You're Wrong About - Anastasia

Episode Date: June 1, 2020

“I’m being pulled into planet myth … and I like it here.” Special guest Dana Schwartz tells Mike and Sarah how a short, brutal story became an enduring myth. Digressions include Titanic nostalgia, Princess Jasmine and Dr. Phil. A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to Rasputin, Russia’s greatest love machine.  Find Dana at her website or listen to her podcast!Support us:Subscribe on PatreonDonate on PaypalBuy cute merchWhere else to find us: Sarah's other show, Why Are Dads Mike's other show, Maintenance PhaseSupport the show

Don Bluth and Roald Dahl and creators like that, for whatever reason, really wanted to draw kids into these fantastic stories and then be like, listen kid, between you and me, life is pain. And sometimes the best you can hope for is living a short, happy life as a fucking mouse. Welcome to You're Wrong About, the show where we learn the somewhat disappointing truths behind the magical stories of our childhood. Did that make it sound fun? I intend to have fun. I am Michael Hobbs. I'm a reporter for The Huffington Post. I'm Sarah Marshall. I'm working on a book about the satanic panic. We are on Patreon and PayPal and other places and other ways that you can support the show. And you can not support the show in quarantine if you don't

want to, which is fine. And today Dana Schwartz is back with us. Triumphant return. Hi. We're so happy to have you back, Dana. I am so honored and so excited. Thank you so much for having me. Yes, Dana, as well as being one of our returning guests, is also the host of a wonderful podcast called Noble Blood, which is about old royal family drama, and it's extremely good. Well, thank you. I'm so excited to come back and talk about gruesome, gruesome deaths. Well, okay. So if I can preface this, today we are talking about something called Anastasia, which I've literally, I literally know nothing. This makes it sound like it's a super drug developed by MK Ulstra or something like that. I have no information. I don't know if this takes place

in like the 1950s or the 1450s. Fascinating. I think there may have been a Disney movie. I'm coming in like the freshest I've ever come in to one of these episodes. So just to warn you. This is so exciting. You've never seen the animated movie? Nothing. I'm only vaguely aware of it. I'm really excited to do this episode because you have no idea what you're talking about. Yes. Because I feel that little girls love Anastasia. Like there is somehow for little girls, Anastasia is like dinosaurs, where it's just like, when you're a little girl, you're like Anastasia. I'm curious. I want to read books about it. For a specific reason, we're going to find out. There's a reason that it's sort of in that 80s, 90s strikes.

Interesting. I mean, yeah, I do think boys have like killer bees and quicksand and girls have Anastasia. Yeah, I remember killer bees being offered to me as an interest. And I was like, uh, where's the story? I'll also say that I was getting coffee right before we started recording. And I told my mom what we're going to be recording. And she was like, oh, Anastasia, that was a big childhood fixture. And I was like, really? Because I don't remember being like super into that when I was a kid. And she was like, oh, yes, I loved that Ingrid Bergman movie. And I was like, oh, yes, your childhood. So this phenomenon also has some roots. There's an amazing writer, Rachel Seim. And I feel like she's tweeted a lot about bow girls,

like girls that when they were in elementary school, like war big bows and like loved the secret garden and Samantha, the American girl. And I feel like liking Anastasia is also very much in that like millions. And Samantha is section appealing American girl because she gives a speech against child labor at a factory that has just awarded her an essay prize. So like Samantha implied that you could have it both ways in a way that I think really shaped millennials. Like you can organize against capitalist imperialism and you can also have nice, soft, cute things. Where I don't even know where to begin with this. Where where should we start? Okay, what are your first questions? Like, what do you need? It's like so basic.

Can I do one tiny year wrong about early on that everyone makes? Please do. This is so basic and so boring. But I feel like Michael we're starting from nowhere. So we have the scratchist scratch. Yes. The 1997 animated film is actually, it's not a Disney movie. It was directed by Don Bluth, who was like a former Disney animator that left in a huff and brought half of the animation team with him. It was a big to do. The secret of Nim guy, even I know that. Yeah. But she's not technically a Disney princess. It's the rats of Nim guy. So is there like a myth that we want to debunk about Anastasia? Is there a cultural conception that like little girls get? Yeah, Sarah, why don't you actually start

with just like the basic plot of the animated movie? Okay, so I have not seen the whole animated movie because I was an insufferable child. And I was like, I am not watching this Anastasia thing. There is an animated bat in it that talks. This movie seems to be playing fast and loose with history. I don't want any part of it. I was like nine. So I feel like we'll just start at the basic totally fictional, by the way, animated story, because I feel like that is where most lay people come to Anastasia, which is that after the Russian revolution, the royal family, the Romanovs are killed, except mysteriously, their youngest daughter, Anastasia, got away. And no one knows what happens to her. I have goosebumps right now. Now, you know, 20 some

odd years later, the grandmother survived and she's in Paris. And she's offering a huge reward to anyone who can bring her granddaughter to her alive. And a young street con man named Dimitri, he's like, we'll just find an actress and have her play the part. And they find this young orphan girl named Anya, who is like, look, I just want to go to Paris. I don't know anything about this Anastasia chick. But of course, over the course of their education on the con, the memories come back to her. And she really is Anastasia. But in the end, she decides that she would rather not reclaim the title of Anastasia because she wants to live a life with Dimitri because they fell in love. And then at the end, they're like, what is your name? And she's like Anya Skywalker.

