Discussion-101 Reasons AA Not GD Anastasia

Believe you are not alone in believing that there is much more in the AA case.

As for the letters from Olga to AA, a royal from that era would not dare to write  letters of that confidence to a non-equal. Even in writing to minor nobility you see the difference. The letters are a sample that she believed and knew AA was an equal and she goes as far as to give her a personal item, the shawl, another unthinkable thing to do in front of a person who at the very least was not your peer.
Do not mystify GD Olga, she looks as a very democratic and down to earth person, but she was before all an Emperor's daughter behaving accordingly when dealing with people.

Besides, she was a smart person and knew what would be in store for her if she dared to contradict her family. She depended financially from them, at the very end it weighed more the security of her own inmediate family. As for GD Xenia, I think she was capable of many things, see how she managed to leave her own sister out of most of the proceeds from the sale of the jewels of MF. A claimant , as AA, would be a terrible nuisance, specially financially.
Let's be real these people were penniless and were counting on two things:

1.The return to Russia and their former wealth.

2.The jewels and valuables they managed to take with them.

The first was very far away almost impossible, but the second was very real. Marie Feodorovna was old and the sale of her house in Denmark and her jewels will provide sufficient funds for a large family like Xenia's. So a claimant being an impostor or not was to be ignored for their own sake. The next one was Olga herself, proof of that was her  lack of funds and Olga's own statements. When GD Xenia died she left  £250,000 pounds , a fortune at the time of her death. Up or down when it comes to inheritance and money families are the same all over the world.

It is very possible that a combination of these family intrigues and people interested in using AA played against her in these early stages of her battle to prove her identity.

Dear P,

You have not a shred of evidence for any of your assertions about Olga Alexandrovna. Is it not possible to think that, assuming Anna Andersen was Anastasia, that Olga was unable to recognize her?

There is no need to demonize a woman who suffered greatly because of the Revolution. Olga died penniless, in a room provided through the charity of poor Russian emigres living in Canada. Her life was filled with poverty and endangerment, and unlike Xenia, she did not receive a grace-and-favor home from the British. She supported herself through hard work throughout her life, and there are numerous testimonies to her charity for those less fortunate than herself.

It is not necessary to defame people to make a case that AA was AN. I don't think she was, but I don't think that Gleb and Tatiana Botkin, Dominique Aucleres, Dassel, Schwabe and the others were liars. I think they were mistaken. And if I supported AA'sa claims, I would think the same of Olga Alexandrovna.

Simon

Hi again everyone, I don't thrink pentetorri was being disrespectful of Olga A just showing how the letters Olga sent were written to AA as if she was of equal status to herself. I have read the letters and they make me feel warm inside to see what a warm and compasionate person Olga was, whatever she beleived.

I've always sympathised with Olga A, brought into a loveless marriage whilst still so young and being unable to be with the man she did love. I am happy for her that she was eventually able to marry him, but I cannot imagine the pain she felt upon news of the death of her Brother and his family.

On the last page of Anastasia's album there is a very  sharp colour photo of Olga A in the last years of her life and the pain in those eyes is enough to break my heart, it's like that photo speaks to you of her sadness. It was not right and it never will be that Xenia was so much better off than her sister, who died alone in a flat above a hairdressers.

I thought that Olga A last saw Anastasia in 1916 and then only briefly, I am not criticising Olga A because I have the utmost respect for her. But surely it was possible for mistakes to be made, Olga herself was uncertain after the first meetings and continued to be so until what I beleive to be pressure from her sister and the other Romanovs, but this of course is only a assumption.

Best

Rachael

Dear P,

You have not a shred of evidence for any of your assertions about Olga Alexandrovna. Is it not possible to think that, assuming Anna Andersen was Anastasia, that Olga was unable to recognize her?

