Anastasia

Russian Anastasiya Nikolayevna

(born June 18, 1901, Peterhof, Russia—died July 16/17, 1918, Yekaterinburg) Grand duchess of Russia and youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II. She was executed at age 17 with the other members of her immediate family by the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution of 1917. After the executions several women outside Russia claimed her identity, making her the subject of periodic popular conjecture and publicity. Some also claimed to be heir to the Romanov fortune held in Swiss banks. The most famous was Anna Anderson (d. 1984), a Pole married to a U.S. history professor; her claim was finally rejected in 1970, and later genetic tests proved there was no connection between Anderson and the Romanovs.

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