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Post by observer on Mar 6, 2009 0:00:46 GMT
A report published online last week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (at www.pnas.org/search?fulltext=anastasia&go.x=0&go.y=0&go=GO&submit=yes) suggests that recent DNA evidence suggests that none of the late Czar Nicholas II's children survived Ekaterinberg. Supports of Anna Anderson and other claimants may now have to rethink their positions, I believe. |
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Post by vittoria on Mar 14, 2009 23:06:08 GMT
Oh, they've been rethinking their positions for some time, observer, but there will always be some naysayers. Conspiracy theorists and fantasists never die, DNA notwithstanding.
What has always boggled my mind is the claim that Franziska Schanzkowska, aka Anna Anderson, closely resembled the Grand Duchess Anastasia. Even specialists in so-called skull comparisons and the comparisons of old photographs ("does this ear look like her ear?") insisted that Anna Anderson and Anastasia had just the right number of centimeters beween their eyes, or just the right ear formation. Even Robert Massie, who should have known better, claimed that Anderson had a "strong resemblance" to Anastasia. She did not.
In fact -- and even granted that good photographs of the Grand Duchess taken shortly before her death are very rare -- there was no resemblance whatsoever. (The relative positions of their eyes, something that doesn't change with age, was so markedly different as to be an obvious indicator to an objective observer.) But people see what they want to see, they think what they want to think, and this was one of the great, romantic, and exciting legends of the 20th century.
I'm glad the legend has been vanquished, scientifically speaking; though of course some people will never believe it. Fairy tales are more fun than reality.
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Post by donald1941 on May 11, 2009 17:34:20 GMT
The fact that Fraulein Unbekannt, who took the name Anna Anderson, was Franziska Schanzkowska was known as long ago as the late 1920s when her brother Felix and sister Gertrude identified her. However, those who were managing FS as AA managed to get them to refuse to sign a legal affidavit to that effect.
Therefore those who had a vested interested in AA could continue to claim her as Anastasia.
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