Members of the ruling Russian imperial family, the
House of Romanov
The House of Romanov (also transliterated as Romanoff; , ) was the reigning dynasty, imperial house of Russia from 1613 to 1917. They achieved prominence after Anastasia Romanovna married Ivan the Terrible, the first crowned tsar of all Russi ...
,
were executed by a firing squad led by
Yakov Yurovsky in
Yekaterinburg
Yekaterinburg (, ; ), alternatively Romanization of Russian, romanized as Ekaterinburg and formerly known as Sverdlovsk ( ; 1924–1991), is a city and the administrative centre of Sverdlovsk Oblast and the Ural Federal District, Russia. The ci ...
, Russia, on July 17, 1918, during both the
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...
and near the end of the
First World War
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
. Afterwards, a number of people came forward claiming to have survived the execution. All were
impostor
An impostor (also spelled imposter) is a person who pretends to be somebody else, often through means of disguise, deceiving others by knowingly falsifying one or more aspects of their identity. This is in contrast to someone that honestly belie ...
s, as the skeletal remains of the Imperial family have since been recovered and identified through
DNA testing. To this day, a number of people still falsely claim to be members of the Romanov family, often using
false titles of nobility or royalty.
DNA testing
In 1991, nine sets of human remains were found in the forest outside Yekaterinburg. They have been identified through DNA testing as belonging to the Tsar and Tsarina, three of their daughters, the Tsarina's ladies' maid, and the family's doctor, cook and footman. In 1998, the Romanovs and their servants were buried in
St. Petersburg and have been declared
passion bearers by the
Russian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC; ;), also officially known as the Moscow Patriarchate (), is an autocephaly, autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Christian church. It has 194 dioceses inside Russia. The Primate (bishop), p ...
. 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 short of his fourteenth birthday at the time of the killing, and either
Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia
Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia (; – 17 July 1918) was the youngest daughter of Nicholas II of Russia, Tsar Nicholas II, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia, and his wife, Alexandra Feodorovna (Alix of Hesse), Tsarina Alexandr ...
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 continued until the late 2000s 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. Along with the remains of the two bodies, archaeologists found "shards of a container of
sulfuric acid
Sulfuric acid (American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphuric acid (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth spelling), known in antiquity as oil of vitriol, is a mineral acid composed of the elements sulfur, oxygen, ...
, nails, metal strips from a wooden box, and bullets of various caliber." The bones were found using
metal detectors and metal rods as probes.
[ ]
On January 22, 2008, Russian forensic scientists announced that preliminary testing indicated a "high degree of probability" that the remains belong to the Tsarevich Alexei and to one of his sisters.
The Yekaterinburg region's chief forensic expert Nikolai Nevolin indicated the results would be compared against those obtained by foreign experts and a final report could be issued by April or May 2008. On April 30, 2008, Russian forensic scientists announced that DNA testing proved that the remains belong to the Tsarevich Alexei and to one of his sisters.
[ ] With this result, all of the Tsar's family are accounted for, proving that none of them survived the execution. the Russian Orthodox Church has not yet recognized these remains as belonging to the imperial family; the House of Romanov has expressed openness to the possibility of having the remains exhumed for further analysis and confirmation of their identity.
Anastasia's survival stories have always been the most famous, inspiring dozens of books and films.
Anastasia impostors
Some of the women who claimed or were believed to be the
Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia
Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia (; – 17 July 1918) was the youngest daughter of Nicholas II of Russia, Tsar Nicholas II, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia, and his wife, Alexandra Feodorovna (Alix of Hesse), Tsarina Alexandr ...
are:
*
Anna Anderson, real name Franziska Schanzkowska, was, by far, the most famous impostor. She appeared in 1920 in
Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
, Germany, and died in
Charlottesville, Virginia, United States in 1984;
*
Eugenia Smith, aka Eugenia Drabek Smetisko, appeared in
Chicago
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
, United States in 1963, had a book published titled ''Autobiography of HIH Anastasia Nicholaevna of Russia'' that year, and died in Rhode Island in 1997.
*
Eleonora Kruger, lived with Alexei impostor
George Zhudin and died in a Bulgarian village in 1954.
*
Natalya Bilikhodze, appeared in 1995 and went to Russia in 2000 to "claim the Romanov fortune."
