Anastasia

“There's a rumor in St. Petersburg,” that made its way around. It claims that the youngest girl from the Romanov dynasty survived, after the tragic shooting that claimed the lives of the rest of her family. That’s how the musical, Anastasia, begins.

The opening scenes explain how Russia has changed, from the time the Czars were in power to the 1920s. We meet the ‘street rat’ Dimitri and his friend Vlad, who both complain that Russia hasn’t gotten any better since the royals were overthrown. Vlad even mentions how he used to be a count, until events brought a change of luck.

Together, the two friends come up with a plan: to hold secret auditions to find a fake Anastasia, and have her meet her grandmother, the queen, in Paris, where they’ll then collect the reward money for her return. The search doesn’t go very well - or rather, not until a girl named Anya comes looking for them, hoping to join their trip. This woman goes on to tell how she does not know who she is; she has no memory at all, in fact, other than waking up in a hospital. There, she was simply told her name is Anya, and given a hat. She remembers nothing before that.

Dimitri and Vlad seize this opportunity, and make the mysterious woman into the Grand Duchess Anastasia. Over time, word gets out about what they’re doing, and catches the ears of Gleb, a communist military general, who sends for her. Once she is brought to him, they do not hit it off, and their personalities could not be more opposite - but despite that, Gleb starts to develop feelings for Anya. Anya, however, does not return these feelings. Gleb tells her to be careful of what she is doing, and gives her a reminder of what happened to the royal family all those years ago. She just ignores him, and continues with her training.

As she goes through this process, Anya has little bits of memory that come back at the most random times, leaving both Dimitri and Vlad to question a few things. One night, Dimitri can't sleep, so he tells her about how he once met the real Anastasia during a parade. Anya, interrupting, tells him how he bowed to the princess after catching up to her. This shocks Dimitri, who never told her that part - but she simply tells him that she remembered. He bows to her, realizing that she actually is the lost princess.

Meanwhile, Gleb, who is at a constant battle with his mind and heart, hears that Anya and her comrades have left Russia illegally. He becomes angered that she will not quit this dangerous idea that she is Anastasia Romanov, for her own safety. His boss then calls him in for a meeting, and tells him that he wants him to go after this person who claims she is the lost princess and kill her. Gleb agrees to the orders, and in his offices before he leaves, he sings about how conflicted he is on the inside. On the one hand, he does not want to kill the woman he loves - but on the other, he feels he must complete what his father started in the Revolution.

At the same time, the Queen, has had her fill of impostures, and orders her cousin Lily to “close the doors.” She was devastated after finding out her son and grandchildren were killed, but found hope when she heard the rumors of a possible survivor. She listened patiently as all these fake princesses came forward, but none of them were her granddaughter. At this, she lost hope, and did not want to hear about it anymore.

Once in Paris, they all go to a Ballet show, where Anya will get a chance to meet with her grandmother. During the show, Gleb shows up and sees her sitting there watching, but cannot pull the trigger, as he’s still battling with himself. It’s during the show that everyone's thoughts come out. Dimitri is nervous knowing he will lose Anya, who he has come to love, because she needs to be with her family. Anya is also nervous about meeting her grandmother, and wonders if she would even recognize her.

At this point, Anya’s grandmother notices her from afar, and wonders why she looks so familiar. After the show, the two are reunited - but her grandmother is skeptical, and it’s not until they sing their special song, “Once Upon a December,” that she believes this is actually Anastasia. With that, Anya can resume her role as princess, and Dimitri prepares to leave. But Anya comes to the realization that she loves Dimitri, and wants to leave the palace life to be with him.

She is stopped, however, by Gleb, who has finally made up his mind to finish what his father couldn't. He tells her to stop playing this game, to which she responds that it isn't a game. Then, he reveals to her that his father was the one to carry out the order of slaughtering her and her family. Once he has her at gunpoint, though, he hesitates and drops his weapon, telling her that he is not his father’s son, and that he believes she is the real princess. She thanks him, and as she leaves, Gleb goes back and tells his superiors that Anastasia never existed, and that she was just a dream.

Afterward, her grandmother accepts that she’ll never know if Anya was really her granddaughter or not - but simply knowing there was that hope out there, was enough for her. She tells the press the same thing as Gleb. Anya, meanwhile, leaves to find Dimitri, and together they live happily ever after. This show combines history and music in a very powerful, hopeful love story, where Dimitri and Anya fall for one another along the way. That was the Broadway play itself, meant to give a happy ending to one of the most tragic stories in Russian history. But the real history behind this story is much more depressing than the play portrays.