And the villain, the villain in the Anastasia movie is not the Bolsheviks who murdered Anastasia's family, but Rasputin, a dangerous wizard sorcerer who Sarah also wants to do an episode on and who I have also never heard of. Can I ask like the dumbest of the dumbest of the dumbest question I've ever asked on the show? Yes. Is Anastasia a real person or not? Yes. Yes, absolutely. Should I get, do I get to dive into the history now? Yeah, let's do it. Let's jump in. So real history, this is the beginning of the 20th century, early 1900s. It's, you know, post World War One, just to sort of anchor us. This is a time when all of the great royal families of Europe are basically all related. So just like for context, the Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II,

and his wife Alexandra or Aliki are both first cousins independently with George the Fifth, the king of England. But imagine Europe being a family affair. Yeah. But like for context, you know, World War One was between three cousins. I mean, it was Nicholas II, Kaiser Wilhelm, and George the Fifth, and they're all first cousins. It's the worst family feud ever. But the thing about, you know, Europe at the time was royal families are in decline among the popular people. First World War One, you know, absolutely decimated the population and plunged people into poverty, you know, throughout, there was a depression around the world. So like people in gilded crowns are just far less appealing. Is it anything like how we feel about Instagram

influencers right now? Yes, it doesn't work. It doesn't work when people are actually suffering. Or when people are suffering in such large numbers that it's like, I don't think I can counterfactually believe that drinking this juice will allow me to live in a mansion. Yeah. So I feel like just for context, across Europe, there's a general swell of anti-monarchist sentiment. And in Russia, this is especially prominent because since 1905, Nicholas II has been known as the bloody czar because there was an uprising of protesters that the Cossack guards basically just murdered and like horribly. Wow. So this is like a very large scale kind of a Kent State moment. So there's that one protest that is a absolute disaster.

And then World War One happens and that sets people against the monarchy, especially Alexandra, the Tsarina, because she's a German princess. I'm seeing a theme in your guest episodes. Yeah, people love people love turning against foreign women, but she is incredibly demonized from that point on. I mean, even when she arrived, she was demonized because she was German. She was very shy and wasn't very good at speaking Russian. Understandable. So like at big events, she would always like want to retreat back to her room to read. And so people thought she was a snob and even the nobles really didn't like her. No, she's just an introvert. She's in the kitchen at parties. Oh my. And then to make it worse for her, she has a daughter first of all. Okay,

that's a fuck up. Then she has another daughter. Oh no. Then she has a third daughter. Strike three. Then she has a fourth daughter. Wow. And then finally, four years after her first, after the last daughter, she has a son, Alexei, which like was the biggest, I'm sure, relief of her entire life. Yeah, no kidding. That she finally had a son who could inherit, you know, the Russian throne, which was her only purpose. No one has looked for a penis that hard since the cops responded to the Larina Bobbit call. Sorry, dad joke. Anyway. And then horror of horrors after trying desperately for a son that she needed so badly after all this time. Alexei is a hemophiliac, which was sort of a known royal ailment. It was in the royal blood. Most

of the women were carriers. That's the one where your blood doesn't clot, right? Yeah. So it means you're incredibly precious. You're like a human Fabergea. And so after all of this, Alexandra is like, oh my God, my precious son. And now he's even more precious. So that makes her even more withdrawn. And that's that's how Rasputin comes in. And Rasputin isn't super relevant to the storyline, but she was desperate for any cure or help for her precious son. And so he was, you know, a wandering religious mystic. And so she falls into believing that he could help her son. I can see this all playing out in Instagram drama today. You know, it's just like a Silicon Valley family. And there's like a wandering guy who spouts mysticism, but actually has kind of

a weird unsavory past. Yeah, like a creepy like yogi. I mean, there is a weird thing between rich people getting sucked into these weird pseudoscience health and wellness worlds. Yes. This seems to happen among dictators a lot. It seems to happen among celebrities a lot. Goop is sort of the most high profile example of this. But the idea that like your wealth insulates you from critical thought to the point where you start getting into these weird cures and this weird obsession with youth and sort of keeping your own world clean. I mean, this seems like this cuts across societies in history. And you know what? I also feel like there's a sense of powerlessness that comes with health and aging where it's like your money and

your power can protect you and provide so much for you. But it's like all the money in the world wasn't going to keep Alexei from being hemophiliac. Right. When you are someone who's accustomed to having all the power in the world, feeling helpless is a very bad sensation that you'll look for whatever answer you can, whether it's like jade eggs in your vagina or a creepy mystic who says that he can help your son. I feel like it's a little bit like Oprah and Dr. Phil. Yes. She started working with him when she was sued because she said some stuff about mad cow disease and he like joined her legal team in an official capacity. And then she was like, I like him. I'm putting him on TV once a week and he's going to tell teenagers what to do

and was powerful enough to be like, I like this guy. Yeah. I like his style. Yeah. He was, I mean, Rasputin was very charismatic by all accounts, although in any photos of like the family, he just looks like the creepiest ghost in the world. Yeah. I'm going to look these pictures up. I'm very curious. For other reasons that we'll get to later, like with the Anastasia myth, the Zarina like dressed them up in matching outfits most of the time. And so I think probably because it's like, oh, I had all these daughters and then a son, she sort of thought of the daughters as one unit. So he does look like a ghost. Mike, I'm going to send you this picture. Yeah. Look at his fucking eyes. Haunted family. He looks badly photoshopped. His eyes have like

the lids removed or something. He has these like wide, super bright eyes. Yeah. So there's this, this lovely family of five girls and one boy and they're all wearing white and the boy has a little sailor outfit and then there's just this bop-a-dook standing in the middle and it's very creepy. And his weird bowl cut. He must have been really charismatic. Dude, I know. Well, that's what they say. They say people who, who really hated the Zarina, which again, I feel like is very Marie Antoinette, they're like, he has given you that charisma, isn't he? Yeah, clearly. Is one of these girls Anastasia? Indeed. One of the girls is the smallest one. Is she making like the cringe emoji face or is that like just a low resolution? She sort of is, but I think it's,

it's low resolution. Okay. Hard to smile when Rasputin is there. The thing that would happen with Rasputin is like, Alexi would have a hemorrhage. Alexandra would be like, please Rasputin, pray on him. And then he would pray and it wouldn't work, but she would be like, oh, thank goodness you prayed, he didn't die. Okay. So she's doing faith healing and she's got this confirmation bias. Yeah. Yeah. And the thing is Rasputin actually dies. He's murdered a year before our story with Anastasia really begins. He's murdered by a group of sort of right wing political nobles who think that this creepy mystic has too much influence maybe rightly over the Zarina. I thought it was going to be someone from the Better Business Bureau, but okay.

