La storia racconta che il 18 giugno del 1901, quando lo Zar Nicola II scoprì, tra i primi vagiti che salutano una nuova vita, che il quarto figlio donatogli dal cielo era nuovamente una femmina, provò una lieve delusione: quattro femmine, neppure un maschio cui dare in eredità il trono ... non che la piccola non fosse desiderata, ma probabilmente lo Zar e la Zarina Alessandra speravano che fosse giunto il momento di dare un figlio maschio alla loro Russia.
In onore della dolcissima fanciulla appena nata Nicola II concesse l'amnistia agli studenti che erano stati imprigionati durante le ribellioni dell'inverno precedente e proprio in nome di tale gesto le venne dato il nome Anastasia, Anastasija Nikolaevna, ovvero "colei che scioglie le catene";
Le sorelle Romanov in una foto del 1904: da sinistra Ol'ga, Tat'jiana, Marija ed Anastasija
Anastasia mentre improvvisa un'imitazione
con il padre il quale aveva per lei una particolare inclinazione, forse perchè di tutte le sue figliole era la più simile anche fisicamente a lui, alimentando entrambi, così, un profondo legame affettivo.
Lo Zar Nicola II prova a far fumare la pipa alla piccola Anastasia
Lo Zar Nicola II ed Anastasia nel 1911 presso l'arcipelago finlandese - Romanov Collection, General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/dl_crosscollex/SearchExecXC.asp
Così come era stata educata dalla propria madre, la grande Regina Victoria, la Zarina Alessandra crebbe le proprie figlie educandole all'umiltà: le Granduchesse dormivano in due stanze con due lettini ciascuna, Ol'ga e Tat'jana, le maggiori in una, Marija ed Anastasia, che formavano la 'coppia piccola', nell'altra; ogni letto era molto essenziale, tanto da essere persino sprovvisto di guanciale, il bagno ogni mattina era fatto di consuetudine con acqua fredda e con acqua calda la sera, ed all'acqua erano aggiunte alcune gocce di essenze di Coty ( Anastasia si profumava con quella alla viola ) e finchè erano piccole era la servitù che procedeva con dei secchi, mentre una volta divenute adulte avrebbero dovuto provvedere alla bisogna da sole; loro compito era anche quello di mantenere l'ordine nelle loro stanze e, quando il tempo dedicato alla loro formazione culturale lo consentiva, tutte cucivano e ricamavano indumenti da vendere in beneficenza per aiutare i più bisognosi.
Legata da profondo affetto alla sorella Maria, alla quale era più vicina di età, con lei condivideva non solo la stanza, ma anche confidenze, abiti, le ore di istruzione ( come tutti gli altri figli dello Zar Anastasia fu educata in casa: a partire dall'età di otto anni le furono insegnate le lingue francese, inglese e tedesca, storia, geografia, legge di Dio, scienza, arte, grammatica - che Anastasia detestava -, aritmetica, musica e danza ), ma va detto che, anche di conseguenza al triste destino che avrebbe segnato la vita dei Romanov, con il trascorrere degli anni il legame tra tutte e quattro le sorelle si sarebbe fatto sempre più saldo.
Anastasia era però cagionevole di salute: soffriva di dolori alla schiena per alleviare i quali doveva sottoporsi a massaggi due volte la settimana, rituale doloroso al quale cercava regolarmente di sfuggire nascondendosi, era portatrice del gene dell'emofilia, la patologia che comporta disturbi nella coagulazione del sangue, comune nei secoli scorsi a molte case regnanti di conseguenza ai legami tra consanguinei, promossi dal bisogno di rinsaldare alleanze economiche e politiche, ma irrispettosi della genetica che così portava avanti patologie anche gravi, ed era affetta da hallux valgus in entrambi i piedi.
A corte la piccola shvibzik era benvoluta ed amata da tutti: la zia, duchessa Olga Alexandrovna, sorella dello Zar, aveva un debole per lei e così pure tutti i membri della servitù e gli insegnanti, spesso oggetto delle sue burle e scorribande ... anche Grigori Rasputin, il misterioso mistico siberiano dalla dubbia reputazione e dalle forse non troppo chiare intenzioni, che si era conquistato un posto d'onore all'interno della famiglia presentandosi innanzitutto come guaritore, era particolarmente legato ad Anastasia dalla quale riceveva spesso anche delle lettere.