There is no need to demonize a woman who suffered greatly because of the Revolution. Olga died penniless, in a room provided through the charity of poor Russian emigres living in Canada. Her life was filled with poverty and endangerment, and unlike Xenia, she did not receive a grace-and-favor home from the British. She supported herself through hard work throughout her life, and there are numerous testimonies to her charity for those less fortunate than herself.

It is not necessary to defame people to make a case that AA was AN. I don't think she was, but I don't think that Gleb and Tatiana Botkin, Dominique Aucleres, Dassel, Schwabe and the others were liars. I think they were mistaken. And if I supported AA'sa claims, I would think the same of Olga Alexandrovna.

Simon

Thank you for  giving more arguments to my ideas. Yes indeed she died penniless because of family intrigue that left her out of the proceeds of the sale of MF's jewels, she only received a token sum that allowed her together with the sale of some of her valuables to buy first the farm in Denmark and then the small farm in Canada. It was Xenia that kept most of the money leaving a small but respectable capital after her death. This to prove that it is not that far fetched the idea of Romanoff relatives denying AA for reasons different to true identity but for financial convenience. If Xenia did that to her own sister Olga imagine what she could have done to AA.

Demonizing, for God's sake these people were not saints, they were humans. And remember some of them conspire to a cold blood murder (see GD Dimitri and Rasputin). I am not defaming Olga but I think AA has the same right to be defended. In these forums she has been called a liar, fraud, mad woman, etc.

And as for evidence, I know when it comes to AA some of you demand proof, evidence, sources , qualifications, expertise, when someone comes to defend her but when somebody attacks her it is enough their word.

For sources read "The Lost Fortune of the Tsars" and "The flight of the Romanoff" and many biographical works on the Romanoff. There you will see the traits and true characteristics of this family. These grand ladies so caring as you describe them did nothing against the progroms against the jews in Russia where thousands were killed or deported even in Nicholas II reign. What about the extreme poverty that surrounded them, what did these caring ladies do?. And let me give you some other examples of the traits and characteristics of this family:
GD Alexander left Xenia to live as a bon vivant in France with his lover,  GD Marie left her newborn child in Sweden to live again in Russia and remarry  Putiatin, Irina married to a known philanderer and later murderer, GD Pavel left her two small children to the care of GD Elisabeth to live with Princess Paley, GD Cyril betrayed his own cousin by raising the revolution flag on top of his palace and swearing allegiance to them, the Vladirimovich conspired openly to kill the Tsar and exile the Tsarina, GD Nicholas K. stole from his own mother and was exiled, and that is only in the later  generations.

This to tell you that we are dealing with a very disfuntional family not your every day middle class folk. Do not be so idealistic about the Romanoff they came from a world where they were all powerful and used to getting their ways. So, AA was not only fighting for her identity, she was fighting against a family not so caring or saintly. And this you can find it in any history book.

It never ceases to amaze me how people call me 'unkind' for suspicioning Gleb Botkin had a part in AA's charade, while they will turn around and be 'unkind' to family members who were grieving, and whose pain was only made greater by the pretenders. I am not saying the family was 'saintly' of course not, no one's family of any financial standing is, not even mine, especially not mine! But the fact is, AA WAS NOT AN and they didn't recognize her because it wasn't her! They were not lying to protect nonexistant money, and Olga, the black sheep of the family who had married 'wrong'  was certainly not one for greed as say Kyril was. How come these people's motives can be questioned,and not Botkin's?

Not everyone beleives as you do, alot of people do but not all.  I know you're thoroughly convinced of AA not being AN but it's just you're opinion, others beleive differently. So stop stating it as a fact.

You're right it is wrong if the Romanovs motives are questions and not the Botkins but I've seen both their motives questioned many times, there are always more questions to ask, on both sides.

Rachael

It never ceases to amaze me how people call me 'unkind' for suspicioning Gleb Botkin had a part in AA's charade, while they will turn around and be 'unkind' to family members who were grieving, and whose pain was only made greater by the pretenders. I am not saying the family was 'saintly' of course not, no one's family of any financial standing is, not even mine, especially not mine! But the fact is, AA WAS NOT AN and they didn't recognize her because it wasn't her! They were not lying to protect nonexistant money, and Olga, the black sheep of the family who had married 'wrong'  was certainly not one for greed as say Kyril was. How come these people's motives can be questioned,and not Botkin's?