But he's a casualty of like this cultural tide that's turning, it seems like, and like the attempts to push it back that are going to be futile ultimately. Yes. And what sort of turns Rasputin into sort of a famous figure other than the fact that he looks like a creepy Victorian ghost. They try to poison him and it doesn't work. And then they have to shoot him three times at close range. Oh, wow. And so it's like, oh my God, he can't die. So yeah, maybe he was on to something with all this health stuff. Yeah, he ate so much wheat germ that he was impervious to bullets. Well, this is also the myth busting is that there's some museum that says they claim they have Rasputin's love machine, if you know what I mean. And that it's very, very large.

Well, and again, I feel like that's simplistic. It's like, do we really think that Rasputin was able to do everything he did just because he had a large penis? Because a lot of people have large penises and they don't infiltrate royal families all the time. Completely correct. And I'm also pretty sure that they DNA tested the museum where they said they had like this footlong penis. And it was actually like a C cucumber. It's not even a penis, much less his penis. That's pretty great. Yeah, it's, it seems implausible to me that the people who murdered Rasputin at what seems to be significant effort would then be like, let's cut off his penis and carefully preserve it. Also by all accounts, I mean, like this is now so boring, but like by all

accounts, his genitalia was intact when they, you know, there's no, there's no firsthand account of them being like, and then we cut off his penis. Right. It's important to give a detailed debunking of these myths. It's the little things that really cling. Yeah. This is becoming a CBS procedural where Dana Schwartz investigates the genitalia of historical figures. I would love it. You can call it crown jewels. Oh my God, grain like this immediately. But yes, it's reductive because maybe he was a great lover not because of his genitalia, but just because he like listened to women and asked them about their day. Or maybe he was just a very charismatic con man who wasn't having sex with anyone and still was able to exert great influence over them. I, you know,

I have no proof obviously, but by all evidence that if my understanding is that he was just a charismatic charlatan that Alexandra never slept with, but just wanted and trusted and wanted to heal her son. I feel like it's classic German princess propaganda to allege that she's having an affair with like any male who enters the castle. Yeah. We've heard this story quite recently. Of course, the, the slutty German princesses. But none of this is sounding very Disney movie so far. I love Don Blue. He's like, let's do a kid's movie. It'll be about climate change and dinosaur parents dying and immigration and this old Russian wizard who's Christopher Lloyd and he pulls his head off. Kids will love that. And kids are like, we do, we do love that. I feel like

the reason that we have to talk about Rasputin in the Anastasia episode is twofold. One, because he is a major figure in the animated movie, even though that isn't relevant, really. Okay. He's only sort of relevant to this part of the story in that he really turned public tide against Alexandra and the royal family. Well, and also I think there's this interesting twinning of Rasputin and Anastasia where like these are the two figures who from this royal family and from this period of Russian history have become household names in the United States, which is like very weird. And you're like, why are these two people, these two very different people? Like what are the dynamics at play here that have turned them into mythic versions of

themselves and kept them relevant? Ooh, that's like a good little segue. Thanks. He's been planning that for minutes. Let's talk about the real Anastasia who is a real person. Who was not a name in my household. So I'm excited for this. So like I said, Alex of Hess married the future Tsar Nicholas II. So yeah, so she moves there, she has four daughters. Has four daughters Olga, the sensitive one, the oldest, Tatiana, who's considered like the most beautiful one. It's like a boy band, Maria, who's sort of like, I sort of always read as like, she's sort of the kitty in Pride and Prejudice. She's always sort of dominated by her little sister. And her little sister is Anastasia. Or as I feel like we've come to be known Anastasia. I mean, I'm

saying Anastasia because some like real history people might get mad and be like a 10 Anastasia. Yes. And Anastasia was the youngest and she was really like the most playful and mischievous one. She was the one who like stuck her tongue out at people behind their backs and like pulled pranks and tried to escape. And she was like the life of the palace. So that's also why people love her. And I think sort of gravitated towards her as a character. She's sort of this fun figure, you know, and her older sister Maria sort of fell into lockstep and the two of them as a pair were always causing mischief around the palace. I mentioned earlier that Alexandra, their mother sort of viewed the four of them as one unit. I feel like part of the reason the

Anastasia mythos still persists in popular culture so much is, you know, it's sort of the beautiful dead girl phenomenon where all the photos we have of these four girls, these four princesses who, you know, died really, spoiler alert, died really tragically in their youth, they're always in like beautiful matching white dresses, like really virginal. They have really great shiny thick long hair. They're sort of like a child childishness about even how they're dressed like, you know, boat hats or sashes, you know, like Victorian like, and it's these four princesses, grand duchesses is, I mean, the more literal translation, but there are all these sweet stories about how they always wanted to like interact with people or would escape, you know,

to try to go to a shop and realize like they didn't know how to buy things at a shop. Oh, so it's like Princess Jasmine. Yes. Where you're just like, you do not know how the real world works, but you're curious. Exactly. They have no idea. They would sometimes like, you know, there's little stories of them like, you know, flirting with the men on ships, you know, if they're like on a ship somewhere. And then during World War One, the older two Olga and Tatiana were volunteered for the Red Cross. And like, they charmed all the soldiers and all the officers. And like, it's that sweet story that we have of like, the good old days. It's definitely when people tell the tragic story of Anastasia, I feel like it does romanticize the monarchy in a way

that little girls do, you know, when they dream of being a princess or grand duchess, you're not imagining being married off to your second cousin when you're 14. You're imagining like grand balls in the palace and flirting with the handsome officers. Right. You're taking it out of all the political and historical context that makes it kind of like, it's very interesting that like, at least in the United States, it's like very normal for little girls to have like, you know, princess dresses and princess parties and, and just like princess is kind of this almost generic term expressing like fancy and special and like, we don't do that with the prince. I think because we recognize that that's a functional role that's like preparing you for like something. And the

word princess doesn't signify, you know, that you're being prepared for anything taxing, which like you are, of course, because in reality, you would have to be married off to like somebody. Yeah, manage a household, manage a court. Yeah. And like maybe be killed by revolution or something right. Like if history goes in a positive direction, like it's going to be bad for you, which is a weird position to be in. So like, it's interesting. It's really interesting that like, it is this classic little girl thing to be like, yeah, a princess, I'm a princess. And it's like, what an incredibly stressful job. And I think that wealth and beauty are always are just too fundamentally appealing things. Yeah. Also, like they're in elegant clothing. It's like that the

trappings of their lifestyle are incredibly appealing. Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to send you a photo first of the girls when they were little. Oh, they look great. Yeah. The girls have this really great hair. Look at that hair. Wow. It's like drag wigs. It's like huge. Yeah. It's like very voluminous and shiny and long. And then they're always in like these white dresses. So I guess then Anastasia would be the second from the right. She's extremely pretty. They all are. I love how they're these families where they're like, this one's the pretty one. And you're like, who decided that? Yeah. They hear, here's, here's a photo of them a little older. And you'll see the one that is quote, the pretty one is Tatiana who's seated. Yeah, she looks amazing. The short hair is dope.

