Michael Goleniewski

[AGRBear]

Michael Goleniewski claimed he was Tsarvich Alexei.

Here are some facts that we know about him.

From THE HUNT FOR THE CZAR  by Guy Richards pps 20-27

The Americans were trying to discover who "Heckenshuetze", the code name for someone who hd sent them two thousand microfilms of Communist intelligence secrets, and then  a voice over the phone to the FBI and it said he was "Heckenshuetze".  Natually, the American CIA brought "Heckenshuetze". to Frankfurt.  A man showed up with  a woman he called is wife and identification papers of Lieutenant Colonel Michael Goleniewski of Polish Army Intelligence.  On p. 22:  "He added, then, that he was in reality Alexei Nicholaevich Romanov, only son and heir of Czar Nicholas II."

If you want to read more about Michael G.'s  assoication with the FBI or CIA  then you have the pages and book listed above.

Michael G. became public in 1964

The book also talks about Michael G.'s meeting with Mrs. Eugenia Smith starting on p. 154.

Guy Richards wrote a book about Michael G. called IMPERIAL AGENT.

THE FILE ON THE TSAR by Summers and Mangold pps.  193-5.  "...Goleniewski's apperance marked the start of a remarkable campaign in the United States t prove all the Romanovs survived."

James B. Lovell's ANASTASIA, THE LOST PRINCESS pps. 468-70 in his Appendices.  And p. 277:  "Goleniewsky revealed his claim and said that he had been "miraculously" cured of his childhood hemophilia."

I'm sure others can fill in what I've skipped over.

AGRBear

[AGRBear]

Michael Goleniewski who claimed in 1964 to be Tsarvich Alexei, son of Nicholas II.

[lexi4]

Thank you Bear.
I am trying to put together as much information on him as I can as I thought he might be a good topic for a paper. Does anyone have anything else? Was his claim ever taken seriously?

[rskkiya]

Try The Quest for Anastasia by Klier and ? ...
   I am afraid I lent my copy out and never got it back. (insert icon of rage here)

rskkiya

[Penny_Wilson]

Thank you Bear.
I am trying to put together as much information on him as I can as I thought he might be a good topic for a paper. Does anyone have anything else? Was his claim ever taken seriously?

Guy Richards wrote a book about him -- Imperial Agent (?).  I think that's it.  Goleniewski also published his own newsletter, called Dvouglavy Orel (Double-headed Eagle) -- it's in English, though the title is Russian.

When last I heard anything about Goleniewski, he had fled this country for France, thinking that the CIA was about to arrest and make away with him.  This was quite late -- maybe sometime in the 80s?  I assume he's dead now, though I haven't any idea when or where.

His widow was alive a few years ago -- and he has a daughter called Tatiana who lives and works in New York City.  She has an interest in Russian history, and corresponded with us briefly about Atlantis in its early days, but we didn't question her about her father.

[lexi4]

 So I take it he was just one in a long line of claimants? Was he actually in the CIA?

[Penny_Wilson]

Don't know about a long line -- but he's certainly a prominent Alexei claimant.

This is his story:  In the 1950s, he was a Polish agent working for the US -- a double agent, in other words.  He was caught in Poland, and was part of a prisoner exchange between the US and the Eastern Block.  He had been considered a valuable undercover man, but at his debriefing in Washington, he suddenly claimed that he was Alexei.  Some believed him, and some felt that this totally destroyed his credibility and the reliability of any work already done for the US in Poland.  Some thought that this was an elaborate ruse concocted to nullify the damage his counterespionage had done to Poland's security.

In any event, his story was that the whole family had survived the Ipatiev House, and had ended up in -- I think -- Warsaw.  Anastasia had not been with the family after 1918 -- I forget how they were supposed to have been separated. Alexandra had died in the twenties.  Nicholas lived until 1952ish, and I think he worked as a bus driver or something.  Olga and Tatiana gained massive amounts of weight and eventually visited Alexei in New York on the occasion of the birth of his daughter.  Maria remained in Poland.