Lo scoppio della Grande Guerra, il 28 giugno del 1914, fu accolto con tragiche esplosioni di pianto dalla nostra piccola Granduchessa che si prestò, compatibilmente con la propria età ( aveva solamente tredici anni ) ad assistere i feriti: troppo piccola per fare come la madre e le sorelle Olga e Tatiana l'infermiera, insieme con la sorella Maria, in una delle tante stanze del palazzo che era stata adibita ad ospedale, diede il proprio contributo per alleviare le sofferenze dei ricoverati scrivendo sotto dettatura le lettere per le loro famiglie, cucendo vestiti, bende e fasciature, mettendo a disposizione il proprio denaro per comprare medicine, leggendo ad alta voce per i feriti e giocando con loro a carte e a dama.
Ma il peggio per tutti i poveri appartenenti a questa sfortunata famiglia doveva ancora sopraggiungere ... sappiamo che quando il popolo si muove in rivolta nulla è in grado di fermarlo e spesso ne pagano le conseguenze i regnanti del momento che, della situazione di malcontento generale, sovente sono gli ultimi responsabili, .. spesso sono solo vittime di un periodo storico infausto .. accadde in Francia sul finire del XVIII secolo a re Luigi XV e alla Regina Maria Antonietta, accadrà, poco più di un secolo dopo, anche ai Romanov ...
Mentre i figli dello Zar e della Zarina conducevano infatti una vita comunque privilegiata, il popolo Russo viveva in una situazione di grande indigenza; in un crescendo di tensione nel 1917 i Bolscevichi, sotto la guida di Vladimir Lenin, rovesciarono i Romanov ed il 2 marzo 1917 lo Zar Nicola II fu costretto ad abdicare al trono per sé e per suo figlio, Alexsej, nato nel 1904 e dichiarato erede; tutti i componenti la famiglia furono quindi arrestati, allontanati da San Pietroburgo e condotti prima in esilio a Tobolsk e quindi presso la casa di Nikolaj Ipat’ev, un mercante di Ekaterinburg dove rimasero finché il 17 luglio 1918 furono brutalmente giustiziati insieme con i domestici più affezionati, il medico e l’infermiera che seguiva il piccolo Alexsej affetto da una grave forma di emofilia, dai soldati Bolscevichi; a testimoniarlo i colpi sparati sulla parete della stanza in cui avvenne la strage, ma dei loro corpi non venne rinvenuta alcuna traccia.
Il ritrovamento, nel 1991, dei resti della famiglia imperiale a Yekaterinburg in Siberia, da cui però mancavano i corpi dei tre figli più piccoli, riaccese gli interrogativi circa quello che era stato il destino di Anastasia, dibattito già acceso dal 1920 quando una certa Anna Anderson, nel mese di febbraio, tentò il suicidio lanciandosi nel Landwehr Canal a Berlino.
Ricoverata presso l’ospedale psichiatrico Dalldorf la donna non fu dapprincipio in grado di riferire la propria identità e solamente diciotto mesi dopo sostenne di essere la Granduchessa Anastasia, figlia dello Zar di Russia; molte caratteristiche, non solo
somatiche, ma anche morfologiche ed alcune patologie - Anna Anderson aveva lo stesso colore di capelli e di occhi, la stessa statura, un difetto ad un dente come lo aveva Anastasia, la medesima bruciatura ad una mano che Anastasia si era procurata durante un incidente occorso quando era bambina, la patologia alla schiena ed ai piedi che aveva la principessa Romanov, con i duroni localizzati inoltre nei medesimi punti; una cicatrice sulla sua spalla destra, dove un neo era stato cauterizzato, era del tutto simile a una ferita menzionata nella cartella clinica della Granduchessa ed una piccola cicatrice sul dito medio della mano sinistra veniva giustificata come conseguenza di un incidente provocato da un valletto distratto che, quando Anastasia era bambina, le aveva rinchiuso la mano nello sportello di una carrozza, versione confermata da una damigella di corte; i raggi X effettuati sulla Anderson rivelarono inoltre la presenza di cicatrici al capo che potevano essere state causate dal calcio di un fucile - le avrebbero dato ragione, ma le battaglie legali che ella intraprese non si conclusero felicemente data l'opposizione incontrata presso gli imperiali membri della corte che la accusarono di sopruso.
Sta di fatto che la Anderson, deceduta nel 1984, dichiarò fino all'ultimo dei suoi giorni di essere la Granduchessa Anastasia Romanov.