Meet the real Anastasia:

By all accounts, Anastasia Romanov was a mischievous, charming, and energetic child. Ana, as she was known, was the youngest daughter of the late Czar Nicholas II, who had three older sisters before her. After her came the long-awaited son, heir to the throne, and her closest sibling, Alexei. Life was all too great for the siblings, as Anastasia was first taught by her mother, and then received a Swiss tutor. She loved making others laugh, and delighted in mimicking pompous guests, as well as instigating pranks on nurses and tutors. She was also known to dislike doing school work, and often tried to bribe her teachers with flowers to raise her grade. When that did not work, she went on to the next teacher until it did.

As time went on, the girls grew into a routine, and everything was based around family and learning. Anastasia’s parents believed in discipline, and made sure to raise their kids the same way Czar Nicholas himself was raised. This came in the form of cold baths in the morning, and sleeping on cots with no pillows at night. All was well with the family for many years - that is, until the notorious mystic Rasputin joined in. From there, and especially with the way the Czar was handling World War I, things went downhill.

Anastasia was thirteen when the war began. While her mother and two older sisters trained as nurses and worked in military hospitals, Anastasia and her younger sister Marie visited soldiers at a small hospital near Alexander Palace. She wrote often to her father, who was away at military headquarters. Due to how badly the war was going, the Russian people soon asked the Czar to abdicate, which he did. But no sooner than he did, they still arrested him and his family. Nothing changed much for them while they were under house arrest, only that they were sent to Siberia. Shortly afterward, Vladimir Lenin came to power, and the family was separated. Nicholas, Alexandra, and Marie were taken to Ekaterinburg in the Ural region, and Anastasia, Olga, Tatiana, and Alexei were left in Siberia. Two months before their execution, the family was reunited. Anastasia turned seventeen that June. Two months later the family was executed by firing squad.

The mystery is born . . .

The rumor about Anastasia being alive started soon after the day of execution, when workers were cleaning up the bodies of the royals. There, they found all but the young princess’s body. The Russian people took this as evidence that Anastasia was able to escape, or that someone let her live. As a result, many women came forward during this time and claimed that they were the royal dutchess. Although none of these claims turned out to be true, for years the Russian people (as well as the royal family) kept up this hope, and after a time people just thought of it as a good rumor. That was, until 1920.

In 1920, a suicidal young woman was pulled from the Landwehr Canal in Berlin. She refused to tell authorities her identity, and was committed to the Dalldorf Asylum, where she lived in anonymity until 1922. Then, she suddenly announced to the world that she was none other than the Grand Duchess Anastasia. At first glance, many people thought she was indeed the lost princess, due to her appearance almost resembling her. Upon closer examination of her body, though, she had several ugly scars. When asked about these, she said she incurred the scars from Bolshevik knives during the execution of her family. One Bolshevik soldier, she said, helped her escape to the West after finding out she was alive.

After several months of claiming to be Anastasia, the mysterious woman was released from the asylum. She then moved in with the first of a long line of supporters, Gleb Botkin, who was the son of the slain Romanov family physician. During this time, numerous Romanov relatives interviewed her, and many were impressed by both her resemblance to Anastasia and her knowledge of the small details of the Romanovs’ family life. Others were skeptical when she failed to remember important events of young Anastasia’s past. Her knowledge of English, French, and Russian, which the young Anastasia knew how to speak well, were also significantly lacking. But that meant nothing to her supporters, who blamed these gaps on her reoccurring mental illness.

Because of these facts, the would-be Anastasia’s supporters were trying to get her legally recognized as the lost princess. But there was one person, the Czar's brother-in-law the Grand Duke of Hesse, who did not believe her, and hired a private investigator. After some time, the investigator came back and found out the real identity of the woman. It was announced that she was in fact Franziska Schanzkowska, a Polish-German factory worker from Pomerania who had disappeared in 1920. Schanzkowska had a history of mental instability, and was injured in a factory explosion in 1916, which accounted for the scars.

Schanzkowska continued her fight for recognition, losing several court cases as the decades passed. She eventually moved to the United States and married a professor by the name of J.E. Manahan. In 1970, she lost her last major suit. Now named Anna Anderson Manahan, she died in 1984 in Charlottesville, Virginia, of a tumor in her stomach. Despite the time that had passed, though, she died still believing she was the long-lost princess. Years after her death, her body was exhumed and examined. And for anyone who does not already know, or are waiting for the results: sadly, after much DNA and genealogy testing, it was found she was not the long lost princess. The Broadway version of events does a good job at keeping the mystery and hope alive that she did live, but sadly, as fate would have it, it wasn’t meant to be.

Sources for this article:

https://www.biography.com/royalty/anastasia-romanov

https://biography.yourdictionary.com/anastasia

https://iflist.wordpress.com/2015/05/14/featured-story-of-the-week-the-mystery-behind-anastasia-and-anna-anderson/

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/anastasia-arrives-in-the-united-states

https://stageagent.com/shows/musical/10817/anastasia