Lovely Anastasia

Prompt: Write something about the Russian princess, Anastasia. It doesn't just have to be about when she went missing, it could be about her childhood, relationships, her adult life etc.


Author's Note: Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolavena of Russia, (Russian: (June 18 [O.S. June 5] 1901 – July 17, 1918), was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia, and his wife Alexandra Fyodorovna. Anastasia was a younger sister of Grand Duchess Olga, Grand Duchess Tatiana and Grand Duchess Maria, and was an elder sister of Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia. She was murdered with her family on July 17, 1918 by forces of the Bolshevik secret police.

Her possible survival has been entirely disproven. Persistent rumors of her possible escape have circulated since her death, fueled by the fact that the location of her burial was unknown during the decades of Communist rule. The mass grave near Ekaterinburg which held the remains of the Tsar, his wife, and three daughters was revealed in 1991, but the bodies of Alexei Nikolaevich and one of his sisters — either Anastasia or her older sister Maria — were not discovered there.

In January 2008, Russian scientists announced that the charred remains of a young boy and a young woman found near Ekaterinburg in August 2007 were most likely those of the thirteen-year-old Tsarevich and one of the four Romanov grand duchesses. Russian forensic scientists confirmed on April 30, 2008 that the remains were those of the Tsarevich Alexei and one of his four sisters.[1] In March 2009, the final results of the DNA testing were published by Dr. Michael Coble of the US Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory, proving conclusively that the remains of all four Grand Duchesses have now been accounted for, and no one escaped.



Lovely Anastasia,
Russian royalty,
Murdered by the Bolshevics
In a horrid tragedy.

No escape was granted,
Though rumors did persist.
Your family disappeared
And ceased then to exist.

Lovely Anastasia,
Lying in a grave,
Murdered by the Bolshevics;
No Romanov was saved.