Yeah, she looks great. So I think that that's also why their mythology is so pervasive culturally. Yeah. The clothes are incredible though, because they're so ornate. They look like doilies or like really ornate napkins that you would get at a really fancy party. They're all white and they're like draped and like lacy and layered. They're wearing pearls and head, head coronets. This is reminding me that when Titanic came out in the 90s, it sparked this wave of sort of like nostalgic teen fashions that were sort of inspired by Gilded Age and World War One era clothing. And looking at this, I'm like, yeah, we've got these like high wastes. They don't appear to be corsets, like just like comfortable, breathable, drapey, summery dresses. Yeah. Yeah, that looks

fabulous. But this photograph, this one is closer to the age where our story, you know, really dives headfirst with the Russian Revolution, which I feel it could be its own multi-part episode series. But I mean, what happens obviously is the monarchy is abolished and it begins with the family being imprisoned in Alexander Palace, you know, where they were living. There's this wave of anti-monarchist sentiment. And so people are like, yeah, power to the people, you know, throw down the monarchy. The family is sort of isolated and imprisoned. And the idea is that everyone sort of understands is okay, you know what, the Tsar is probably going to go on trial. The Tsar is probably going to be executed. Probably Alexander is going to be executed. Not great, but that's just maybe how

it's going to go. It happens. And oh, my God, wouldn't it be a tragedy if also they have to kill Alexei the heir? That would be a tragedy, but like, oh, God, that's the worst case scenario. Which reminds me when we talked about Marie Antoinette, I mean, I'm sure this was discussed at some point by someone, but in history as we know it, like the revolutionaries apparently were like, and their children are fine and will reeducate them and teach them to denounce their parents and will abuse them and stuff. But like, we're not going to kill them. Yeah, they're not going to publicly execute the children. That looks bad. And also remember, these are a royal family with million connections to every other European power. So it's not like these are random nobles. These

are the cousins of the King of England. You would not want to just murder these daughters. Right. I mean, World War I started over much less. Yeah. And how old is Anastasia at this point? So the oldest Olga is about 21. Tatiana is 20. Maria is 18. Anastasia is 16. And Alexei is 12. Because the royal family is such a vulnerability to the rebels, they need to move them out of this centralized palace because they're just a valuable resource to have or not have in the country. And so they move them far east to Siberia, to Tobolsk. And the idea is that they're just sort of kept there. It's an incredibly isolated region where you have to get to on boat, and when it freezes over, you can't even get there. So it's like, great, we'll just keep them

isolated. You know, the Bolsheviks are fighting against other forces for control of Russia, and they just want to sort of keep the Romanovs off the board. It's like the post-revolution free-for-all that happens after most revolutions, where it's like, well, what happens next? Yes. And for context, back when they were at Alexander Palace, this is when ministers of the provisional government started writing to George V in England being like, hey, can you take the Romanovs in England? Can you just do that? Can you take them away? We don't want them here. The extremists wanted to kill Alexander immediately and have him stand trial, but also there was a faction that's like, just get them out as quick

as possible so we don't have to deal with them. Is there a fear that they remain these charismatic megafauna? 100%. That's the biggest fear, where it's like, we just want them to get out and shut up because they can bolster power or sympathy. It's like breaking up with someone and then having to stay living with them. You're like, I don't trust myself, not to start having sex with you again. Your place in my life was real for so long. How do I trust you to not just slide back into it? Yep. So that's sort of what's going on is even the provisional government, there's not a clear consensus of what to do with them. Okay, I'm going to do a double myth bust. People, there's sort of like a fun fact, I feel like about European history,

where people are like, George V could have saved the Romanovs, but he didn't. I just want you to know this is where in that story that tidbit will come in. So the white army, sort of the anti-Bolsheviks are moving in and they decide that they're going to move the Romanovs to an even more isolated, more distant place. Give me a little nutshell explanation, because I'm someone who's understanding of the Russian Revolution, like really primarily is Animal Farm. So are the Bolsheviks like the classic revolutionaries? Yes, they become the Communist Party. Okay, they're Lenin's whole gig. Yes, yes, exactly. Okay, and Lenin is snowball, right? And then the white army was sort of the anti-Bolsheviks, who weren't necessarily monarchists,

they were trying to fill in that power vacuum in terms of like a law and order. So they're like, let's not have a modern key, but like let's not be communists either? Yes, and so the Bolsheviks for their revolution to happen, they don't want the white army to get the Romanovs just because for multiple reasons. I mean, one, they could use them to bolster power, they could sort of use them as puppets, right? Or they could use them to negotiate with other European powers for support, because, you know, as far as other European powers are concerned, they haven't recognized this communist government as an official government yet. So the Romanovs are moved even further away to a house in a place called Ekaterinburg,

and the house is given the name, and this is so ominous and creepy, the house of special purposes. Oh, God. Oh, no, they should have named it like a rehab facility. I just been like, this boring willows or something, which is just like blandly nice. So this is really when like, I mean, they're imprisoned for 16 months total between all these moving houses. So this is, you know, over a year of being under heavy guard. The windows first are covered with newspaper and then whitewashed and drawn. So there's no air coming in or out. You have a tiny like one ventilation area, but they're not allowed to look out the window. And because the whole idea is like, no one can know you're here. We don't want anyone to know

that this is where the Romanovs are, but the effect is incredibly isolating and scary. How did we manage to pick a story that involves people being trapped inside for long periods of time? I picked it. It's because this is the moment, strike when the empathy is hot. So throughout all of this, the girls have been told by their, I'm sure their mother or just whatever officials were around to like, sew all of their jewels and private belongings, like in the hems of their dresses and in their pillowcases. So they have like jewels hidden throughout their, among their person. Drug dealer vibes. Yeah. But it's incredibly, I mean, restrictive and scary. They're not allowed to look out the window on pain of being shot.