*
Nadezhda Vasilyeva, appeared in the 1920s in Russia and died there in a
Kazan
Kazan; , IPA: Help:IPA/Tatar, ɑzanis the largest city and capital city, capital of Tatarstan, Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Volga and the Kazanka (river), Kazanka Rivers, covering an area of , with a population of over 1. ...
psychiatric ward in 1971.
Some individuals have come forward claiming direct descent from Anastasia:
*
Anatoly Ionov claims to be Anastasia's son.
* Caty Petersen is a
Filipino woman who claims that her grandmother was Grand Duchess Anastasia. Her grandmother was named Tasia and claimed to have arrived in
Manila
Manila, officially the City of Manila, is the Capital of the Philippines, capital and second-most populous city of the Philippines after Quezon City, with a population of 1,846,513 people in 2020. Located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on ...
in 1919, and to have had siblings named Maria and Alexei. She also said that they had to hide from
Soviet Russia or else they would be "kill
d.
Alexei impostors
Several men claimed to be
Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich of Russia, including:
* Vasily Filatov, whose claim came from
Astrakhan
Astrakhan (, ) is the largest city and administrative centre of Astrakhan Oblast in southern Russia. The city lies on two banks of the Volga, in the upper part of the Volga Delta, on eleven islands of the Caspian Depression, from the Caspian Se ...
, Russia, shortly before his death in 1988.
*
Eugene Nicolaievich Ivanoff, whose claim emerged from Poland in 1927.
*
George Zhudin (?–1930), lived with
Eleonora Kruger and died in a
Bulgarian village;
*
Alexander Savin, who was arrested by the
OGPU
The Joint State Political Directorate ( rus, Объединённое государственное политическое управление, p=ɐbjɪdʲɪˈnʲɵn(ː)əjə ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əjə pəlʲɪˈtʲitɕɪskəjə ʊprɐˈv ...
(Russian Secret Police) in 1928
*
Heino Tammet, who died in 1977 in
Vancouver
Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...
, British Columbia, Canada.
*
Michael Goleniewski
Michał Franciszek Goleniewski, also known as 'SNIPER' and 'LAVINIA' (16 August 1922 – 12 July 1993), was a Polish spy and military officer.
He was an officer in the People's Republic of Poland, Polish People's Republic's Ministry of Public ...
, a
CIA agent who in 1959 claimed to be the Tsarevich.
* Author, Michael Gray, (an alias adopted by a 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 son of the Tsarevich and
Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, and they had secretly married in the late 1940s.
Olga, Tatiana, and Maria impostors
*
Marga Boodts claimed to have been
Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia.
*
Granny Alina claimed to have been
Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia.
*
Larissa Tudor was claimed to have been
Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna due to an apparent physical resemblance
*
Alexis Brimeyer claimed his grandmother,
Ceclava Czapska, was
Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia.
[Massie (1995), pp. 145-149]
*
Maddess Aiort claimed to have been the
Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia.
*
Michelle Anches claimed to have been the Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia.
Other impostors
*
Achmed Abdullah - claimed descent from Grand Duke Nicholas Romanoff, a supposed cousin of the Czar
*
Suzanna Catharina de Graaff was a Dutch woman who claimed to be the fifth daughter of
Nicholas
Nicholas is a male name, the Anglophone version of an ancient Greek name in use since antiquity, and cognate with the modern Greek , . It originally derived from a combination of two Ancient Greek, Greek words meaning 'victory' and 'people'. In ...
and
Alexandra
Alexandra () is a female given name of Greek origin. It is the first attested form of its variants, including Alexander (, ). Etymology, Etymologically, the name is a compound of the Greek verb (; meaning 'to defend') and (; genitive, GEN , ; ...
, born in 1903 when Alexandra was reported to have had a "
hysterical pregnancy".
[Lovell, James Blair, Anastasia: The Lost Princess, Regnery Gateway, 1991] There are no official or private records of Alexandra giving birth to any child at this time.
*
Michael Romanoff, actually a
Lithuanian-born eccentric named Harry F. Gerguson, claimed for decades before his death in 1971 that he was the nephew of the last Tsar. Though his story and assumed name were discredited quickly, he continued to be a minor celebrity in
Hollywood, where he operated the highly popular Romanoff's Restaurant.
Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Romanov Impostors