Anna Anderson

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Anna Anderson

Born 16 December 1896
Pomerania, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire (modern-day Poland)
Died 12 February 1984 (aged 87)
Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
Cause of death Pneumonia
Other names Franziska Schanzkowska, Anastasia Tschaikovsky, Anastasia Manahan
Spouse(s) Dr. John Eacott "Jack" Manahan (1919 – 22 March 1990)[1]

Anna Anderson (16 December 1896 – 12 February 1984), was the best known of several impostors who claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia.[2][3] Anastasia, the youngest daughter of the last Tsar and Tsarina of Russia, Nicholas II and Alexandra, was murdered with her family on 17 July 1918 by Bolsheviks in Ekaterinburg, Russia. The remains of all seven members of the imperial Romanov family have been identified through DNA testing, and the results have been independently verified by multiple laboratories in different countries.[2]

In 1920, Anderson was institutionalized after a suicide attempt in Berlin. At first, she went by the name Fräulein Unbekannt (German for Miss Unknown) as she refused to reveal her identity to anybody in the mental hospital. Later she used the name Tschaikovsky and then Anderson. The false claims in the mental hospital that Anderson was a Russian grand duchess first received public attention in March 1922. Most members of Grand Duchess Anastasia's family and those who had known her, including court tutor Pierre Gilliard, said Anderson was not Anastasia.

In 1927, a private investigation funded by the Tsarina's brother, Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse, identified Anderson with Franziska Schanzkowska, a Polish[4][5] factory worker with a history of mental illness. After a lawsuit lasting many decades, the German courts ruled that Anderson had failed to prove she was Anastasia, but through media coverage, her claim gained "notoriety".[6]

Between 1922 and 1968, Anderson lived in the United States and Germany with various supporters and in sanatoria and nursing homes, including at least one asylum. She emigrated to the United States in 1968, and shortly before the expiry of her visa married Jack Manahan, a Virginian history professor who was later characterized as "probably Charlottesville's best-loved eccentric".[1] Upon her death in 1984, Anderson's body was cremated, and her ashes were buried in the churchyard at Castle Seeon, Germany. Ten years later, DNA tests were conducted on a lock of her hair and surviving medical samples of her tissue. The DNA tests showed that Anderson's DNA did not match the Romanov remains or living relatives of the Romanovs.[7][8] Instead, Anderson's mitochondrial DNA matched the mitochondrial DNA profile of Carl Maucher, a great-nephew of Franziska Schanzkowska.[8] Eminent scientists,[2][9] and major news agencies[10][11] accept that Anderson was Schanzkowska.

In 1956, a film was made about Anderson's impersonation, titled "Anastasia", starring Yul Brynner, Ingrid Bergman, and Helen Hayes.

Contents

[edit] DNA evidence

In 1991, the bodies of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, Tsarina Alexandra of Russia and three of their daughters were exhumed from a mass grave near Ekaterinburg. They were identified on the basis of both skeletal analysis and DNA testing. For example, mitochondrial DNA can be used to match maternal relations, and mitochondrial DNA from the female bones matched that of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, whose maternal grandmother Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine was a sister of Alexandra.[12] The bodies of Tsarevich Alexei and the remaining daughter were discovered in 2007. Repeated and independent DNA tests confirmed that the remains were the seven members of the Romanov family, and proved that none of the Tsar's four daughters survived.[2][13]

A sample of Anderson's tissue, removed during a medical procedure in 1979, was stored at Martha Jefferson Hospital, Charlottesville, Virginia. Anderson's mitochondrial DNA was extracted from the sample and compared with that of the Romanovs and their relatives. It did not match that of the Duke of Edinburgh or that of the bones, confirming that Anderson was not Anastasia. The samples did match DNA provided by Franziska Schanzkowska's great-nephew Carl Maucher, indicating that Carl Maucher and Anna Anderson were maternally related and that Anderson was Schanzkowska.[3][8] Five years after the original testing was done, Dr. Terry Melton of the Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, stated that the DNA sequence tying Anderson to the Schanzkowska family was "still unique", although the database of DNA patterns at the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory had grown much larger, leading to "increased confidence that Anderson was indeed Franziska Schanzkowska".[14]