If they need to use the bathroom to ring, to leave their room, they have to like ring a bell and they get, you know, isolated time in the garden for half an hour, twice a day in a morning and afternoon. And they're just, they're in prison. But the girls are writing in diaries. So we know sort of firsthand that they're reading to their mother. Their mom, I mean, Alexandra has a complete nervous breakdown. Can't imagine why, right? Yeah. Yeah. You know, not leaving her chair, one of the daughters would read to her during the day while the others, you know, are sort of out playing. And really what keeps them together is sort of the sense of family. Like the girls were always extremely close. Nicholas is very close to them. I mean,

the thing about Nicholas is he was a very good father and a very bad czar. Yeah. Can we talk about him just a little bit? Like what are maybe his, some of his more egregious czar choices? And what are some of his good father choices? I mean, I think that the bloody Sunday was the big one. But I mean, as a father, like he was redoted on his kids and played with them and gave them nicknames and like, was a cute dad. But like, hey, being a cute dad doesn't qualify you to be a good leader. And that's the problem with monarchy that I feel like I keep coming back to through noble blood as the, as the sort of the theme of the podcast is like, why I find it so darkly funny is like, yeah, having a monarchy means you're choosing a leader almost based on random, where

at least in a democracy, it's not necessarily the smartest, but you have to have some quality, whether it's like, you know, you're captivating, you're charismatic, like you're good at winning elections even. There's also mechanisms of accountability where if you suck, you get replaced. One of the biggest problems with monarchies, no matter how bad someone is, the only way to replace a king is through this like massive upheaval process where you're basically having a revolution, essentially, there's no other way of saying like every 10 years or whatever. We have to tear out the entire system of governance to that point to get someone who's not their kid or their cousin. Oh yeah, we're just really hope that their kid is less shitty. Yeah. So this

is when the story gets sad. We're getting to the dark part. Okay. Yeah. So the Romanov sort of, because they had already been moved twice, they sort of always, they had the assumption that they were probably going to be moved again to another secret location or a more distant location. At some point, as the white anti Bolsheviks were closed in the night of July 16th, the morning of July 17th, 1918, they're woken up in the middle of the night. It's implied that they're moving to another place because the white armies closing in. So all the girls and everyone they get dressed and they pack all their jewels into their like pillowcases and dresses. And the guards even are sort of like, yo, move, move, move. They're like angry that they're taking too long to get

ready. They're brought across the courtyard into like a underground basement. I think with the implication that it's going to be like, okay, well, the army is coming, we just want you like out of the way. And then the leader of the guards, it was a man named Yakov Yurovsky, who is leading this thing by now reads a statement saying that the new Russian government has sentenced the Tsar to death. And Nicholas is so genuinely taken aback, like this was literally like just the last thing they expected to happen that he asks them to read it again. He's like, it's literally like a double take moment. He's like, what? They thought they were just being moved to a new place. And at that moment, after he asked them to be read again, a group of soldiers come out of the

adjoining room and just massacre the family or the whole family, the entire family. And what's really scary and tragic is, you know, the night before each of the guards had been assigned to kill one person to shoot one person. And then a group of the guards were like, we don't want to kill the girls. They haven't done anything wrong. We've been, you know, living with them for the past year. They seem like fine, nice people. And so a handful of guards refused to kill the daughters. And then they were just replaced. And another few guards were brought in to do that part. Oh, wow. But even worse, in this dim basement, when push came to shove, everyone wanted to be, they were all such loyal Bolsheviks, they all wanted to be the one who killed the Tsar or

Alexandra, who they hated. And so they all shot at Nicholas, which ironically meant that he died the fastest and easiest, where the girls weren't shot. This is so gross and so horrible. But at close range, these Russian military issue guns were far less effective than you might think. And so now at close range, with smoke and screaming and chaos and everyone's running, they completely miss some of the rest of the family or, you know, gross them or don't land killing shots. So it ends with the girls cowering in corners, and then they're bayonetted to death. Oh my God. Oh my God. Yeah, that sucks. It's really just impossible to describe if you imagine just being shoved into this basement

in the middle of the night, being surprised with a death sentence, and then seeing half your family shot, bullets flying, smoke, screaming, blood, brains on the floor, and then being bayonetted. I don't know how much of these details are true, but they had jewels in their clothes and pillowcases that blocked some of the killing bullets. So far, this sounds like a perfect candidate for an animated children's film. Yeah. So and to be clear, a bayonet is like a stabbing stick basically at the end of a rifle, right? Yeah. It isn't like terribly long either. Isn't it only like three to six inches long? So it would just be like getting stabbed to death like a million times by like a little tiny knife?

Yeah, it is. I think one of the scariest deaths I can imagine is being in a basement, watching your parents shot, and then being stabbed to death in a corner. Yeah. Maybe we're not ready for this yet, and there's more you want to say about this. What's interesting to me is that the Anastasia story doesn't actually sound like all that great of a story. It's basically like she's born, and then she's rich, and then she goes into quarantine, and then she dies. Yeah, she's a teenager who's murdered. It's a classic dead white girl story, though, where the point of the life is the lack of a life. I guess, because it's interesting to me just like of all of the, you know, princesses and all of the rich people and all of the whatever

throughout history that it's like this is the one that has become this larger cultural shibboleth, especially for girls. I feel like I want to live Mike in the logical world that you would have us live in where there's a Don Bluth movie about Eleanor of Aquitaine. Although, you know, Michael, I mean, there is an actual historical reason. I feel like the reason that Anastasia kept on as a myth, and it's sort of several reasons in a row. Because the story that I told you about, you know, the family being shepherded to the basement in Siberia and being executed, people didn't know that. That happens very secretly. So what happens is in the rest of Europe, no one knows where the Romanovs are or what has happened to them. Okay, so it becomes a mystery that then people can fill

