THE DUCHESS ANASTASIA

Hokitika Guardian, 21 February 1928, Page 4

THE DUCHESS ANASTASIA

' IDENTITY PROBLEM OF CZAR’S DAUGHTER. A cable message in a recent issue stated that though the Grand Duke Andrew Vladimirovitch has acknow- ' lodged the young woman who is claimed j to he the Grand Duchess Anastasia, daughter of the late Czar, who was a cousin to the Grand Duke Andrew, Mr n F. J. Mackenzie, the noted correspondent, denounces Iter as an impostor. Around the message hangs it story of 1 . cruel suffering and dire misfortune, in ’. l which lust of gold and the fear of the ~ coward are strongly intermixed. Tikidentity of the Grand Duchess Anastasia has been in doubt for many years and it is reported that site was saved from death in the grim tragedy in which the Czar anti his whole household were massacred in cold blood in the basement of their exile home in Ekaterinburg on the fateful night of July 17, ,f 1018 ‘ r Telling the story ol the late of the ’ unfortunate Anastasia, who was then Id years of age, Glen Botkin, son of the Czar’s personal physician, who died 1C with the Emperor, states that in reality the Grand Duchess Anastasia did not die ; one of the soldiers of the execution party noticed that her heart was , still heating. lie took advantage of the time occupied in preparation of the cremation fire, during which the bodies of the victims were left lying in a pile, and smuggled the unconscious Anastasia away to his larm, which was located in the same vicinity. On the same day this man. who called himself j t by an assumed name—Tchaikovsky, j left his farm, accompanied by his mother, his sister, and his friend Shuroff, carrying the Grand Duchess in I a peasant cart. East from Ekaterinss burg was raging the civil war between n Hie Rods and the Whites. Tchaikovsky j s went south-west in the hope of rcneliing Rumania, where he had somo friends or relatives. He reached n Bucharest safely some three months Q later. Anastasia turned over to her 0 rescuer till the jewels which she, as did her mother and sisters, had sewn into her dress. When she was slightly recovered she married her rescuer, by j whom she had a son. This son was placed at the time in an orphan asylum and his fate remains a mystery. HUSBAND LS MURDERED. 'Tchaikovsky was murdered on the « streets of Bucharest and the Grand Duchess, having lost her last protector, j decided to make her way to Germany , p in the hope of finding her German relafives. Tchaikovsky’s friend ShuroiT accompanied the Grand Duchess to. Berlin. On her first night in Berlin the I Grand Duchess, in a moment of despair, walked out of her room and, after wandering aimlesslv along the to . ‘ , streets ot the strange dtv, threw IterIS . self from a bridge into the Lnndwohr Canal. She was rescued by the police and as, fearing persecution, she refused to give her name, the Grand Duchess was placed in an insane asylum for the poor, where she was kept Tor more than two years in one room with twenty crazy women. She was later recognised bv a nurse, n i Miss .Malinovsky, and alter many rumours a Russian baron took her in, hut later turned her out of his house, as she refused to promise hint some of Liu- fantastic sums of money which it is supposed, the ( zar lilt, in foreign hanks. This experience of the iinloitiinate Grand Duchess was repeated on several occasions, her protection being looked upon from a commercial viewpoint, till she was visited by and recognised bv Iter aunt, the Grand Duchess Olga, her former tutor. M,. (iillard and ‘ his wile and former nurse of Anastasia, | Mine. Hillard. The happiness with It the fateful Hi and Duchess imagined had at last come into her life of pain and Mtflering was doomed, however, to disappointment, for a campaign of perse-. 11lion was commenced by interested persons which characterised I lie duchess e as an imposter. 'The real causes of that persecution ate Still to some extent mysterious. It is known, however, in Germany that the main enemy of the Grand Duchess is her own uncle, the brother of the late Russian Empress—the Grand Dltkc Eriist-Lmlwig, of II esse-Darmstadt. 'The Grand Duchess had seen her uncle ”, for the last time in Russia during the war. which proved the rumours that the ( l Grand Duke had gone to Russia against the explicit prohibition of the German ; High Command. In addition it was i said that he had inherited all the proI pert.v of the late Russian Empress in his duchy. Grom that day started the campaign j against the unfortunate Grand Duchess led by the police of Hesso-Darmsfadt, hv private detectives of the Grand Duke s 1,1 H esse-Diirinstadti, by “ Xaehtnus- I gaho,” the editor of which boasted f openly he was working in the closest co-operation with the Grand Duke, and . by M. Gillard. who, incidentally, be- . came at the same time the represonta- | five of the Grand Duke of Hosse- . Darmstadt. Mrs Ralhleff, who was one of the few to remain loyal to Grand > Duchess Anastasia has been repeatedly threatened. i What prompts Grand Duchess Olga to he hostile towards her niece is more difficult to understand. The Grand Duchess herself explains Iter conduct by her trust in M. Gillard. Another .member of ilio Russian imperial family who is bitterly opposed to the Grand Duchess Anastasia is Grand Duke Cyril. The Grand Duke, who at the beginning of the Russian revolution, was one of the first to take an oath ol allegiance to the revolutionary government, hut who subsequently proclaimed himself emperor, seems to he in fear for Hie safety of his imaginary throne.

SEEN BY FORMER PLAYMATE. Glen Botkin, who is now in America states that he went to Europe last spring and missed the Grand Duchess Anastasia. He states that alter his father's appointment as personal physician to the Czar he quite troqucntly met and played with Anastasia, both being of the same age. Describing his ’meeting with her. he says: “ From the moment 1 found myself in her presence all my doubts were dispelled. Before me was Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia. She was miserable, nervous, her mouth disfigured by a bayonet wound and a blow of it rifle butt, her whole physical system undermined and exhausted, but in spite of all this so little changed that I could have no more doubts about her identity titan l could have had about my own. " All her little mannerisms, all her gestures 1 recognised at once, but in her eyes I saw not only her eyes hut the eyes of her father —the Emperor—as well. The features of the grandduchess are not very regular, hut characteristically Romanoff. Her eyes, however, can he called by no other word but fascinating, and because ot them one remains with the impression that site is very pretty. lit spite of all the tortures she had gone through. Grand Duchess Anastasia preserved Iter charm, her grace and even her -,ense of humour, which had always teen one of her outstanding eharacterstics. In nil her misery she can laugh it times like a care-free child, and Iter ■oilrage and patience are perfectly mazing.”