Dopo di lei numerose furono coloro che sostennero di essere Anastasia, ma non furono in grado di provarlo compiutamente ... nel 2007 vennero ritrovati i corpi del piccolo Alexsej e di Marija, ma di Anastasia non si sarebbe tutt'ora trovata traccia ... chissà che davvero abbia continuato la propria esistenza sotto mentite spoglie e che quindi il mistero sulla sua morte e sulla sua vita continui ad appartenere al tempo ... a me piace crederlo !
Di sicuro rimane oggi una grande verità: il 15 agosto del 2000 i Romanov, riconosciuta la loro tolleranza unitamente alla loro innocenza, furono canonizzati dalla chiesa ortodossa; San Nicola II, Imperatore martire e grande portatore della Passione, unitamente a Santa Aleksandra, Sant'Aleksej, Santa Ol'ga, Santa Tat'jana, Santa Marija, Sant'Anastasija e Santa Elizaveta ( Elisabetta Fëdorovna, sorella della Zarina e fondatrice di un ordine di monache uccisa durante la rivoluzione) sono festeggiati il 17 luglio con grande partecipazione di popolo.
Un affettuoso saluto a voi tutti ed un ringraziamento particolare alla cara amica Susanna Tesini che tempo fa mi suggerì questo argomento a lei particolarmente caro ... spero di averlo trattato come sarebbe piaciuto leggerlo a lei ...
A presto ♥
Bibliografia:
Mary Englar, Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov, Snap Books, 2008
Carolly Erickson, La zarina Alessandra. Il destino dell'ultima imperatrice di Russia, Mondadori, Milano, 2006
Greg King, Penny Wilson, The Resurrection of the Romanovs: Anastasia, Anna Anderson, and the World's Greatest Royal Mystery, Wiley, 1911
Peter Kurth, Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Anderson, Back Bay Books, 1985
My name is Anastasia ...
- picture 1
The history goes that on June 18th, 1901, when Czar Nicholas II discovered, among the first stirrings that greet a new life, that the fourth son given to him from heaven was a female again, he felt a slight of disappointment: four females, not even one male to which giving the throne ... not that the little girl wasn't desired, but probably the Czar and the Czarina Alexandra hoped that the time had come to give a son to their Russia.
In honor of the little newborn Nicholas II granted the amnesty to all the students who had been imprisoned during the rebellions of the previous winter and in honor of that gesture it was given to her the name Anastasia, Anastasia Nikolaevna, that means "the one who unties the chains";
- picture 2 - The Romanov sisters in a photograph from 1904. From left to right Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia
- picture 3
Malenkaya, as she was often nicknamed, which in Russian means " littel girl ", however, was different from the other sisters of hers... lively, with bright blue eyes and auburn hair, she was characterized by a vivacity and liveliness of temperament: prankster and joking, she was the one who brought the humor in the depths of the Romanov family, Anastasia was a small shvibzik, a little " brat " who grew up side by side
- picture 4 - Anastasia suddens an imitation
with her father who had a particular inclination for her, maybe because of all her daughters she was the most physically similar to him, fueling both, so, a deep emotional bond.
- picture 5 - Czar Nicholas II tries to make smoking a pipe to the little Anastasia
- picture 6 - Czar Nicholas II and Anastasia in 1911 at the Finnish archipelago - Romanov Collection, General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/dl_crosscollex/SearchExecXC.asp
Just as she was educated by her mother, the great Queen Victoria, the Czarina Alexandra grew her daughters teaching them humility: the Grand Duchesses slept in two rooms with two beds each, Olga and Tatiana, the older in one, Maria and Anastasia, who formed the 'small couple', in the other; each bed was very basic, so much so that even without a pillow, they had to do a bath every morning with cold water and hot water in the evening, and to the water were added a few drops of essence of Coty (Anastasia perfumed herself with with that of violet) and as long as they were small were the servants who washed them with buckets, but as adults they should have had all by themself; their task was also to maintain in order their rooms and, when the time devoted to their cultural formation allowed it, all them sewed and embroidered garments for sale to charity to help the needy.