in with whatever weird speculation they have, and that gives rise to all these stories. And it becomes a mystery on purpose because the Bolsheviks are pretty, they're like that. I mean, this doesn't look good. We did what we thought we had to do, but we know that it's bad. So they say they killed Nicholas the second. They say that Alexandra and Alexei the son are, you know, off somewhere. And they say that they put the girls on a train and they lost touch with them. That's so vague. It's like a fanfic premise. Like you can imagine all the stories. People can start writing about this immediately. So what happened is, you know, the revolution continues. The Bolsheviks, I mean, really wanted the rest of Europe to think that they didn't murder a bunch

of teenage girls because that doesn't look good. Doesn't look great. And what's really tragic is sort of that summer where the Bolsheviks are saying that they're still alive, European powers are kind of trying to galvanize to rescue them, to say, well, get them out. And they're negotiating with the Bolsheviks. God, how awkward to be a Bolshevik in those negotiations. You're just, I mean, there's this like dark, dark comedy in that to me, where you imagine being like Anton the Bolshevik. Yeah, yeah, we'll be able to get them to you by mid July. Oh, God. So does this indicate to you that this was kind of a strategic error for them to kill the kids because they were actually a useful bargaining chip? Yeah, like, I imagine if I was the leader

of the Bolsheviks, I would have sent the daughters to England. And like, I don't think they would have caused a big fuss. Yeah. Well, building off of our Marie Antoinette episode, I mean, when you think about having royals to execute what I think about as like, you know, okay, so you want to run a revolution and you don't want to position yourself as the villain and you're pretty clearly the villain if you murder a bunch of children in a basement by stabbing them to death. Yes. And it seems like, you know, the kind of public execution that we saw of Marie Antoinette is useful to bring into the public sphere because people really hate her. She's a very visible symbol of the monarchy. Yeah. No one, I mean, no one hated the four grand duchesses. Right.

There's no potential political value in their deaths. Yeah. But it feels like a miscalculation because it's like what they did is not useful to their position at all and can only kind of, it feels like can only affect people like neutrally to negatively in terms of how they view the Bolsheviks. I think it was a panic decision because like the White Army, the anti-Bolsheviks were closing in on Ekaterinburg. You need to kill them so they can't get them. So it was like a Jonestown decision. Yeah. They were like, enemy forces are closing in. And if they take my hostages as their hostages, then I will have no hostages. Yeah, then you lose power. I mean, it's just, it's a tragedy all around. But what happens next is an incredibly bungled burial. You know,

they strip the bodies and mutilate them and they molest the Zarina. Oh, God. Yeah. You know, they bring them on a truck to a forest, you know, try to dump them down a mine shaft. The mine shaft is too shallow. So they try to deepen it with hand grenades. It doesn't work. Oh my God. I'm picturing like teenagers. This seems like teenagers doing this. It's so bungled. Then they like, they pull the bodies back onto a truck. They're trying to go to a deeper mine shaft somewhere, but they get caught in the mud, the truck, as they're like, fuck it, we'll do it live and try to, and then just bury them there where the truck was caught in the mud. Just in, just in this muddy, just make a little muddy hole. And so here's the second part

of the Anastasia mythology. They decide to bury some of the bodies separately so that if the White Army finds them, they're more confused by the body count. So they try to disfigure the faces with like rifle butts and cover them in like quick lime and sulfuric acid and bury them. And then they bury one of the daughters and Alexei 50 feet away. You know, they burn them first in a bonfire and this is like the bones left. God, this is like the anti-Dexter. It's like all this like serial killer bullshit, but it's just like they're doing it frantically and haphazardly. Middle of the night, frantically, sun is coming up. We got to do this now. So they really, really bungle this burial. It's this very weird combination of like the brutality being

so much worse because the assassins don't know what they're doing. Yeah, it's bad project management like everything else. All of these are factors that then feed into this general sense of confusion, which then is purposefully bolstered by the Soviet leadership for like the next eight years, where they're like, oh, all the daughters were killed by left wing extremists or maybe not. Maybe they got away or maybe they were accidentally murdered. They're like, I just got a postcard from Olga and she's on the beach in Ukraine. They finally acknowledged the murders in 1926, eight, nine years later. But I mean, everyone sort of knew they were dead because these girls on

the train haven't appeared. I feel like I finally get why this is such an appealing story. Because the idea of like a bunch of princesses that are in hiding and they're like dope and pretty and they're like running around Europe. It's like a cross between little women and gone girl. Yeah, and they're like mischievous and fun. Yeah, that's a good movie. Like princesses on the run and they're like, they're kind of sheltered and like they don't know how the world works, but they have to like make it and they get allies and stuff like that's a great show. You got it now. That's the movie. I get it. So these deaths aren't formally announced until the 1926 by the Soviets. But even then people are like was maybe that's a cover up of

something else. Like no one really knows for sure what happened until after the fall of communism. So there's eight years where people can just make up whatever wild story they want. And even then like the bodies aren't exhumed until 1991. Oh, wow. Okay. I'm suddenly seeing why this was a 90s phenomenon. There we go. So for eight years, everyone kind of knows they're dead, but they could they could be elsewhere. And then even after that it's like, but mate, but they the Soviets are they lie all the time. Maybe they just say they're all dead. But you know, if one got away, they wouldn't say that. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Cause they might have bungled the executions. The princesses escaped,

but they're saying that they killed them all or even one escaped. Yeah. And like they did bungle the executions so that you would only have to believe that they bungled them more than they did. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you are a slight conspiracy or hopeful minded person or a romantic person, you're like, look, we don't know what happened to these princesses. Yeah. Like like little girls are. Yeah. Yeah. Little girls aren't going to be like, no, they were probably murdered in a basement in Siberia strategically. They weren't going to let them out. But you can just imagine that if this was the modern day, there would be like long Reddit posts with all of like the evidence that they're still live and like photos of people. Yeah. And they would find some girl

on like Facebook. Yeah. Some girl who lives in like Yorkshire and be like, they have the same nose to lip ratio. Totally. Yes. So that is exactly then what happens. I mean, that's that's why I feel like the fixation on the Romanos is so excited. It becomes such a like an exciting conspiracy because it's it's a plausible and romantic conspiracy. Yeah. It's just such a better story. It's like the perfect amount of information. It's like the courage that Goldilocks say, right? Yeah. It's like enough to be like, intriguingly specific and give you a lot of mental images, but then vague enough that almost whatever you want can have happened. Yeah. And then isn't there something about like the best lie is one that you want to believe? Yeah.

