A Romanov Fantasy: Life at the Court of Anna Anderson

An extraordinary story of tenacity and intrigue, and the deep human urge to salvage hope from tragedy. Did the seventeen-year-old Grand Duchess Anastasia survive the massacre of the Russian imperial family in 1918? Over the years, the possibility that the youngest of the tsar’s four daughters might have escaped the killings has provided rich spawning ground for claimants. By far the best known of these was Anna Anderson, a mysterious young woman who appeared in Berlin in 1920. Anna attracted a bizarre coterie of supporters—some of whom had known the grand duchess as a child—who risked life and limb, and often all their savings, in a desperate attempt to prove that Anastasia had, after all, survived. But who was Anna Anderson—and just how did she manage to convince so many people that she was the real Anastasia? Frances Welch’s A Romanov Fantasy is a tragic comedy in the best Russian tradition—a compelling, eerie, and frequently hilarious study of discipleship, snobbery, and life after death.