- picture 7
Linked by deep affection to her sister Mary, to whom she was closest to age, she shared with her not only her bedroom but also confidences, clothes, hours of instruction (like all the other children of the Tsar Anastasia was educated at home: from the age of eight she learnt French, English and German, history, geography, God's Law, science, art, grammar - that Anastasia hated - arithmetic, music and dance ), but it must be said that also in the consequence of the sad fate that would have marked the life of the Romanovs, with the passing of the years the link between all four the sisters would have become stronger.
Anastasia, however, was in poor health: she suffered from back pain to relieve which she had to undergo to massages twice a week, painful ritual which regularly she tried to escape by hiding, she was a carrier of the hemophilia gene, the disorder that involves disorder blood , common in the past to many royal houses of consequence to links between blood relatives, promoted by the need to strengthen economic and political alliances, but so disrespectful of genetics, that brought forth even serious illnesses, and was suffering from hallux valgus in both feet.
- picture 8
At Court the small shvibzik was well-liked and loved by everyone: her aunt, the Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, the Tsar's sister, had a crush on her and so were all the members of the servants and teachers, often subjects of her jokes and raids ... also Grigori Rasputin, the mysterious Siberian mystic of questionable reputation and perhaps not too clear intentions, who had won a place of honor within the family by presenting primarily as a healer, was particularly linked to Anastasia from which also often received letters.
- picture 9 - Grigori Rasputin ( 1869 - 1916)
The beginning of the Great War, on June 28th, 1914, was greeted with a tragic explosion of tears from our little Grand Duchess who gave her contribution, compatibly with her age ( she was only thirteen ) by assisting the wounded: too small to work as a nurse as her mother and her sisters Olga and Tatiana did, along with her sister Mary, in one of the many rooms of the palace that was used as a hospital, gave her contribution to alleviate the suffering of the patients writing letters under dictation for their families, sewing clothes and bandages, providing her own money to buy medicines, reading aloud for the injured and playing cards and checkers with them.
- picture 10 - Along with the wounded hospitalized in the palace (Anastasia is sitting on the right)
But the worst for the poor members of this unfortunate family was yet to come ... we know that when the people moves in revolt, nothing is able to stop it and often are the rulers of that time to pay the consequences of the situation of discontent, who often of this are the latest responsible .. they're often just victims of a historical ominous period .. it happened in France in the late XVIIIth century to King Louis XV and Queen Marie Antoinette, it will happen, just over a century later, to the Romanovs ...
- picture 11 - The Romanovs portrayed in 1913
While the children of the Tsar and of the Tsarina in fact led a privileged life, the Russian people lived in a situation of great poverty; in a growing of tension in 1917 the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Romanov and on March 2nd, 1917 Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate the throne for himself and his son, Alexsej, born in 1904 and declared heir; all the members of his family were then arrested, expelled from St. Petersburg and conducted first in exile in Tobolsk, and then at Nikolai Ipat'ev's home, who was a merchant of Yekaterinburg, where they remained until on July 17th, 1918 they were brutally executed together with their more loyal servants, the doctor and the nurse who followed the small Alexsej suffering from a severe form of hemophilia, by the Bolsheviks soldiers; to witness it the shots fired on the wall of the room where the massacre took place, but of their bodies not a trace was found.
- picture 12 - Anastasia in captivity in Tobolsk in 1918 in one of the last photographs of hers
The discovery in 1991 of the remains of the imperial family in Yekaterinburg in Siberia, from which, however, lacked the bodies of the three youngest children, rekindled the questions about what the fate of Anastasia had been, a debate already turned on since 1920 when a certain Anna Anderson, in February, attempted suicide by throwing herself into the Landwehr Canal in Berlin.
Admitted to the Dalldorf psychiatric hospital the woman wasn't at first able to report her identity and only eighteen months later claimed to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia, daughter of the Czar of Russia; many features, not only somatic, but also morphological and some diseases - Anna Anderson had the same color of hair and eyes, the same stature, a defect in a tooth such as Anastasia had, the same burn to a hand that Anastasia had procured during an incident when she was a child, the pathology at her back and feet that had the Romanov Princess, with calluses also located at the same points; a scar on her right shoulder, where a mole had been cauterized, was very similar to a wound mentioned in the medical records of the Grand Duchess and a small scar on the middle finger of her left hand was justified as a result of an accident caused by a careless servant who, when Anastasia was a child, had locked up her hand in the door of a carriage, version confirmed by a damsel of the Court; X-rays performed on the Anderson also revealed the presence of scars to the head that could have been caused by a rifle butt - would give her the reason, but the legal battles that she undertook didn't end happily given the opposition of the Imperial members of the Court that accused her of abuse.