There are photos of the "family" in Poland in the book Imperial Agent.  

[lexi4]

Thanks all. I had never heard of him until I started reading the posts here. I have ordered the books suggested and am looking forward to reading them.

[stepan]

Michail Goleniewski was born on September 6, 1922 in Poland and died in New York in 1993. This according to William Clarke in his Lost fortune of the Tsars. So he was certainly not tsarevich Alexej!  But an interesting person. One person who believed him to be the real tsarevich was Kyril de Shismarev who lived in New York and met him. He had lived in Tsarskoe Selo and met Alexej and the imperial family several times. It´s strange!  A book in French by Pierre de Villemarest,"Le Mysterieux Survivant dÒctobre" was published in 1984.

[AGRBear]

Born in 1922???

Wow, that is a real difference of ages since Alexei was born in 1904.

AGRBear

[lexi4]

Michail Goleniewski was born on September 6, 1922 in Poland and died in New York in 1993. This according to William Clarke in his Lost fortune of the Tsars. So he was certainly not tsarevich Alexej!  But an interesting person. One person who believed him to be the real tsarevich was Kyril de Shismarev who lived in New York and met him. He had lived in Tsarskoe Selo and met Alexej and the imperial family several times. It´s strange!  A book in French by Pierre de Villemarest,"Le Mysterieux Survivant dÒctobre" was published in 1984.

I wonder how they explained this when he made his claim? Anyone else ever heard this? It had to come up.

[RealAnastasia]

And we may see that this Golenievsky didn't have any in his face who makes me think in Alexei...He was nothing like the Tsarevitch. Heino Tammet was much more like him, even if he wasn't him at all!

And Golenievsky was born in 1922, sooo... . My grandpa was very similar to Alexei when he was a little boy, almost a twin ...But as Golenievsky, he was also born in 1922, in Cordoba, Argentina...So, he is not Alexei.  

RealAnastasia.

[lexi4]

I think Golenievsky is creepy looking.  

[Inquiring_Mind]

In "Rescue of the Romanovs" by Guy Richards there is a picture of a woman in late middle age. It is titled "The Woman in Warsaw" who many insiders believed to be Maria.

She told friends she was the mother of Colonel Goleniewski.

It's funny because this picture appears below one of Eugenia Smith. It's the picture of her in old age that was in Life magazine.  They look like sisters. Neither look like the IF.

[RealAnastasia]

Hi, people! I have some new info in Michael Golenievsky, it's in  "The Romanovs; The last Chapter" by Robert K. Massie.

Golenievsky claimed to be Alexei, and he stated that Yurovsky himself had helped his "family" to run away from Ekaterinburg. For him, there was not a massacre. All the family escaped. They were established in Poland . "The Tsar choose Poland" for there were many Russian people living there.    The Tsar razed his mustache and beard and nobody recognized him. They went to Warsaw, but, in 1924, the family moved to a village named Poznan, very near to the German border. The Tsarista died there a year later. So, the Tsar send Anastasia to America to withdraw funds in a Bank in Detroit. Olga and Tatiana moved to Germany, and Alexei and Maria remained in Poland with the Tsar. When the WWII started, the Tsar Nicholas served in the Poland Underground. In 1945, Golenievsky's friends arranged things for he could be admitted in the Army, and not long after this, he started to work in Intelligence. In 1952, at age 84, Tsar Nicholas died. When Golenievsky arrived to America and said he was Alexei, he also added that her four sisters were alive too, and that he was in contact with three of them.  He didn't know where Anastasia was. But then, Mrs. Eugenia Smith appeared saying that she was her, and Golenievsky recognized Eugenia as his sister.

Of course, there is the fact that he looked much more young than Alexei ,who was born in 1904 (Golenievsky was born in 1922). He explained the matter like this: His youthful appearance was a "rare suspension of growth in childhood caused by his illness; hemophilia, he said, had meant that he was a child "twice over" ..."

There also are a couple of other interesting things I will post here later.

RealAnastasia.