Wouldn't don't you want to believe that like one of the girls got away or all of that, you know? Oh yeah. Yeah. As a child, I remember very fervently wanting that. Is this the version of the story that you guys heard as kids? So I will tell you my very vivid memory of a piece of Anastasia media, which I think was like a PBS or a history channel type thing. And I remember it had, I believe a picture of Anastasia doing like a fake levitation thing because she was interested in like magic and illusions and stuff. Right. And the narrator of this was like, but did Anastasia perform the ultimate trick and disappear? And it was like, you know, just like a very cheesy, hour-long TV thing where like at the end they're going to be like, well, probably not. Yeah. But

we're not sure. But yeah, we are. And I remember just as a kid being really torn between like the documentary knowledge that like, no, she didn't make it. Right. It's like you're in space between two planets and one is planet fact and one is planet myth. And you're like, it's interesting that planet fact is bigger and yet its gravitational pull is weaker. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then pulled into planet myth. And I like it here. Yeah. I mean, that's really it. I feel like my child understanding is that I watched the animated movie and loved it and was obsessed with it, but also in the back of my mind as like the little shit I was. The little history podcast. Yeah, the little history podcast. I was like, yeah, but we all know she actually died.

Right. It was Bayonets. He's also as a little kid. The truth is a powerful thing. And when you find out a fact, you recognize the power of that also. So maybe for a child of the 90s specifically, you're like, I know what the truth is or the truth is available to me. And yet there's this whole cultural structure that has been being built on for decades that is about the myth. And I also like the myth. But Michael, as you so cogently pointed out, like then for eight, nine years, it is a free-for-all of speculation. Right. You know, the most famous imposter, which then led to a court case, was in 1920 in Berlin. Oh. And it was, you know, a woman named Anna Anderson, who it is revealed to be a woman actually named Francisca Sanjuska. She's a Polish

factory worker with like a history of mental illness. She is in a suicide attempt. She jumps off a bridge and, you know, she survives. Then all the people around her are like, oh, but she's actually Anastasia. And it becomes a court case because some Russian emigre in Germany is like, ah, I recognize her. She is Anastasia. And then, but everyone else is like, no, she's not. And then, you know, at some point she's like, yes, I am. And it becomes a court case, which is dismissed because she has no proof that she is Anastasia. And then DNA evidence has revealed conclusively that she is not. DNA evidence just ruined everything, honestly. Right. Like, I think nothing came of this, but there was something about like, we might be able to DNA test something to find out who Jack

the Ripper was. And I'm like, I don't want to know that. Yeah. It's the truth is going to be so disappointing to it. It's just going to be some guy who no one has heard of and who there's very little historical record of, I'm sure. And then we'll be like, yep, just a guy who wanted to cut up women kind of a time a dozen. So the DNA evidence, I mean, this is sort of like weird and ironic. They get DNA from Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth's consort, because he's also a grandchild of Victoria and like also in German, like his lineage is actually very close to the Roman of. It's sort of funny that that world of royalty sort of still exists in the weird way. Prick a random royal. Yeah. So those sort of stories captivate throughout the 1920s, because

after the fall of the monarchy, you sort of are like, ah, but wouldn't it be wonderful, a hidden jewel? I think they sort of romanticize it a little bit. Oh yeah. So I think that glamour and nostalgia feeds into it. The burial site is discovered in 1979 by just like an amateur, but he keeps it a secret until the fall of communism. Interesting. Who is this person? What's his deal? It's a geologist named Alexander of Dunin, who, you know, hears the rumors about the gravesite and goes and finds it. So he was just so like scared about the Soviet government getting mad at him because you were forbidden to talk about the Romanovs, that he just reburies the bodies and doesn't do anything until the Soviet government, you know,

starts to sort of loosen its stance. And like finally, after the Soviet Union collapses in 1991, they find the bones and they do some DNA testing and they realize that it is, in fact, the Romanovs. But if you remember, they separated LXA and one of the girls. So even in 1991, two of the bodies they don't find. Everyone else is accounted for. So I feel like then that's in the news, but then there's sort of a reemergence of the myth that one of the daughters got away. And who but the most beautiful, mysterious, youngest daughter, Anastasia. Even though the memoirs of like Yukovsky and all the guards are all like, no, the girls got away, we just buried two of the bodies separately, you know, intellectually everyone can think that.

But again, you want to believe what you want to believe. And then in 2007, that's when they actually found the other two bodies and, you know, confirm that like the sulfuric acid and nails and it was Alexi and one of the two daughters, whether it was Maria or Anastasia, I think like most contemporary, I don't know what they based it on, but I think they think it might have actually been Maria who was separated. So there's no like scrap of fantasy left. Like every single thing in the official account is confirmed. No, every, every body is accounted for. They found all the bodies. But you know what I mean? Every scrap of fantasy wasn't confirmed until 2007 to 90 years, basically. And it took so long and it fell apart so slowly. And the Soviets, I mean, we're infamous for

subterfuge and information where like, yeah, it is a possibility that they were lying or doing a cover up of that something else happened. But did they find the DNA of the talking bat? Still at large. Oh, no. What happened? Oh, I think Rasputin survived because he's a toon. That's my theory. The tiny like myth of the myth that I want to dispute is the myth that George the Fifth could have saved them and didn't. And I really, I go into this, I have a noble blood episode all about the relationship between George and Nicholas II because they were cousins who looked basically like they were twins. They had like identical beards and