- picture 13 - Anastasia in the background and Anna Anderson in the foreground
The fact is that the Anderson, who died in 1984, declared till the last of her days to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov.
After her, many were those who claimed to be Anastasia, but weren't able to test it thoroughly ... in 2007 the bodies of the little Alexsej and Marija were found, but of Anastasija would still not found a trace .. maybe she has continued her existence in disguise and the mystery of her death and her life continues to be owned at the time ... I like to believe it !
Of course today a great truth remains: on August 15th, 2000, Romanov , recognized their tolerance together with their innocence, were canonized by the Orthodox Church; St. Nicholas II , Emperor and great martyr bearer of the Passion, together with Santa Aleksandra, Sant'Aleksej, St. Olga, St. Tatiana, Santa Marija, Sant'Anastasija and Santa Elizaveta ( Elizabeth Fyodorovna, the Czarina's sister and founder of an order of nuns killed during the revolution ) are celebrated on July 17th with a large participation of the people.
An affectionate greeting to you all and a special thanks to my dear friend Susanna Tesini who long ago suggested me this topic that's particularly dear to her ... I hope to have treated it so as she would have liked to read it ...
See you soon ♥
Bibliography:
Mary Englar, Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov, Snap Books, 2008
Carolly Erickson, La zarina Alessandra. Il destino dell'ultima imperatrice di Russia, Mondadori, Milano, 2006
Greg King, Penny Wilson, The Resurrection of the Romanovs: Anastasia, Anna Anderson, and the World's Greatest Royal Mystery, Wiley, 1911
Legata da profondo affetto alla sorella Maria, alla quale era più vicina di età, con lei condivideva non solo la stanza, ma anche confidenze, abiti, le ore di istruzione ( come tutti gli altri figli dello Zar Anastasia fu educata in casa: a partire dall'età di otto anni le furono insegnate le lingue francese, inglese e tedesca, storia, geografia, legge di Dio, scienza, arte, grammatica - che Anastasia detestava -, aritmetica, musica e danza ), ma va detto che, anche di conseguenza al triste destino che avrebbe segnato la vita dei Romanov, con il trascorrere degli anni il legame tra tutte e quattro le sorelle si sarebbe fatto sempre più saldo.
Anastasia era però cagionevole di salute: soffriva di dolori alla schiena per alleviare i quali doveva sottoporsi a massaggi due volte la settimana, rituale doloroso al quale cercava regolarmente di sfuggire nascondendosi, era portatrice del gene dell'emofilia, la patologia che comporta disturbi nella coagulazione del sangue, comune nei secoli scorsi a molte case regnanti di conseguenza ai legami tra consanguinei, promossi dal bisogno di rinsaldare alleanze economiche e politiche, ma irrispettosi della genetica che così portava avanti patologie anche gravi, ed era affetta da hallux valgus in entrambi i piedi.
A corte la piccola shvibzik era benvoluta ed amata da tutti: la zia, duchessa Olga Alexandrovna, sorella dello Zar, aveva un debole per lei e così pure tutti i membri della servitù e gli insegnanti, spesso oggetto delle sue burle e scorribande ... anche Grigori Rasputin, il misterioso mistico siberiano dalla dubbia reputazione e dalle forse non troppo chiare intenzioni, che si era conquistato un posto d'onore all'interno della famiglia presentandosi innanzitutto come guaritore, era particolarmente legato ad Anastasia dalla quale riceveva spesso anche delle lettere.
Grigori Rasputin ( 1869 - 1916)
Insieme con i feriti ricoverati a palazzo ( Anastasia è seduta a destra )
Ma il peggio per tutti i poveri appartenenti a questa sfortunata famiglia doveva ancora sopraggiungere ... sappiamo che quando il popolo si muove in rivolta nulla è in grado di fermarlo e spesso ne pagano le conseguenze i regnanti del momento che, della situazione di malcontento generale, sovente sono gli ultimi responsabili, .. spesso sono solo vittime di un periodo storico infausto .. accadde in Francia sul finire del XVIII secolo a re Luigi XV e alla Regina Maria Antonietta, accadrà, poco più di un secolo dopo, anche ai Romanov ...