Errr, really I was not responding to you but to Louis Charles.

We can question everybody, we must, in History you have that right but you must let other people criticize and make their point. So, I answer accordingly to Louis Charles saying I am not demonizing anybody but just stating some known facts about this peculiar family.
Excuse me ,  you call the jewels of MF non existant?? or the money they received from a bank whose name I don't recall? That was very real!!!

Dear P,

You completely missed the point of my post. I am not saying that AA was not Anastasia. What I said is that it is possible to examine the evidence, and apparently even meet her (as I actually did, by the way) and come to the conclusion that she was not the woman she claimed to be. It was also possible to meet her, examine the evidence and come to the conclusion that she was Anastasia.

You persist in turning this into a question of personalities. The people on either side of the identity question are not "bad" or "good", they simply have different points of view. Olga Alexandrovna's life is a rebuke to the motivations you give her, and I have read both of the sources you cite; neither they or the letters she wrote to Anna Andersen support the idea that Anastasia's Aunt Olga knowingly turned her back upon her niece in the person of Anna Andersen. References to Grand Duke Dmitri's role in the assassination of Rasputin are immaterial. For a contrary example,  Olga's brother Nicholas is a canonized saint, which also says nothing whatsoever about Olga. To "demonize" someone is to attribute all of their actions to bad motives. It is the opposite of treating them as a human being. So is "sanctifying" people. The way in which you determine a person's motives, it seems to me, is to examine their pattern over a lifetime.

There has been a lot of chatter in these posts about people claiming infallibility, about people being unwilling to consider both sides of a question. The fundamental attitude behind your post, i.e. that everyone who failed to recognize Anna Andersen as Anastasia did so as part of a conspiracy, is simply irrational. Which means it is not possible to engage in discussion.

So I'm done.

Regards,

Simon

Not everyone beleives as you do, alot of people do but not all.  I know you're thoroughly convinced of AA not being AN but it's just you're opinion, others beleive differently. So stop stating it as a fact.

You're right it is wrong if the Romanovs motives are questions and not the Botkins but I've seen both their motives questioned many times, there are always more questions to ask, on both sides.

Rachael

That AA was not AN is not just an opinion....it is a scientific FACT...The independent evidence of 4 seperate testing labs...labs which do this sort of research everyday....state that she had No-Zero-Zilch-Nada relationship to any relation of the IF...Do we see?

And the number one reason AA was not AN...
Because AN was brutally murdered at the Ipatiev House by the Bolsheviks.

People can believe what they want, Rachael, but believing something that has been proven wrong like this is the same as believing the south won the Civil War, or that Arizona is not a state. There is proof!

Thankyou Annie, for accepting that others have different opinions. I have felt under attack from certain members so I'm leaving this thread.

Etonexile I genuinely feel sorry for you. You cannot accept that people have different opinions to you, you cannot grasp that and becasue of it you're mind is closed so it's pointless us arguing, let's agree to disagree shall we ? Neither of us are going to sway the other so let's just stop totally. I am not returning here to this thread so you can stay here in peace.

I'm sorry Annie I now this will sound stupid but I don't really understand the example you gave about the states borders I know what you say is most certainly true but I do not know it myself, because I live in the U.K and was always hopeless at Geography!

Best

Rachael

Dear P,

You completely missed the point of my post. I am not saying that AA was not Anastasia. What I said is that it is possible to examine the evidence, and apparently even meet her (as I actually did, by the way) and come to the conclusion that she was not the woman she claimed to be. It was also possible to meet her, examine the evidence and come to the conclusion that she was Anastasia.

