I have had sort of a long think about Gleb Botkin's characterization of Anna as an exhibitionist.
As a friend pointed out, Botkin had a long involvement with the whole Anna Anderson debacle and his memoirs, in part, are one of the vehicle's he uses to validate the hoax.
I hadn't taken that into consideration. His involvement makes him something of an unreliable source.
Besides, I have made my point about Anna's outrageous behavior in the Spring of 1914 using reliable sources such as Spiridovitch and Narishkin.
One of the things Margarita Nelipa achieved so masterfully in her first book, The Murder of Grigorii Rasputin, was her use of reliable Russian first sources which freed her discourse on Rasputin from, what Gregory Freeze refers to, as "the lurid sensationalism of the 'Rasputinshchina' literature."
Though Botkin has value in certain areas, there is something about his characterization of Anna that muddies the waters, that smacks of sensationalism and though I included his characterization of Anna in my first article, I will not include it in my book.
I suppose I should keep all this to myself, but at the same time I have never been a fan of infallibility, in myself or anyone else.
To quote my favorite historian, Jacques Barzan:
"Claiming detachment need not raise the issue of objectivity. It is a waste of breath to point out that every observer is in some way biased. If does not follow that bias cannot be guarded against that all biases distort equally, or that controlled bias remains as bad as propaganda. In dealing with the arts, for example, it is being "objective" to detect one's blind spots--step one in detachment. The second is to refrain from downgrading what one does not respond to. One has the duty to report the informed judgment of others.
Since some events and figures in our lengthy past strike me as different from what they have seemed before, I must occasionally speak in my own name and giver reasons to justify the heresy. I can only hope that this accountability will not attempt some reviewers to label the work "a very personal book." What book worth reading is not? If Henry Adams were the echo of Gibbon, we would not greatly value the pastiche.
On this point of personality, William James concluded after reflection that philosophers do not give us transcripts but visions of the world. Similarly, historians give visions of the past. The good ones are not merely plausible; they rest on a solid basis of facts that nobody disputes. There is nothing personal about facts, but here is about choosing and grouping them. It is by the patterning and the meanings ascribed that the vision is conveyed. And this, if anything, is what each historian adds to the general understanding. Read more than one historian and chances are good that you will come closer to the full complexity. Whoever wants an absolute copy of what happened must gain access to the mind of God." (From Dawn to Decadence, p. x-xi.)
