian archaeologist announced the discovery of two burned, partial skeletons at a bonfire site near Yekaterinburg that appeared to match the site described in Yurovsky's memoirs. The archaeologists said the bones are from a boy who was roughly between the ages of ten and thirteen years at the time of his death and of a young woman who was roughly between the ages of eighteen and twenty-three years old. Anastasia was seventeen years, one month old at the time of the assassination, while her sister Maria was nineteen years, one month old and her brother Alexei was two weeks shy of his fourteenth birthday. Anastasia's elder sisters Olga and Tatiana were twenty-two and twenty-one years old at the time of the assassination. Along with the remains of the two bodies, archaeologists found "shards of a container of sulfuric acid, nails, metal strips from a wooden box, and bullets of various caliber". The bones were found using metal detectors and metal rods as probes.[1]
Preliminary testing indicated a "high degree of probability" that the remains belong to the Tsarevich Alexei and to one of his sisters, Russian forensic scientists announced on January 22, 2008.[2] The Yekaterinburg region's chief forensic expert Nikolai Nevolin indicated the results will be compared against those obtained by foreign experts and a final report could be issued by April or May of 2008.[3] On April 30, 2008, Russian forensic scientists announced that DNA testing proves that the remains belong to the Tsarevich Alexei and to one of his sisters. [4] With this result, all of the Tsar's family are accounted for.
Anastasia's survival stories have always been the most famous, inspiring dozens of books and films.[5]
Contents |
[edit] Anastasia claimants
Some of the people who have claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia are:
- Anna Anderson, by far the most famous claimant, appeared in 1920 in Berlin, Germany and died in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1984;
- Eugenia Smith, appeared in Chicago in 1963 and died there in 1997.
- Eleonora Kruger, died in a Bulgarian village;
- Natalya Petrovna Bilikhodze, appeared in 1995 and went to Russia in 2002 to "claim the Romanov fortune."
- Nadezhda Vasilyeva, appeared in the 1920's in Russia and died there in a Kazan mental ward in 1971.[6]
- A man named Anatoly Ionov claims to be Anastasia's son.
[edit] Alexei claimants
Several men who claimed to be Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich of Russia.
- Georgi Zhudin, died in a Bulgarian village.
- Heino Tammet, died in 1977 in Vancouver, Canada.
- Michael Goleniewski, a CIA agent who in 1959 claimed to be the Tsarevich.
- Others were Alexei Poutziato, Joseph Veres, and Vasily Filatov. Author Michael Gray (an alias adopted by the Northern Irish teacher) claimed in his book Blood Relative that the Tsarevich escaped with the Dowager Empress aboard the warship HMS Marlborough in 1919 and later assumed the name Nikolai Chebotarev. In the book, Gray claims he is the illegitimate son of the Tsarevich and Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent.[7]
[edit] Olga, Tatiana and Maria claimants
- Marga Boodts claimed to be the Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia.
- Others have claimed that Larissa Tudor might have been Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia.[8]
- It has been claimed that a woman named Granny Alina might have been Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia.
- A man named Alexis Brimeyer claimed to be Maria's grandson.[9]
[edit] Other claimants
- Suzanna Catharina de Graaff was a Dutch woman who claimed to be the fifth daughter of Nicholas and Alexandra, born in 1903 when Alexandra was reported to have had a "hysterical pregnancy".[10] It should be noted that there are no official or private records of Alexandra giving birth to any child at this time.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Gutterman, Steve (2007). "Remains of czar heir may have been found". Retrieved on August 24, 2007.
- ^ Interfax (2008). "Suspected remains of tsar's children still being studied". Retrieved on January 23, 2008.
- ^ RIA Novosti (2008). "Remains found in Urals likely belong to Tsar's children". Retrieved on January 23, 2008.
- ^ Eckel, Mike (2008). " DNA confirms IDs of czar's children". yahoo.com. Retrieved on April 30.
- ^ New Page 1
- ^ Massie, Robert, The Romanovs: The Final Chapter, 1995, pp. 145-149
- ^ Gray, Michael, Blood Relative, 1998, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, ISBN 0575066083
- ^ Massie (1995), pp. 145-149
- ^ Massie (1995), pp. 145-149
- ^ Lovell, James Blair, Anastasia: The Lost Princess, Regnery Gateway, 1991