mustaches and looked a lot alike. And there's a weird cultural fixation on how close the two of them were. I've seen porn based on that. Yes. What? Really? No. I believe you though. I mean, I bet, I mean, if there isn't any, I bet there will be in a few months. Yeah. Basically, it's like, yes, the provisional government, you know, the year before they were actually executed and moved out to Siberia, were like, hey, England, can you take the royal family? And George was like, do we have to? And his minister was like, no, do not. Your crown is hanging by a thread. You are incredibly unpopular. The czar is incredibly unpopular. Most of England, which is, having a massive socialist movement, was on the side of the revolutionaries. And everyone knows

that you are very close with this Russian czar, or if you bring him here and are very cozy, that's going to make you look really bad. And again, at this time, no one knows the extent of like a gruesome murder. This is too early. No one in their wildest fantasies would pitch that the girls are going to be bayoneted to death. But like the excuses that his minister makes are so easily that it's a little funny in retrospect. They're like, where would where would we keep them? We're famously short on real estate as the royal family. The ambassador is like, one of your palaces, what about Balmoral in Scotland? And the minister is like, no, no, that's a summer palace. We wouldn't want to keep them into winter. We wouldn't want to keep them in a summer palace. When it's like

they're about to go to motherfucking Siberia. But they can't put them in a summer palace. It would be like sleeping on a throw pillow. It's just not done. But again, this is still when it was a very political decision. It wasn't like a rescue rescue operation. It's very interesting that people seem to have such faith in the idea of like, yes, I'm sure they're going to probably execute Tsar Nicholas and his wife. That makes sense. But like they wouldn't kill kids. The kids are blameless. It's interesting, right? It's like a gentleman's code. Yeah. It's sort of, and I think that feeds into the nostalgia of Anastasia. It's like, ah, a better time before chaos. And it's like, no, I mean, it was just as chaotic. Right. And it's like, well, not a better time, but maybe

a more predictable one. Yes, exactly. Not a better time. Just one that the evils were understood by a certain social order. Right. Because that accepts the myth of kings as like benign rulers. Right. Because I feel like the logic there is like, why would you kill the blameless children of people in power if they're just blameless collateral? And it's like, well, people in power have killed blameless collateral all the time. It's like one of their main functions. So like, of course that happened. Right. You can spin it as like a loss of a gentler age. And it's like, in a way, but also like the loss of a world where people could plausibly be like, but why would anyone have that, that kind of enmity toward the blameless family of the Tsar? And it's like, well.

And then also to myth bust, it's like, even if King George was like, yes, we're taking them out, we're taking them to safety, my reputation be damned. I mean, it was winter at this time, you know, the ports might have been frozen. Like it is very difficult to get a ship from England into the ports of Russia in winter through a bunch of Bolshevik extremists who wanted the Romanovs hostage. And also at this time, like the danger still wasn't known. So it's like, hypothetically, even if they have gotten all the way through, it's possible that the Tsarina, the kids, a few of the kids had had measles. Oh, and it's possible that they would have been like, well, we don't want to go to England while they're still sick. So we'll just wait. Like that's how

non threatened they were at the time when escape was still possible. So it's like this idea that they could have been rescued is sort of like Anastasia, this very romantic idea. But in the cold light of facts, you're like, it just wasn't feasible for a lot of reasons at that time. Although as fan fiction, it's pretty good. Like the rescue of these little Tsarinas in like deepest darkest Russia, like these royal assassin dudes, like creeping around in the snow to rescue them from the house. Again, great screenplay, not real. Do you know how my fan fiction works in my head? How that like when the girls had been Red Cross during World War One, that they like befriend or have a romance with like a soldier? That's good. Oh, and then they escape with the help of

this soldier and they come to England. Yeah. See, we don't need real historical facts. Let's just stick to fan fiction. It's so much better. I think that it's really nice to be like, these are the facts. I know what the facts are. And now here is my fan fiction. Yes. And just be like, here are my emotional needs. And here's how I'm going to meet them, not by tricking myself into the belief that, you know, history is what I want it to be. But by being like, here's history. And here's what I want to be like my fantasy that Clarence Darrow and Helen Keller had some kind of a thing on the side. They definitely corresponded similar ideals. I'm just saying. I wish other, I guess conspiracy theorists or other people that write fan fiction without realizing that's what they're doing

could also be clear about their emotional needs. Yes. They could just say like, look, I know vaccines are real, but like, I like believing that Bill Gates is doing all of this so that he can control all of our brains. That's a fun sci-fi story, right? A sci-fi story about a billionaire secretly trying to track people. And also like, I think there are people who are like, I don't like superhero movies. They're for kids. I like facts. And it's like, that's nice. But your need for story is not going to go away. Like, yeah, you can be aware of your needs or your needs can be aware of you. Look, I need a talking bat in this story. Yeah. You know what? But yeah. So you look at these photos of these like beautiful, vivacious teenage girls who like you read in their

diaries. We're so playful and love teasing each other and like, you know, we're of marrying age. I feel like our culture thinks like, yes, a young, virginal princess is like the highest for achievement of a young woman. Like that is who our culture values the most. She met with a bloody end, which just makes her more enthralling. Or did she? Right. I am so sorry that there it is beyond a shred of historical evidence or genetic evidence. Sorry, it's ruined. I feel like you're like the Marcia Clark of the Anastasia. The case for Anastasia is dead. It's just like, it would be so nice to find a way out of believing this. But yeah, it really would be nice. But nope, all the bodies are accounted for. But you know, write your own Anastasia fanfic. Sure. It's fun. Maybe all the

time I spent fixated on Killer Bees as a kid is actually kind of nutritious. Maybe it's good that I didn't dive into the Anastasia rabbit hole. Because it would be too emotionally taxing. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on this podcast again. We're having you on tomorrow. We're having you the next day. You just keep coming on. We're just until we cannibalize every single episode of your show. Take them. Like Killer Bees. I know. Not really. That's a bad metaphor. So yeah, if you're going to be obsessed with fanfiction, that's totally fine. But just to call it fanfiction. Don't call it real. So the lesson is that DNA ruins everything. Yes. DNA ruins stories by creating truth. Don't tell that to Marsha Clark.