Where is Anastasia Tschaikovsky?
Day 37 of 365 days. 329 days left to go.
Friends,
Unfortunately, I have to make this quick as it is 4:59 in the morning, and I am already running late.
My dog woke me up at 3:15, and I decided to fulfill an order that came in last night. I forgot that it takes an hour to prepare an order.
Silly me.
I digress…
On this day in 1928- a woman arrived in New York City claiming to be Anastasia Tschaikovsky- the youngest daughter of the executed Russian czar, Nicholas II.
She held a press conference, telling reporters that she came to repair her jaw after a Bolshevik soldier broke it during her escape. She was welcomed by Gleb Botkin, the son of a Romanov family doctor, who was executed alongside the royal family in 1918.
Now, interestingly, she was not the first woman to come forward. Over a half dozen claimed the honor. Every one of them was a proven liar.
Society was torn about whether the woman who used the alias Anna Anderson was the real deal. But she had many supporters and became a welcomed addition to high society. Numerous court cases were filed on her behalf, mostly to collect the family fortune, but she lost them all.
In 1968, she married an American history professor by the name of J.E. Manahan and spent her final years in Charlottesville, VA.
It wasn’t until 1991 that the case was finally settled. Using Prince Phillip, the consort of Queen Elizabeth II’s blood (who was related to the Romanovs), a team of British DNA experts proved that Anna Anderson was a fraud.
There are many side roads to this story- little tidbits of facts that all lead to why Anna came to the U.S. and what really happened to the royal family. And I should have spent time exploring them all. But I will save the rabbit hole of exploration for this weekend and present it in a later blog.
But it begs the question, how far will a person be willing to go to prove they are something they are not? How motivated will someone become to claim money and title?
Could a person reinvent themselves to the point that they lose who they once were and become someone radically different?
And until tomorrow, my friends- Keep Reading and Stay Caffeinated.
Sometimes it’s the smallest decisions that can change your life forever.
Keri Russel
If tales of legend, myth, and fantasy topped with a cup of coffee interest you, I suggest checking out my book, The Writer and the Librarian. It’s a historical fantasy about a middle-aged woman faced with a decision: accept what is written in the history books or find out for herself the truth behind the stories. Limited edition copies are now available on my website (Shop – R.L. Geer-Robbins / Author (rlgeerrobbins.com) or at
Amazon: https://a.co/d/flQhakX
Barnes and Noble: The Writer and the Librarian by Rose Geer-Robbins, Paperback | Barnes & Noble® (barnesandnoble.com)
Target: The Writer And The Librarian – (the Raven Society) By R L Geer-robbins (paperback) : Target
And on any of your favorite Indie Book Store websites!
Current sales as of today= 102/1500
The post Where is Anastasia Tschaikovsky? appeared first on R.L. Geer-Robbins / Author.
