Could you tell me all about Anastasia Romanov?

Question

Thanks...

Can someone give me a REALLY REALLY REALLY long answer pleez? Thanx....

And this isn't my homework. If it was my homework, it would be under "Homework Help".

Answer 1

Anastasia, was the youngest daughter of Nicholas and Alexandra. She was the jokester of the family who liked to play pranks on people and was the enfant terrible of the family. Anastasia and her older sister, Maria, were known in the household as the "Little Pair", being the younger sisters. As well as their older sisters, they shared a bedroom and Anastasia dominated her older sister with her energy and enthusiam.

She was very short and thin but during the family's captivity, she became plumper and her mental development had slowed down. Even though she was living through a horrible time, she still managed to entertain her family during a performance. Anastasia took the male lead and she was supposed to turn her back and open her dressing gown. The tail of the gown went up to her back, showing her wearing her father's underwear.

Most people believe that Anastasia died with her family on July 16/17, 1918 but there have been claims that she had survived. The most famous was Anna Anderson, who claimed to be Anastasia. It was later proved that Anna wasn't the Grand Duchess. Anastasia would have been 17 years old when she died.

Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaievna Romanova was born June 5th 1901 (Russian Calendar) in Peterhopf, Russia to Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna Romanova and her husband Tsar Nikolai Alexandrovitch Romanov II. Anastasia was named after a Montenegrin Princess,a close friend of the Tsaritsa, the name meaning: "She who would rise again". Anastasia had inherited her father's deep blue eyes, for which the Tsar was famous for. She had golden hair with a tint of her mother's amberish red hair color. Although she was the youngest of four daughters: Olga, Tatiana, and Marie, Anastasia proved to be quite short for her age. None of the four Grand Duchesses could ever rule Russia due to a law that proclaimed only male heirs could inherit the throne- and thus the Imperial family along with all of Russia waited for a son. (The law against matriarchal rule had been ordered by Tsar Paul who hated his mother Tsaritsa Catherine the Great and out of this hatred he forbade any women from ever ruling the country again)

In 1904, a son was finally born into the Imperial family, he was named Alexei. The boy was born with the dreaded "royal" disease, haemophilia, a blood disease in which a cut or bruise could threaten the boy's life. (His mother, Alexandra, had inherited the gene for the disease through her mother's mother: Queen Victoria of England) The illness was kept secret from the world, only a few trusted servants and family members knew the true extent of the danger. The Tsaritsa's friend Anastasia, for whom the Grand Duchess was named after, and her sister Militsa, were made aware of the young boy's illness and became determined to help him. The two sisters were parlor entertainers, often having socialites and royalty over to their home and inviting mystics and "holy" men to entertain their guests through phrophecy and stories. They thought that out of the hundreds of people they had met one could help the ailing boy. One in particular stuck out in their minds, his name: Grigorii Yefemovitch Rasputin. He was from the town of Prokovskoe near the Tobolsk Province in deep Siberia. He was a typical Russian "Mujnik" or peasant. He wore baggy clothes, and a string belt around his waist. His hair was uncombed and his beard unkept. Yet, despite his haggard appearence he was very well received by some of Russia's upper society who were mesmirized by his hypnotic eyes and the tales of his healing powers. The Tsaritsa, a very religious woman herself, welcomed the man into the palace, only to find that his claims, that he could soothe her son's pains, to be true. "Rasputin", (the name means crossroads) would from that day become a member of the Imperial suite. He visited the palaces rarely but often corresponded by letter, (though he was nearly illiterate), and by telegraph. Rasputin was a known womanizer and since Alexei's illness was kept secret from the country, speculation arose that the Tsaritsa was having an affair with the "Mad Monk". The Grand Duchesses who saw him rarley considered him a very holy, nearly saintly, man. They called him: "Father Grigorii", though he held no real Religious title. Rasputin would prove a lasting threat to the monarchy due to the rumours and blatant lies which spread across the country.

Anastasia, along with her siblings,was tutored by various foreign tutors in:French, English, German, Mathematics, Art, Russian, Religion (Russian Orthodoxy), and Music. Anastasia found studies a bore and would often be found outside and up a tree rather than studing like her older sisters. Anastasia excelled in knitting, and made it well known that she was the best amoungst the four daughters. Anastasia was a "enfant terrible" according to her French tutor Pierre Gilliard. As a small child she loved to kick and pinch when she didn't get her way. Yet, as she grew older she became less and less of a pain and more and more the family comedienne. Anastasia loved to play tricks and games. When playing hide-and-go-seek with her friend, Gleb Botkin who was the son of the Imperial physcian, she once took off her shoes and placed them under the edge of some of the palace's curtains, and then ran into another room to watch Gleb be fooled by her clever plot.

