How Accurate Is 'Anastasia'? Its Lack of Facts Might Actually Shock You
Franziska Schanzkowska, commonly known as Anna Anderson, was one of many women who claimed to be Anastasia, but she was the one who got the most attention. She’s even the one who inspired the movie Anastasia. After jumping off a bridge in what was believed to be an attempt to take her own life, Franziska was taken to a mental asylum where another patient named Clara Peuthert questioned whether she was the missing Romanov. But, it wasn’t Anastasia who Clara thought Franziska looked like, it was her older sister Tatiana.
Franziska didn’t deny that she was Tatiana so Clara suggested extended family members and former servants of the Romanovs come and meet the woman. When Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden, a former lady-in-waiting to Anastasia’s mother, said that Franziska was too short to be Tatiana, Franziska allegedly remarked that she never said she was Tatiana. Later, when Captain von Schwabe, a personal guard to the Dowager Empress, asked her to reveal which Romanov daughter she was, she crossed out every name except for Anastasia’s.
According to the 2011 book,The Resurrection of the Romanovs: Anastasia, Anna Anderson, and the World’s Greatest Royal Mystery, in explaining how she survived that tragic night, Franziska said that one of the guards realized she “was unconscious, not dead” and carried her out of the basement. She then said the guard saved her and later became her lover before dying in a fight. She never named the man, but it sounds similar to how Dimitri saves Anastasia in the movie, helping her sneak out a secret door.
Of course, thanks to DNA testing it was revealed that Franziska wasn’t the real Anastasia but a Polish factory worker who would earn the nickname “the most recognized Anastasia imposter.” So even though her story seemed similar to the one portrayed in the movie, it’s still a fake.
For anyone who saw this movie 20 years ago and believed it was the true story of Anastasia may be disappointed to learn it is more fiction than fact. But, let’s be honest, it doesn’t take away from how enjoyable this movie still is all these years later.
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