La famiglia Romanov ritratta nel 1913
Mentre i figli dello Zar e della Zarina conducevano infatti una vita comunque privilegiata, il popolo Russo viveva in una situazione di grande indigenza; in un crescendo di tensione nel 1917 i Bolscevichi, sotto la guida di Vladimir Lenin, rovesciarono i Romanov ed il 2 marzo 1917 lo Zar Nicola II fu costretto ad abdicare al trono per sé e per suo figlio, Alexsej, nato nel 1904 e dichiarato erede; tutti i componenti la famiglia furono quindi arrestati, allontanati da San Pietroburgo e condotti prima in esilio a Tobolsk e quindi presso la casa di Nikolaj Ipat’ev, un mercante di Ekaterinburg dove rimasero finché il 17 luglio 1918 furono brutalmente giustiziati insieme con i domestici più affezionati, il medico e l’infermiera che seguiva il piccolo Alexsej affetto da una grave forma di emofilia, dai soldati Bolscevichi; a testimoniarlo i colpi sparati sulla parete della stanza in cui avvenne la strage, ma dei loro corpi non venne rinvenuta alcuna traccia.
Anastasia prigioniera a Tobolsk nel 1918 in una delle sue ultime fotografie
Il ritrovamento, nel 1991, dei resti della famiglia imperiale a Yekaterinburg in Siberia, da cui però mancavano i corpi dei tre figli più piccoli, riaccese gli interrogativi circa quello che era stato il destino di Anastasia, dibattito già acceso dal 1920 quando una certa Anna Anderson, nel mese di febbraio, tentò il suicidio lanciandosi nel Landwehr Canal a Berlino.
somatiche, ma anche morfologiche ed alcune patologie - Anna Anderson aveva lo stesso colore di capelli e di occhi, la stessa statura, un difetto ad un dente come lo aveva Anastasia, la medesima bruciatura ad una mano che Anastasia si era procurata durante un incidente occorso quando era bambina, la patologia alla schiena ed ai piedi che aveva la principessa Romanov, con i duroni localizzati inoltre nei medesimi punti; una cicatrice sulla sua spalla destra, dove un neo era stato cauterizzato, era del tutto simile a una ferita menzionata nella cartella clinica della Granduchessa ed una piccola cicatrice sul dito medio della mano sinistra veniva giustificata come conseguenza di un incidente provocato da un valletto distratto che, quando Anastasia era bambina, le aveva rinchiuso la mano nello sportello di una carrozza, versione confermata da una damigella di corte; i raggi X effettuati sulla Anderson rivelarono inoltre la presenza di cicatrici al capo che potevano essere state causate dal calcio di un fucile - le avrebbero dato ragione, ma le battaglie legali che ella intraprese non si conclusero felicemente data l'opposizione incontrata presso gli imperiali membri della corte che la accusarono di sopruso.
Anastasia sullo sfondo ed Anna Anderson in primo piano
Dopo di lei numerose furono coloro che sostennero di essere Anastasia, ma non furono in grado di provarlo compiutamente ... nel 2007 vennero ritrovati i corpi del piccolo Alexsej e di Marija, ma di Anastasia non si sarebbe tutt'ora trovata traccia ... chissà che davvero abbia continuato la propria esistenza sotto mentite spoglie e che quindi il mistero sulla sua morte e sulla sua vita continui ad appartenere al tempo ... a me piace crederlo !
Di sicuro rimane oggi una grande verità: il 15 agosto del 2000 i Romanov, riconosciuta la loro tolleranza unitamente alla loro innocenza, furono canonizzati dalla chiesa ortodossa; San Nicola II, Imperatore martire e grande portatore della Passione, unitamente a Santa Aleksandra, Sant'Aleksej, Santa Ol'ga, Santa Tat'jana, Santa Marija, Sant'Anastasija e Santa Elizaveta ( Elisabetta Fëdorovna, sorella della Zarina e fondatrice di un ordine di monache uccisa durante la rivoluzione) sono festeggiati il 17 luglio con grande partecipazione di popolo.
Un affettuoso saluto a voi tutti ed un ringraziamento particolare alla cara amica Susanna Tesini che tempo fa mi suggerì questo argomento a lei particolarmente caro ... spero di averlo trattato come sarebbe piaciuto leggerlo a lei ...