The family lived in palaces throughout Russia and Poland, including: the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg (Then the Capital of Russia), Livadia in the Crimea where the family spent their summers,a hunting lodge in Spala, Poland where the Tsar himself enjoyed hunting, the Imperial quarters in the Kremlin where, in 1913, they stayed during the 300th anniversary of the Romanov's rule of Russia, and their main home in the Alexandre Palace in Tsarskoe Selo, which means Tsar's village, just outside of Saint Petersburg. The family would often be found going to official ceremonies or church dedications, on one such event Anastasia upon entering a carriage had a footman accidently close the door on her left hand. It caused her a great deal of pain but the fingers which had been caught remained intact.

Like the other Grand Duchesses Anastasia had a nurse, Alexandra Tegleva, whom Anastasia called Shura (The rest of the family called her Sascha) Anastasia would often force her nurse to put on large quantities of perfume, since she always wanted her to smell like a "bouquet of flowers". Anastasia, who loved animals, had two parrots, which she kept at the Alexandre Palace. She had several dogs throughout her life. Her last dog, was a small lap dog who died of an apparent brain anuerysm. Anastasia was even given a cow by the President of France. The entire family adored having all sorts of animals, the Tsar had an angora cat, the Tsaritsa had several favourite lap dogs, Tatiana had a small French Bulldog named Ortino and a small dog by the name of Jemmy who was a gift from Ania Vyrobova., Olga had Vanya the cat, and Alexei had a small baby elephant which was kept on the grounds of the Imperial park at the Alexandre Palace. They also had guinea pigs throughout the palace. The family would often travel to Finland (Then owned by Russia) on their Imperial yacht the Standart. They would go ashore to their "island" and would take long walks with each other and the Standart officers. The girls would often go mushroom hunting with their father and swim along the shore. Once after swimming one of the officiers noticed a large mole on Anastasia's back, he joked that it was so big that if she ever went missing it wouldn't be hard to find her since she was "branded" by the mark. As usual Anastasia thought this to be hilarious.

In 1914, Anastasia had her feet looked at by some Russian doctors and surgeons, it was determined that she had the congential foot deformity, Hallux Vulgus, in which the large toe turns inwards towards the other toes on the same foot. Anastasia's right foot was worse than her left, yet the doctors decided not to operate on them figuring they were not severe enough to risk surgery. Shortly thereafter, war was declared and Russia was pulled into WWI. Russia was poorly prepared and equipped for war. Ammunition and guns were scarce. After horrrific losses at the front the Tsar himself became commander-in-chief and went to Mogilev to lead the army. Alexei went with his father to the front along with several of the Imperial tutors. Back in Tsarskoe Selo the Tsaritsa had converted parts of the Catherine Palace, which was near their own Alexandre Palace, into a army hospital, she along with her eldest two daughters, Olga and Tatiana, became fully certified Red Cross nurses. They would assist in surgerys and amputations. Anastasia and her older sister, Marie, were too young to become nurses, yet they became patrons of their own hospital which was created out of a church which was in the Imperial Park. Here the two Duchesses would play cards, or billiards with the wounded soldiers. Anastasia, always the photographer, often took pictures of the soldiers and her sister. The Tsaritsa asked that Felix Dassel, who was a wounded soldier, to stay on after he recovered to watch over the girls during their visits. The girls would help some of the soldiers to learn to read and write, they even helped one try to regain his memory,which had been lost to amnesia, by testing him with names of his family members.

Alexei returned to the palace after having injured himself by sneezing, which caused an internal hemorrhage. The army, led by the Tsar, was still suffering huge losses. At home Russians were clamouring for change. Millions of Russian men had been killed or were still at the front, and Russia, in 1916, was facing the coldest winter ever recorded. Steam engine locomotives were freezing and bursting on their way to major cities with grain for bread. This caused food shortages and women had to wait for hours, with their children in the freezing snow,in bread lines. 1917, the Tsar received a telegram from his wife that their were riots in the Capital and that he should return immediately. Only after two more frantic letters did the Tsar leave Mogilev for Tsarskoe Selo. The Tsar's children began to show signs of measles, which at that time was a very serious illness. Tatiana's head became so congested that she couldn't hear for a period of time. Anastasia and her sister Marie were the last two to get it. While waiting for her father's train, Anastasia stayed up late into the night with the Tsaritsa's friend Lilith Dehn, the wife of a Standart officier. Anastasia began to fall ill herself and became frantic, she told "Lili" that she didn't know what she could do to help her mother if she got sick too. But, shortly thereafter she, along with all four of her siblings, was bedridden in one of the palace's rooms with blankets drapped over the windows to keep the light out. Anastasia's waiting had gone in vain, the Tsar's train was stopped and he was forced to abdicate his throne. Upon his return to the Alexandre Palace the family was placed under house arrest.

