Hi Penny,
This is the first time I have read this court transcript. I have a few questions regarding the extract which you have presented here.
Hi, Belochka!
See my various responses below...
a. "OA: She spoke a few sentences to Madame Gilliard"
compare to:
b. "Gilliard: She spoke only one sentence, to my wife. I do not consider that linguistic ability."
Was this variation in detail given by these two witnesses tested further in Court?
No-nothing is mentioned in the transcript, but I only read through and translated from German the most relevant portions, so it might have been pursued later.
OA did not clearly state (in this transcript extract) that she personally heard Russian spoken in her presence, unless both OA and Madame Gilliard were together in the same room. This is unclear here.
They were-in the context of the transcript-it refers to Olga's visit with AA with the Gilliards.
A few lines further down OA does stipulate that only German was spoken in OA's presence.
And Russian-both in questions asked and in the remarks to Shura.
My other questions are:
Are you able to provide a Court transcript which provides:
1. The specific sentence "she" addressed?
Maybe, but I doubt it. I would have to look but I don't believe it is mentioned in this context. There might be references in other materials.
2. The precise Russian words that "she" used to reply?
Ditto.
The length of the query and its reply would not necessarily provide evidence of good linguistic usage, a fact which Gilliard correctlly alluded to.
The expression used by the speaker would indicate the education and social standing of the user, including the city where they learnt Russian. If the language was acquired outside of Russia, or was not the user's primary language, it would be quickly identified by an educated intellectual Russian native speaker from SPb of the day.
Comprehension of a language does not merit fluency in the language.
Agreed. My point is to correct the canard that is continually repeated that AA never spoke or understood Russian -- clearly, she did both. This, coupled with the depositions of more than a dozen parties who stated that she spoke Russian, should end the issue.
Were any of these dialectical issues addressed by the Court?
At great length, but I don't recall where or in what volume they are.
From what you kindly presented here, on balance it cannot not be read that "she" was fluent in Russian.
Again, my point is that the continued assertions that she could not speak or understand Russian is false; I consider these statements, along with the statements of many more (like the Duke of Leuchtenberg, who conversed with her in Russian and was convinced that, whoever she was, she was a lady of good Russian society), to be evidence that she WAS fluent in Russian. Given the number of statements and the wide variety of those involved-including many who did not support her claim-I think the most weight has to be given to the belief that she was fluent.
What I would like, now, is to ask those who contend she could not speak Russian, or could not understand it, to post rebuttals. I am only interested in the statements of those who met her, not second-hand assertions. So I await that list. Please provide sources as I have done, so that their accuracy can be analyzed.
It could only be inferred that there was some form of understanding of the spoken language.
Finally,
Was "she" asked to write any random words in Russian before the Court?
This happened frequently, and many examples exist in the court records-page after page of her Russian. We even have some of these. To obtain a better selection, the Court looked at a number of samples, including letters, postcards, etc., that spanned a number of years, including the 1920s. These were analyzed by both handwriting experts, who concluded that AA's writing matched that of Anastasia, and linguistic experts, who found no errors or
mistakes.
Thanks for posting the Court Transcripts.
Your replies to these questions will be appreciated.
No problem! I hope that my answers have been helpful...