A presto ♥
Bibliografia:
Mary Englar, Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov, Snap Books, 2008
Carolly Erickson, La zarina Alessandra. Il destino dell'ultima imperatrice di Russia, Mondadori, Milano, 2006
Greg King, Penny Wilson, The Resurrection of the Romanovs: Anastasia, Anna Anderson, and the World's Greatest Royal Mystery, Wiley, 1911
Peter Kurth, Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Anderson, Back Bay Books, 1985
My name is Anastasia ...
- picture 1
The history goes that on June 18th, 1901, when Czar Nicholas II discovered, among the first stirrings that greet a new life, that the fourth son given to him from heaven was a female again, he felt a slight of disappointment: four females, not even one male to which giving the throne ... not that the little girl wasn't desired, but probably the Czar and the Czarina Alexandra hoped that the time had come to give a son to their Russia.
In honor of the little newborn Nicholas II granted the amnesty to all the students who had been imprisoned during the rebellions of the previous winter and in honor of that gesture it was given to her the name Anastasia, Anastasia Nikolaevna, that means "the one who unties the chains";
- picture 2 - The Romanov sisters in a photograph from 1904. From left to right Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia
- picture 3
Malenkaya, as she was often nicknamed, which in Russian means " littel girl ", however, was different from the other sisters of hers... lively, with bright blue eyes and auburn hair, she was characterized by a vivacity and liveliness of temperament: prankster and joking, she was the one who brought the humor in the depths of the Romanov family, Anastasia was a small shvibzik, a little " brat " who grew up side by side
- picture 4 - Anastasia suddens an imitation
with her father who had a particular inclination for her, maybe because of all her daughters she was the most physically similar to him, fueling both, so, a deep emotional bond.
- picture 5 - Czar Nicholas II tries to make smoking a pipe to the little Anastasia
- picture 6 - Czar Nicholas II and Anastasia in 1911 at the Finnish archipelago - Romanov Collection, General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/dl_crosscollex/SearchExecXC.asp
Just as she was educated by her mother, the great Queen Victoria, the Czarina Alexandra grew her daughters teaching them humility: the Grand Duchesses slept in two rooms with two beds each, Olga and Tatiana, the older in one, Maria and Anastasia, who formed the 'small couple', in the other; each bed was very basic, so much so that even without a pillow, they had to do a bath every morning with cold water and hot water in the evening, and to the water were added a few drops of essence of Coty (Anastasia perfumed herself with with that of violet) and as long as they were small were the servants who washed them with buckets, but as adults they should have had all by themself; their task was also to maintain in order their rooms and, when the time devoted to their cultural formation allowed it, all them sewed and embroidered garments for sale to charity to help the needy.
- picture 7
Linked by deep affection to her sister Mary, to whom she was closest to age, she shared with her not only her bedroom but also confidences, clothes, hours of instruction (like all the other children of the Tsar Anastasia was educated at home: from the age of eight she learnt French, English and German, history, geography, God's Law, science, art, grammar - that Anastasia hated - arithmetic, music and dance ), but it must be said that also in the consequence of the sad fate that would have marked the life of the Romanovs, with the passing of the years the link between all four the sisters would have become stronger.
Anastasia, however, was in poor health: she suffered from back pain to relieve which she had to undergo to massages twice a week, painful ritual which regularly she tried to escape by hiding, she was a carrier of the hemophilia gene, the disorder that involves disorder blood , common in the past to many royal houses of consequence to links between blood relatives, promoted by the need to strengthen economic and political alliances, but so disrespectful of genetics, that brought forth even serious illnesses, and was suffering from hallux valgus in both feet.
- picture 8
At Court the small shvibzik was well-liked and loved by everyone: her aunt, the Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, the Tsar's sister, had a crush on her and so were all the members of the servants and teachers, often subjects of her jokes and raids ... also Grigori Rasputin, the mysterious Siberian mystic of questionable reputation and perhaps not too clear intentions, who had won a place of honor within the family by presenting primarily as a healer, was particularly linked to Anastasia from which also often received letters.
- picture 9 - Grigori Rasputin ( 1869 - 1916)
The beginning of the Great War, on June 28th, 1914, was greeted with a tragic explosion of tears from our little Grand Duchess who gave her contribution, compatibly with her age ( she was only thirteen ) by assisting the wounded: too small to work as a nurse as her mother and her sisters Olga and Tatiana did, along with her sister Mary, in one of the many rooms of the palace that was used as a hospital, gave her contribution to alleviate the suffering of the patients writing letters under dictation for their families, sewing clothes and bandages, providing her own money to buy medicines, reading aloud for the injured and playing cards and checkers with them.
