Customer Reviews

Anastasia: The Lost Princess

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Once upon a time, circa 1982, DNA was not known of, and Mrs John Manahan, the former Anna Anderson, lived in Charlottesville, Virginia and claimed to be [and probably was] Her Imperial Highness, Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia. She had had her claim re-inforced first by the Mangold and Summers book, "File on the Tsar", and then by Peter Kurth's beautifully written, carefully researched, definitive, if you like, study of her life. Then it rained on Mrs Manahan's parade and it rained really hard and the very worst of the rain makers was a man called James Blair Lovell. Read on!

It's hard to know where to begin on this tome! There appears not to have been an editor in sight either. It's a shameful attempt to cash in on Mrs Manahan's tragedy [and tragedy is not too strong a word] as well as attempting to drive a wedge into the group of kind folk who had helped Mrs Manahan in Europe in her attempts [almost successful - too] to gain recognition as Grand Duchess Anastasia.

This book, [as so typical with amateur writers], is so over written that it becomes very tiresome very quickly.

Would it be too disgustingly awful of me to say that the late Mr Lovell appears to have been jealous of Peter Kurth's fine work and definitive study of Mrs Manahan? Anyone whom Peter Kurth has good to say about, i.e., Prince Frederick of Saxe-Altenberg, Ian Lilburn and the good and kind ladies in Unterlengenhardt, have their reputations flayed from them by Lovell. It doesn't make pleasant reading.

Lovell has no ability to relate historic facts to his own day-to-day conception of Mrs Manahan's life. I'm not talking [not yet, anyway] about historic intrigues in Imperial Russia, just facts like mentioning 'airport security' at Frankfurt in July 1968! There was no such thing in July 1968 - there weren't jumbo jets in those days, nor terrorist hi-jackings - Mrs Manahan could have walked onto the plane for Charlottesville carrying a Kalashnikov and twenty-five rounds of ammunition and no-one would have turned a hair.

There was far more 'security' at the "St Petersburg Opera House" which, from it's description, I take to mean the Mariinski Theatre. Lovell tells us a little fable of fiction about an American lady being offered chocolates by the historical Anastasia at a concert there, as they shared the ledge of a box. This is impossible to do at the Mariinski Theatre. You cannot see into the imperial boxes from the ones next to them, never mind have a conversation with one of the occupants. The very idea of Grand Duchess Anastasia being unattended in a theatre box, watched by two thirds of the auditorium, wolfing down chocolates, while at the same time singing a song left me reeling. It is these two incidents in the book that finished Lovell's credibility for me.

Elsewhere in the book he compares Mrs Manahan with a Miss Haversham - did he mean Miss Havisham who appears in Dickens's "Great Expectations"? As I said, not an editor in sight.

How any serious researcher could have possibly taken the fifth daughter of the Tsar seriously beggars belief.

You don't get rubbish like this in Peter Kurth's book. Kurth has the ability not only to write well, but he seems to know what was 'true' testimony and what was 'false' and it is this very sifting of the facts that makes his book so wonderful. Why anyone who claims to have known and like Mrs Manahan, as Lovell does, indeed, claim, could want to attempt to undermine Kurth's fine work is quite beyond me.

There will be many people who wonder what all the fuss is about, in the light of the DNA results, but if Mrs Manahan was an imposter she was, evidentially, at least, a very lucky one.

Poor Mrs Manahan: To have gotten so far - only to have a hatchet job done her by someone she supposedly trusted. This book shed little new light on it's subject but told me a great deal [too much, in fact] about it's author and I drew my own conclusions.

Lovell's work is clearly inferior to Peter Kurth's on the same subject. While Kurth relied on archival material, Lovell apparently preferred to focus on more bizarre aspects of the Anastasia claimant's story - in this case, the possibility that Nicholas and Alexandra had a 5th daughter. The fact that there is no evidence of this does not stop the late Mr. Lovell.

This book is bound to disappoint both the supporters of Mrs. Manahan and those who accept the DNA evidence that she was not Anastasia. For the former, Lovell brings up matters and associations her supporters would have rather not seen published. For those who do accept the scientific evidence, this is a rather sad tale of a woman who wanted to be someone else.

I found this book to be totally biased. Even before DNA the case that Anna Anderson was Anastasia was extremely weak. In the Dalldorf Asylum Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden said that she was neither Tatiana nor Anastasia. This is a big clue. She never said she was Anastasia. The idea that she was a member of the Imperial Family was placed in her head by a fellow patient at Dalldorf, Clara Peuthert.

Anderson met her Aunt Princess Irene of Prussia under an assumed name. Neither recognized the other. Also Grand Duchess Olga did not recognize Anderson. Olga Alexandrovna would never be so callous as to reject her niece. Pierre Gilliard also said that she could not be Anastasia. Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone once shared a bath with Anastasia and said that the claimant wasn't Anastasia.

Anderson disappeared on 12 August 1922 and reappeared on 15 August 1922. These were the same days on which Franziska Schanzkowska reappeared.

Anastasia knew four languages: Russian, English, French and German. Anna Anderson only knew one: German. She never could speak Russian.

The Author resorts to slander to criticize the claimant's opponents. Lovell claims that a prostitute identified Anna Anderson as Schanzkowska. Where is the proof? Who was the prostitute? No other books refer to a prostitute. Slanderous statements such as this do not belong in print.

The suggestion that Nicholas and Alexandra had a fifth daughter is beneath contempt. This claim destroys Lowell's credibility for good. This claim is an affront to the memory of the Russian Royal family. Not even the most naïve, desperate or gullible conspiracy theorist could fall for this.