Similarly, several strands of Anderson's hair from an envelope found inside a book that had belonged to Anderson's husband, Jack Manahan, were also tested. Mitochondrial DNA from the hair matched Anderson's hospital sample and that of Schanzkowska's relative Carl Maucher but not the Romanov remains or living relatives of the Romanovs.[8]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Tucker, William O., Jr. (5 July 2007), "Jack & Anna: Remembering the czar of Charlottesville eccentrics", The Hook (Charlottesville, Virginia: Better Publications LLC), http://www.readthehook.com/stories/2007/07/05/COVER-jackManahan-I.rtf.aspx, retrieved on 3 July 2009 
  2. ^ a b c d Coble, Michael D.; Loreille, Odile M.; Wadhams, Mark J.; Edson, Suni M.; Maynard, Kerry; Meyer, Carna E.; Niederstätter, Harald; Berger, Cordula; Berger, Burkhard; Falsetti, Anthony B.; Gill, Peter; Parson, Walther; Finelli, Louis N. (11 March 2009), "Mystery Solved: The Identification of the Two Missing Romanov Children Using DNA Analysis", PLoS ONE 4 (3): e4838, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0004838, http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0004838, retrieved on 3 July 2009 
  3. ^ a b Godl, John (August 1998), "Anastasia: The Unmasking of Anna Anderson", The European Royal History Journal (Oakland: Arturo Beeche) (VI): 3–8, http://www.serfes.org/royal/annaanderson.htm, retrieved on 3 July 2009 
  4. ^ Anna Anderson in her autobiography, I, Anastasia: An autobiography with notes by Roland Krug von Nidda translated from the German by Oliver Coburn (1958), London: Michael Joseph, pp. 213, 217, 230
  5. ^ Klier, John; Mingay, Helen (1995), The Quest for Anastasia, London: Smith Gryphon, p. 105, ISBN 1 85685 085 4 ; Kurth, Peter (1983), Anastasia: The Life of Anna Anderson, London: Jonathan Cape, p. 167, ISBN 0 224 02951 7 ; Massie, Robert K. (1995), The Romanovs: The Final Chapter, London: Random House, p. 178, ISBN 0 099 60121 4 
  6. ^ Klier and Mingay, p. 109; Kurth, Anastasia, pp. 10, 53
  7. ^ Van der Kiste, John; Hall, Coryne (2002), Once A Grand Duchess: Xenia, Sister of Nicholas II, Phoenix Mill: Sutton Publishing, p. 174, ISBN 0 750 92749 6 
  8. ^ a b c d Stoneking, Mark; Melton, Terry; Nott, Julian; Barritt, Suzanne; Roby, Rhonda; Holland, Mitchell; Weedn, Victor; Gill, Peter; Kimpton, Colin; Aliston-Greiner, Rosemary; Sullivan, Kevin (9 January 1995), "Establishing the identity of Anna Anderson Manahan", Nature Genetics 9: 9-10, doi:10.1038/ng0195-9, http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v9/n1/abs/ng0195-9.html, retrieved on 3 July 2009 
  9. ^ Sykes, Bryan (2001), The Seven Daughters of Eve, New York: Norton, p. 75, ISBN 0 393 02018 5 
  10. ^ Gutterman, Steve (23 August 2007), Bones turn up in hunt for last czar's son, Associated Press, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20417240/, retrieved on 3 July 2009 
  11. ^ Sieff, Martin (1 May 2008), Romanov mystery finally solved, United Press International, http://www.upi.com/news/issueoftheday/2008/05/01/Romanov-mystery-finally-solved/UPI-19691209678305/, retrieved on 3 July 2009 
  12. ^ Gill, Peter; Ivanov, Pavel L., Kimpton, Colin, Piercy, Romelle; Benson, Nicola; Tully, Gillian; Evett, Ian; Hagelberg, Erika; Sullivan, Kevin (February 1994), "Identification of the remains of the Romanov family by DNA analysis", Nature Genetics 6: 130–135, doi:10.1038/ng0294-130, http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v6/n2/abs/ng0294-130.html, retrieved on 29 June 2009 
  13. ^ Discovery solves mystery of last Czar's family, CNN, 30 April 2008, http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/04/30/russia.czar/index.html?section=cnn_latest, retrieved on 1 July 2009 
  14. ^ Godl, John (25 March 2000), Remembering Anna Anderson, Boise, Idaho: Archimandrite Nektarios Serfes, http://www.serfes.org/royal/rememberingannaanderson.htm, retrieved on 3 July 2009 

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] External links

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