The family's servants were given the option of staying with the family or leaving. Most left, including Alexei's sailor-nanny, Derevenko, who quickly fled the palace. The few remaing servants consisted of mainly foreign tutors, and ladies-in-waitinig, Russian maids, valets and butlers. The family spent most of their time out-of-doors in their make-shift garden. The duchesses would hall turf and water to the small vegetable patches. The family wasn't allowed throughout most of the grounds and would often be followed by guards, most of whom were more curious than rude or obstructive. Riots and street demonstrations were becoming more and more prevalent so the leader of the new Provisional government: Kerensky, arranged for the family and any servants who wished to go to leave Tsarskoe Selo for an undisclosed location. They were sent to the Siberian town of Tobolsk via the steamship the Russ, meaning Russia. They passed the town of Prokovskoe-which fulfilled Rasputin's prophecy that they would see his homeland before they died. The ship docked for a few days on while the old Governor's mansion, in the centre of the city, was renovated. The house had been left in complete disarray, the furniture was worn and the paint on the walls peeling and cracking. The family and their remaining servants were forced to live in this dilapidated Govenor's mansion. The four Duchesses suffered terribley from the cold in their room which they called the "icehouse". Gleb and Tatiana Botkin, the children of Dr. Yevgenii Botkin (who travelled with the Imperial family to Tobolsk and was allowed to have a small medical practice in the centre of town), weren't allowed to stay with the Imperial family, so they stayed in a house across the street. Gleb would paint watercolours of animals in human attire for Anastasia and here siblings, his father would smuggle it to them when he went to see the Tsaritsa and Alexei. Anastasia would write stories to go with the pictures and have them returned to Gleb via the Doctor. Anastasia would take daily walks within the fenced yards with her sisters and servants. They would also help the Tsar saw and cut firewood. The Duchesses and Tsarevitch continued their studies. The Tsar and Tsaritsa taught lessons themselves. The Tsaritsa took charge of the of the German lessons, while the Tsar taught History. The family's life would become mundane but comfortable. One evening when the family was sitting together and the Tsar was reading from a book, a guard came in and searched the room, apparently unable to find what he was looking for he left, only to return again still unable to determine the answer to his query. It turned out that the guards saw a red and green light flicker on and off in the window from the street, they figured that the Tsar was signaling to someone in the city. It turned out that Anastasia, who was knitting kept leaning down and covered the lamp when reaching for more yarn.

Another revolution broke out in Russia and the Communistic Bolsheviks took power. The Tsar was forced to leave Tobolsk, upon Vladimir Lenin's, the new ruler, insistence. The Tsaritsa chose to go with him, along with their daughter Maria. (The other daughters had to remain behind with the ill Alexeii who was at that time bedridden and in no way able to be moved. The tsar was taken to Ekaterinburg, a small Ural mining town. Here they would stay in the Ipatiev house-the owner Ipatiev a local merchant was forced from his home in order to house the Tsar. The three Duchesses in Tobolsk tended to Alexei, and upon their mother's instruction via letter, they sewed their jewels into their clothing. They hid their diamonds, sapphires, rubies, emeralds and diadems into the hems of skirts, the cloth of hats, and in between underlinen. Eventually, Alexei recovered sufficiently for him to be moved and they were reunited with the rest of the family in Ekaterinburg. The family and six of their servants (Leonid Sidnev a playmate of Alexei and nephew of Ivan Sidnev, "Nuita" Demidova the Tsaritsa's maid, Nargony Alexei's sailor aide, Alexei Trupp the Tsar's valet, Doctor Yevgenii Sergeivitch Botkin the Imperial physician, Kharatinov the cook) would suffer greatly from the heat in the Siberian summer-the windows were white washed and ordered shut (In fact one day the Grand Duchess Anastasia, peared out a second story window and was nearly hit when an over anxious guard fired a gun in her direction fearing an escape) The guards were often drunk and swore constantly. Often the family couldn't sleep due to the loud noise coming from the guards carrings-on downstairs. The Soviet Commisar Yakov Yurovskii was cold and inconsiderate. The bathroom door was forbidden to be closed, while lewd drawings were scralled on the walls. The sailor, Nagorny, was removed from the house when he prevented a guard from stealing the ill Alexei's golden chain that was kept above his bedstead. Nagorny was killed that day-unbeknownst to the family, yet the Tsaritsa wrote in her diary that she wondered whether they would ever see him or Leonid Sidnev, again. (Leonid was removed to the guard's house, called the Popov house, which was adjacent to the Ipatiev house, under the rousse that he was to be reunited with is Uncle, Ivan Sidnev. But Ivan had been killed along with another of the Tsar's aide, Leonid was then apparently shipped westward to live with some other living relatives) On July, 16th 1918 the family along with four remaining servants were taken to a semi-basement room, in the house where they were imprisioned, and were shot.

