Alexander Palace Forum
Discussions about the Imperial Family and European Royalty => The Myth and Legends of Survivors => Topic started by: bugman on October 27, 2015, 11:51:40 AM
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Almost Anastasia tells the story of Franziska Schanzkowsky, the former factory worker who convinced royals, courtiers, and forensic experts that she was actually the Grand Duchess Anastasia, daughter of Nicholas II and sole survivor of the 1918 massacre at Ekaterinburg. DNA analysis has established who she really was, but once that mystery was solved the real mystery began—how did she do it? Why did she do it? What would it be like to step into someone else's life and live it forever? A work of narrative nonfiction drawn from original documents (some never before translated into English) and interviews with the people who knew her, Almost Anastasia follows Franziska from the streets of Berlin to the castles of deposed royalty, from Jazz Age New York to Nazi Germany and beyond. It is a tale of mystique, madness, and one woman’s determination to fool the world.
Includes documents never before translated into English, and an interview with her niece.
http://www.amazon.com/Almost-Anastasia-Life-Franziska-Schanzkowsky/dp/069252746X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1444916625&sr=8-1&keywords=almost+anastasia
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I was wondering about this book the other day as well....anyone have any thoughts/feedback?
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The three star review seems to indicate that part of the book is fiction and part isn't. I'm not sure, though, without having read it...
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Reading it now - it is quite good!
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I read it on my Kindle. Much of the info is already known. It is not a justification, but more of an explanation of how and what Franziska was thinking, and how she literally schemed her way through all her various contacts. She seemed to be a consummate "user".
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The three star review seems to indicate that part of the book is fiction and part isn't. I'm not sure, though, without having read it...
I think the person who wrote that review didn't catch that it is narrative nonfiction and/or misunderstood what it is. I haven't read the book--obviously--but I read the sections available for preview and didn't find anything fictional.
I also wonder why the reader is disturbed by the author trying to understand Franziska Schanzkowsky's thought process. In most cases, a historical person's thoughts and motives are not laid out and need to be parsed out from what is available. I'm not dismissing her/his criticisms, just wondering....
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Sounds like an interesting read.
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The three star review seems to indicate that part of the book is fiction and part isn't. I'm not sure, though, without having read it...
I think the person who wrote that review didn't catch that it is narrative nonfiction and/or misunderstood what it is. I haven't read the book--obviously--but I read the sections available for preview and didn't find anything fictional.
I also wonder why the reader is disturbed by the author trying to understand Franziska Schanzkowsky's thought process. In most cases, a historical person's thoughts and motives are not laid out and need to be parsed out from what is available. I'm not dismissing her/his criticisms, just wondering....
Some people think that by trying to understand her thought process their making excesses for her actions and to an extent making her sympathetic. It's like the reaction people have about studying Hitler as anything but a monster. I'm obviously not comparing Hitler and Anna Anderson but you get the point.
To many she was a woman who thoughtlessly took the idenity of a young girl who was savagely and brutally murdered and paraded around like she owned the name, benefited greatly from it, and didn't care who she hurt in the process (Anastasia's family/friends). She's a cruel, selfish, nasty person who doesn't deserve to be understood even on the smallest level because they feel as if she danced on Anastasia's grave cheapened her memory (there are threads on the forum that discuss the topic). Anastasia and the fraud, Anna Anderson, go hand and hand in the minds of millions and that leaves a bitter taste. To them she doesn't deserved to be studied, but forgotten and buried never to be mentioned again.
I'm not saying I feel the same way but I understand why others think negatively about it.
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Ortino -- Thank you for the clarification. I'll add it to my reading list for next month, after NaNoWriMo is over and I have some free time again. :p
Maria Sisi -- I think that's one factor. Some people also don't like it when authors assume things about internal motivation of a historical person because those assumptions could be wrong. For example, maybe FS wasn't a master manipulator. Maybe she was crazy. Or maybe the truth is somewhere in between (that's what I personally think).
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Ortino -- Thank you for the clarification. I'll add it to my reading list for next month, after NaNoWriMo is over and I have some free time again. :p
Maria Sisi -- I think that's one factor. Some people also don't like it when authors assume things about internal motivation of a historical person because those assumptions could be wrong. For example, maybe FS wasn't a master manipulator. Maybe she was crazy. Or maybe the truth is somewhere in between (that's what I personally think).