- picture 10 - Along with the wounded hospitalized in the palace (Anastasia is sitting on the right)
But the worst for the poor members of this unfortunate family was yet to come ... we know that when the people moves in revolt, nothing is able to stop it and often are the rulers of that time to pay the consequences of the situation of discontent, who often of this are the latest responsible .. they're often just victims of a historical ominous period .. it happened in France in the late XVIIIth century to King Louis XV and Queen Marie Antoinette, it will happen, just over a century later, to the Romanovs ...
- picture 11 - The Romanovs portrayed in 1913
While the children of the Tsar and of the Tsarina in fact led a privileged life, the Russian people lived in a situation of great poverty; in a growing of tension in 1917 the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Romanov and on March 2nd, 1917 Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate the throne for himself and his son, Alexsej, born in 1904 and declared heir; all the members of his family were then arrested, expelled from St. Petersburg and conducted first in exile in Tobolsk, and then at Nikolai Ipat'ev's home, who was a merchant of Yekaterinburg, where they remained until on July 17th, 1918 they were brutally executed together with their more loyal servants, the doctor and the nurse who followed the small Alexsej suffering from a severe form of hemophilia, by the Bolsheviks soldiers; to witness it the shots fired on the wall of the room where the massacre took place, but of their bodies not a trace was found.
- picture 12 - Anastasia in captivity in Tobolsk in 1918 in one of the last photographs of hers
The discovery in 1991 of the remains of the imperial family in Yekaterinburg in Siberia, from which, however, lacked the bodies of the three youngest children, rekindled the questions about what the fate of Anastasia had been, a debate already turned on since 1920 when a certain Anna Anderson, in February, attempted suicide by throwing herself into the Landwehr Canal in Berlin.
Admitted to the Dalldorf psychiatric hospital the woman wasn't at first able to report her identity and only eighteen months later claimed to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia, daughter of the Czar of Russia; many features, not only somatic, but also morphological and some diseases - Anna Anderson had the same color of hair and eyes, the same stature, a defect in a tooth such as Anastasia had, the same burn to a hand that Anastasia had procured during an incident when she was a child, the pathology at her back and feet that had the Romanov Princess, with calluses also located at the same points; a scar on her right shoulder, where a mole had been cauterized, was very similar to a wound mentioned in the medical records of the Grand Duchess and a small scar on the middle finger of her left hand was justified as a result of an accident caused by a careless servant who, when Anastasia was a child, had locked up her hand in the door of a carriage, version confirmed by a damsel of the Court; X-rays performed on the Anderson also revealed the presence of scars to the head that could have been caused by a rifle butt - would give her the reason, but the legal battles that she undertook didn't end happily given the opposition of the Imperial members of the Court that accused her of abuse.
- picture 13 - Anastasia in the background and Anna Anderson in the foreground
The fact is that the Anderson, who died in 1984, declared till the last of her days to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov.
After her, many were those who claimed to be Anastasia, but weren't able to test it thoroughly ... in 2007 the bodies of the little Alexsej and Marija were found, but of Anastasija would still not found a trace .. maybe she has continued her existence in disguise and the mystery of her death and her life continues to be owned at the time ... I like to believe it !
Of course today a great truth remains: on August 15th, 2000, Romanov , recognized their tolerance together with their innocence, were canonized by the Orthodox Church; St. Nicholas II , Emperor and great martyr bearer of the Passion, together with Santa Aleksandra, Sant'Aleksej, St. Olga, St. Tatiana, Santa Marija, Sant'Anastasija and Santa Elizaveta ( Elizabeth Fyodorovna, the Czarina's sister and founder of an order of nuns killed during the revolution ) are celebrated on July 17th with a large participation of the people.
An affectionate greeting to you all and a special thanks to my dear friend Susanna Tesini who long ago suggested me this topic that's particularly dear to her ... I hope to have treated it so as she would have liked to read it ...
See you soon ♥
Bibliography:
Mary Englar, Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov, Snap Books, 2008
Carolly Erickson, La zarina Alessandra. Il destino dell'ultima imperatrice di Russia, Mondadori, Milano, 2006
Greg King, Penny Wilson, The Resurrection of the Romanovs: Anastasia, Anna Anderson, and the World's Greatest Royal Mystery, Wiley, 1911
Peter Kurth, Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Anderson, Back Bay Books, 1985
