THE DUCHESS ANASTASIA

Taranaki Daily News, 16 March 1928, Page 7

THE DUCHESS ANASTASIA

LIFE CF CRUEL SUFFERING IDENTITY OF CZARS DAUGHTER. OLD PLAYMATE CERTAIN. A cable message in a recent issue states that though the Grand Duke Andrew Vladimorovitch has acknowledged the young woman who is claimed to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia, daughter of the late Czar, who was a cousin to the Grand Duke Andrew, Mr. F. J. Mackenzie, the noted correspondent, denounces her as an imposter. Around the message hangs a story of cruel suffering and dire misfortune, In which lust of gold and the fear of the coward are strongly intermixed. The identity of the Grand Duchess Anastasia has been in doubt for many years, and it is reported that she was saved from death in the grim tragedy in which the Czar and his whole household were massacred in cold blood in the basement or their exile home in Ekaterinburg on the fateful night of July 17, 1918. Tolling the story of the fate of the unfortunate Anastasia, who was then lb years of age, Glen Botkin, son of the Czar’s personal physician, who died 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 beating. He 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 farm, which was located in the same vicinity. On the same day this man, who called himself by an assumed name —Tchaikovsky, left his farm accompanied by his mother, Ins sister, and his friend Shuroff, carrying the Grand Duchess in a peasant cart. East from Ekaterinburg was raging the civil war between the Reds and the Whites. Tchaikovsky went south-west in the hope of reaching Rumania, where ho had some friends or relatives. He reached Bucharest safely some three months later. Anastasia turned over to bar rescuer all the jewels which she, as had her mother and sisters, had sewn into her dress. When she was slightly recovered she married her rescuer, by whom she had a son. This son was placed at the time in an orphan asylum, and his fate remains a mystery. HUSBAND IS MURDERED. Tchaikovsky was murdered on the streets of Bucharest and the Grand Duchess, having lost her last protector, decided to make her way to Germany in the hope of finding her German relatives. Tchaikovsky’s friend Shuroff accompanied the Grand Duchess to Berlin. On her first night in Berlin the Grand Duchess, in a moment of despair, walked out of her room and, after wandering aimlessly along the streets of the strange city, threw herself from a bridge into the Landwehr Canal. She was rescued by the police and as, fearing persecution, she refused to answer any questions or give her name, the Grand Duchess was placed in an Insane asylum for the poor, where she was kept for more than two years in one room with twenty crazy women. She was later recognised by a nurse, Miss Malinovsky, and after many rumours a Russian baron took her in, but later turned her out of his house, as she refused to promise him some ot the fantastic sums of money which It is* supposed the Czar left in foreign banks. This experience of the unfortunate Grand Duchess was repeated on several occasions, her protection being looked upon from a commercial viewpoint, till she was visited by and recognised by her aunt, the Grand Duchess Olga, her former tutor, M. Gillard and his wife and former nurse of Anastasia, Mme. Gillard. The happiness which the fateful Grand Duchess imagined had at last come into her life of pain and suffering was doomed, however, to disappointment, for a campaign of persecution was commenced by interested persons which characterised the duchess as an imposter. MYSTERIOUS PERSECUTION. The real cause of that persecution is 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 Duke Ernst-Ludwig, of Hesse-Darmstadt. The Grand Duchess had seen her uncle for the last time in Russia during the war, which proved the rumours that the Grand Duke Lad gone to Russia against the explicit prohibition of the German High Command. In addition it was said that he had inherited all the property of the late Russian Empress in his duchy. From that day started the campaign against the unfortunate Grand Duchess, Ic'd by the police of Hesse-Darmstadt, by private detectives of the Grand Duke ot Hesse-Darmstadt, by “Naehtausgabe,” the editor of which boasted openly that he was working in the closest co-opera-tion with the Grand Duke, and by -Mr. Gillard, who, incidentally, became at the same time the representative of the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt. Mrs. Rathleff, who was one of the few to remain loyal to Grand T 'uchess Anastasia ha’ been repeatedly threatened. What prompts Grand Duchess Olga to be hostile toward her niece is more difficult to understand. The Grand Duchess herself explains her conduct by her trust in Mr. Gillard. Another member of the 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 -evolution, w ;s one of the first to take the oath of alle/iance to the revolutionary government, but who subsequently proclaimed himself emperor, seems to be in fear for the safety of his imaginary throne. SEEN BY FORMER PLAYMATE. Glen Botkin, who is now in America, states that he went to Europe last Anastasia. He states that after his spring and missed the Grand Duchess father’s appointment as personal physician to the Czar he quite frequently met and played with Anastasia, both being of the same age. Describing his meeting with her he says: “From the moment that I 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 a 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 than I could have had about my own.

“All her little mannerisms, all her gestureslrecognisedatonce xzfifl xzfiflflfl gestures I recognised at once, but in her eyes I saw not only her eyes but the eyes of her father —the Emperor —as well. The features of the Grand Duchess are not very regular, but characteristically Romanoff. Her eyes, however, can be called by no other word but fascinating, and because of them one remains with the impression that she is very pretty. In spite of all the tortures she had gone through, Grand Duchess Anastasia preserved her charm, her grace and even her sense of humour, which had always been one of her outstanding characteristics. In all her misery she can still laugh at times like a care-free child, and her courage and patience are perfectly amazing.”