I've always thought that FS could have been suffering from some type of undiagnosed Schizophrenia and/or split personality disorder.
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It's possible that FS got so deep into pretending to be Anastasia that, towards the end of her life, she actually started to believe it herself that she was Anastasia.
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I agree with you, Tim.
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Maria Sisi--thank you for your thoughts. I agree that that may be part of it, but personally think it's a bit narrow-minded and silly. To use your example of Hitler--I am Jewish, but does that mean I have no interest in knowing what made the man tick? Of course not. Will he be any less of an evil person if I learn more about him and his thoughts? Hardly. If scholars didn't try to psychoanalyze, then books on history would be very boring indeed.
TimM--I don't think that it was possible; I think it is more than likely that she thought of herself as Anastasia by the end. If you kept up an act for decades, I would think it would be difficult to remember where the truth ended and the lies began.
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I think AA was mentally ill, and that she did come to believe that she really was Anastasia, though at what stage in her lengthy career is debatable.
Ann
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TimM--I don't think that it was possible; I think it is more than likely that she thought of herself as Anastasia by the end. If you kept up an act for decades, I would think it would be difficult to remember where the truth ended and the lies began.
Uh, isn't that pretty much what I said?
When I visit my local Chapters later this week, I'll see if they have a copy. If they don't, I'll order one.
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Chapters didn't have the book. So I've ordered it through the Canadian Amazon website.
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It's possible that FS got so deep into pretending to be Anastasia that, towards the end of her life, she actually started to believe it herself that she was Anastasia.
I think it's quite likely, especially since she is said to have been senile. And the Anastasia myth is what everyone around her bought into by that point.
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Towards the end of his life, Johnny Weismuller would often wander his neighbourhood, doing the Tarzan yell. He had lost touch with reality.
The same could have happened to FF.
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It's possible that FS got so deep into pretending to be Anastasia that, towards the end of her life, she actually started to believe it herself that she was Anastasia.
I think it's quite likely, especially since she is said to have been senile. And the Anastasia myth is what everyone around her bought into by that point.
She pretty much was senile towards the end of her life unfortunately. It sounds cruel but some people have said if you want to know how out of touch with reality she was by the end just read James Blair Lovell's "biography" on her.
Her husband probably inadvertently hurt her as well. He seems to have had a few loose screws in his own head.
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Of course, there was really no way to disprove them when they were alive. Real evidence of Anastasia's death in 1918 would not surface until after both FF and Jack Manahan themselves were dead.
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I think AA was mentally ill, and that she did come to believe that she really was Anastasia, though at what stage in her lengthy career is debatable.
Ann
I used to think that perhaps the AA case was a 'folie a deaux' event , or rather a 'folie a plusieurs' . It has elements of that , but largely I think she was a conduit for the dreams, and schemes, of others . Take Gleb Botkin for instance - I have no idea whether he genuinely believed in her or not, but he could certainly use her as a stick with which to beat the Imperial Family, as they became the focus of his bitterness and grief (see the infamous 1929 letter). For her supporters she was the gift that kept on giving, as her claims could not be disproved. AA herself may not have been 'all there' but she was well organised and manipulative . I imagine she was stunned in the early days of her deception to discover how easily some people could be deceived. She soon developed a routine for her visitors/inquisitors and occasionally it worked . Her supporters did 99% of her work for her , facillitating her myth. She likely had a personality disorder long before any thoughts of being Anastasia entered her head but that is of course speculation.
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Of course, lots of the people who visited her inadvertently fed her the kind of useful little details that subsequently convinced the gullible.
A made-up example, 'Do you remember the polar bear rug in the green drawing room?'
Ann
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Yeah, just ask vague questions with no clear answer. Easy to make up a reply to one of those.
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It's possible that FS got so deep into pretending to be Anastasia that, towards the end of her life, she actually started to believe it herself that she was Anastasia.
I think that this was almost certainly the case once dementia set in.
And, of course, she was older than she claimed to be -- by five years. Isn't that every woman's dream -- to be mistaken for younger? But -- it does seem that she was rather ill for her age, especially toward the end, and I hear that she was rather "out of it" in her later years.
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During her career as 'Anastasia', she never seems to have been in good health, either physically or mentally, and spent long periods living in squalor, so it's not surprising that old age caught up with her faster than most.
Ann