Within weeks the White army, the pro-Monarchist forces, arrived in the city to find the I[atiev house abandoned. They discovered the Imperial family's possessions in the house, but no trace f them or their servants. It was shorly thereafter that a mineshaft was found in the nearby forest of Kopthaikii, in which remnants of clothing and jewels of the family were found. Traces of fire and bits of bone were recovered. The investigator, Nikolaii Sokolov, concluded that the family and their servants had been killed and their bodies had been burned and thrown into the mineshaft. Sokolov had heard rumours that one of the Romanov women had escaped, in fact signs had been posted, by the bolsheviks, around the city after the murder that if any house was found to be housing any female Romanov they would be persecuted. Sokolov ignored this and concluded that none of the family could have escaped.

In 1991 reports from Russia stated that the bodies of the last Imperial family had been found in the Kopthaikii Forest just outside of Yekaterinburg. At first the reports stated that all eleven bodies had been found, including the Tsar, his family and servants. But as time passed it became apparent that two bodies were infact missing. One of the absences clearly being the Tsarevitch Alexei, while the other was one of his sisters. Then Secretary of State James Baker who was visiting Russia at the time offered US assistance in the verification of the bones. He sent world reknowned pathologist Dr. William Maples, who helped to determine that the Late President of the United States, Zachary Taylor, hadn't been poisioned as had long been conjectured. He along with his staff travelled to Russia, where they determined the missing daughter to be Anastasia.(This was due to both the age of the teeth and the age of the spinal cord remains of the three Grand Duchesses.) After reviewing Nikolaii Sokolov's report, the White Russian officer who was in charge of investigation the Tsar's disappearence in 1918, one can find evidence that Anastasia's body never made it as far as the four brother's mine. He stated he found, in the mineshaft where the family's clothes had been burned, six pairs of corsets and since there were six women he thought this proved all had perished. But what he didn't know was that the four Duchesses wore double corsets with diamonds in between, and therefore he had only found three, one missing. In addition he found all of the Duchesses traveling ikons, with the exception of Anastasia's ikon of Saint Nikolai. For over seven years now people have searched for the missing two bodies, even going so far as to use a bulldozer, yet they have found no trace.

Answer 2

Grand Duchess Anastasia Family Tree

Answer 3

Daughter of Tzar Nicholas Romanov of Russia. One of 5 children. Family was taken into custody during the Bolshevic Revolution. Family was put before firing squad in 1918. Woman named Anna Tsaikovski claimed to be Anastasia, that she had survived the firing squad. Some people believed her but the courts did not recognise it. Other than that, officially she died at 15 in Russia before that firing squad.
By the way this is the last time I will do your homework for you.

Answer 4

There are VOLUMES of information available about the real Anastasia Romanov and the woman who came along later claiming to be her.
Use some of your research skills to find these reports. No one here at Yahoo Answers should be expected to tell you ALL about anything!

Half hour later: Well I guess JFAD has just done your homework for you!

Answer 5

I don't think they were Russia--maybe partly but I know that the Czar Nicholas was a relative of Queen Victoria, so yes I believe he was English. By the way, your friend is really ignorant. Tell her to google two things: "Russian + models" and "Russian + brides"

Answer 6

She was the daughter of the Zchar of Russia.

Their family was held captive under house arrest during a transition in power.

No one truly knows what happened to her, rumors say that she escaped before members of her family were killed while others say that she died and they never discovered her body.

Answer 7

I think she was the tsarina or last queen of russia, she was exectuted in a revolution, during her life she was controversial for befriending the monk rasputin and letting him influence russian politics

Answer 8

I took Russian history in HS.
But I slept through it.

I do, however, know that shes dead.

Answer 9

there is the animated film. want a longer more factual version? try wikipedia.

Answer 10

"All" about her? Nope, I sure cannot!

Answer 11

here, read this

http://amiannoying.com/(crc3pfr1oh42xr55arduaib1)/view.aspx?ID=11394