You persist in turning this into a question of personalities. The people on either side of the identity question are not "bad" or "good", they simply have different points of view. Olga Alexandrovna's life is a rebuke to the motivations you give her, and I have read both of the sources you cite; neither they or the letters she wrote to Anna Andersen support the idea that Anastasia's Aunt Olga knowingly turned her back upon her niece in the person of Anna Andersen. References to Grand Duke Dmitri's role in the assassination of Rasputin are immaterial. For a contrary example,  Olga's brother Nicholas is a canonized saint, which also says nothing whatsoever about Olga. To "demonize" someone is to attribute all of their actions to bad motives. It is the opposite of treating them as a human being. So is "sanctifying" people. The way in which you determine a person's motives, it seems to me, is to examine their pattern over a lifetime.

There has been a lot of chatter in these posts about people claiming infallibility, about people being unwilling to consider both sides of a question. The fundamental attitude behind your post, i.e. that everyone who failed to recognize Anna Andersen as Anastasia did so as part of a conspiracy, is simply irrational. Which means it is not possible to engage in discussion.

So I'm done.

Regards,

Simon

I see a pattern in these threads, it is OK to attack AA even with disinformation as Annie does, or changing the essence of one's statements as you did, as long as you support the thesis AA was FS.  Once you disagree with that thesis, you are irrational. I never said that if someone did not recognize AA as Anastasia then that person was part of a conspiracy, where did you get that? I am not part of the infallible clan, I do not dictate dogma. I only said that Olga's not recognition of AA could be explained not only because she was not Anastasia but because of plausible family intrigue and pressure from a family whose characteristics and traits in the past shows us capable of many things.

Then , I gave some examples of their behaviour that could give a taste of what they were capable of. Certainly, not all of them, I could not compare those individuals to GD KK for example.
All of this is a question of personalities, certainly it is. Of course, people are not bad or good exclusively, never said that, but by analyzing their traits and lives we could see what kind of reaction they could have had in front of a claimant as AA. For me it is important if inside a family there are murderers, cheaters, mass murderers and child abusers (you also abuse a child by abandoning him), that tells you who you are dealing with.
These are specific behaviours not like your example on Nicholas being saint, decades after his death.

The problem here is that some people are more Romanoff than the Romanoff, and they forget who this family was, painting an idealistic picture of them far from the truth. Bottom line Olga could have been forced not to recognize AA as Anastasia not only because she was not, BUT because of family pressure and intrigue that forced her to turned her back on AA. I think the main reason to give in to this pressure was a financial dependance of her and her husband and children from her family. Also, her position in the family was weakened by the divorce and the marriage to a commoner.

I suggest you re-read the sources I gave you, you missed a lot!!

And I am done but with intollerance, infallibility, changing one's statements.

You know Pentatori, no matter how much your post, and no matter what you say about this, it really doesn't matter in the end because SHE WAS NOT ANASTASIA!!!!!!

Thankyou Annie, for accepting that others have different opinions. I have felt under attack from certain members so I'm leaving this thread.

Etonexile I genuinely feel sorry for you. You cannot accept that people have different opinions to you, you cannot grasp that and becasue of it you're mind is closed so it's pointless us arguing, let's agree to disagree shall we ? Neither of us are going to sway the other so let's just stop totally. I am not returning here to this thread so you can stay here in peace.

I'm sorry Annie I now this will sound stupid but I don't really understand the example you gave about the states borders I know what you say is most certainly true but I do not know it myself, because I live in the U.K and was always hopeless at Geography!

Best

Rachael

Rachael, i think you should continue in this and any other threads. Annie is just an infallible person obsessed  with these threads, you can see by her avatar how concerned she is in saving "souls" from the great perils of believing AA, she has had extreme dosis of DNA as many others and they do not accept any other opinions. As for etonexile his posts are just an example of intollerance I would ignore him completely.

People as you and Real Anastasia have all the right to discuss and participate in these threads, specially these ones dedicated to AA, and we have to cope with a few obsessed and intollerable members who think they are above of everybody.

Best wishes