The author seems to record everything uttered by Anna Anderson Manahan during her years of senility no matter how outlandish or farfetched.

Substantial sections of the book bear little relation to reality, for example the King Kong rape story. Whilst watching a showing of the King Kong, Manahan leaves the theatre and then confides in Lovell that the entire family except Alexei were raped in front of each other. The King Kong story is extemely disturbing and despicable, and shows how gullible the author is. It is obvious that Anna Anderson Manahan herself sees how devoted Lovell is towards her and is deliberately making up stories for him.

The author also misidentifies a photo that is really that of Anastasia's sister Marie's ear not Anastasia's ear.

Lovell mocks the claimant's opponents and believes every single word of Anna's. There was nothing regal at all about Anderson's mannerisms or behaviour. There is no balance in this book.

Anna Anderson, as portrayed in Lovell's book, is like a character from ALICE IN WONDERLAND by way of Ekaterinburg. He presents this mysterious, maddening, and enigmatic woman with sensitivity and compassion. Many questions remain about Anna Anderson, even though DNA testing has shown she was probably a Polish peasant. Lovell recounts her intimate knowledge of the Russian Imperial court, her knowledge of details only Anastasia would know (as evidenced by questions from those who knew the Grand Duchess), and the fact that her handwriting was an exact match to Anastasia's handwriting--only a few of the many fascinating similarities between Anna Anderson and Anastasia.

Contrary to recent DNA evidence, I still believe Anna Anderson could well have been Anastasia. The late James Blair Lovell, a friend of Anderson's had a unique and biased opinion. Though I agree with him that she was Anastasia, he was too ready to believe some of her more outlandish stories, due to his total faith and trust in her story. The book is well written but suffers in comparison to Peter Kurth's book Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Anderson.

This book is one of the worst I've read about Anna Anderson. Unlike others, I don't believe she was a deliberate imposter-I think she truly believed she was the Grand Duchess.

However, it's not Lovell's belief in her that bothers me-it's his outlandish following of every fantasy the poor woman had. He only fed into her delusions, and the book only made her story less credible. Lovell took advantage of a vulnerable, mentally ill woman, which I find absolutely disgusting.

While Anderson has found to be an imposter, her story is pretty fascinating, and terribly sad. If you really wish for a good book on her account, I suggest Peter Kurth's instead.

Was "Anna Anderson" the Grand Duchess Anastasia? No; and there was a wealth of evidence proving that, long before the final blow of DNA testing, which the gullible and the credulous ignored. As the curious chronicle of a strange and eccentric woman, this book was a astonishing read...sorta. This sad story would be pathetically humorous were it not for the fact that it distracts us from the cruel reality of the brutal murder of a young girl by thugs along with the rest of her family. It is a shame that the real Anastasia is overshadowed, and ignored, by the charlatans that emerged after her murder. She is deserving of a better monument than that...

I finished this book on 19 Nov 1996. I finished Peter Kurth's book on 24 Oct 1983 and said to myself that I knew as much about Anastasia as it is reasonably possible to know. Well, this book is very poor on the years covered by Kurth's book, but very good on the period after Anna Anderson married Jack Manahan on Dec 23, 1968. They led an eccentric life--their home in Charlottesville, Va., was a total mess. She died Feb 12, 1984 and Jack died Mar 22, 1990. He was always odd, and did crazy thing. A large section of the book tells of the author's effort to determine if there was a fifth daughter, born in 1903, which was gotten away from the Czar and Czarina and raised by a Dutch couple. The author of the book is very much convinced Anastasia was Anna Anderson--and in fact this makes the book less convincing. The book does not cover anything that has been learned since the caollapse of the Soviet Union and the DNA tests indicating all the family died at Ekaterinber! g. This was not a good book but it was interesting reading, and told some new things.

There is no doubt that Anna Anastasia and Anastasia were one and the same. How many people can be the same height,eye color,mole mark on her shoulder. Foot deformity,it goes on and on. The Polish woman they tried to say she was was 5'7,shoe size 13 and hazel eyes. Why did the Royal Family go to extreme lengths to bribe her. Her personality was the same as when she was a child. Hard to handle and out of controll. Her knowledge that her Uncle Ernest visited her parents in Russia during WW1, her ability to name the characters in Gleb Boktin's cartoon book, her drew on the Standard for her entertainment. Her Aunt Olga was so excited she called the family that she found the little one. It was only when she
mentioned the money her father left her and her sisters in the Bank of England that Aunt Olge no longer knew her. The murder of the Inperial Family was not the saddest thing that happened to her, it was what her family did to her that showed the lack of character that they had. She is dead now and finally back with her family. I hope she rest in peace.

I know that Anna Anderson was a fraud, and that NO ONE escaped from that cellar. On July 17, 1998 it was announced to the world that Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicolaevena Romanova, fourth daughter of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, was buried with two sisters Olga and Tatiana, her parents, and three servants in the St. Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg, Russia. It was found that in actuality that Grand Duchess <i>Marie</i> Nicoaevena was missing along with brother Alexei. And I know that Alexis couldn't have survived because of hemophilia and Marie didn't. I know because I saw a picture of six burnt remains of corset buckles from the 1919 mine shaft discovery by Sokolov. Six women were killed: Alexandra, Olga, Tatiana, Marie, Anastasia, and the maid, Demidova. (the picture is in <b>Tsar: The Lost World of Nicholas and Alexandra</b> by Peter Kurth on page 203) Please try to think rationally here, the world has been lied to for 81 years. Please try to see the truth, and that is that the family was murdered together, and NONE escaped.