Tennis Players Hot Photos: Anastasia Poltoratskaya

Friday, 4 November 2011

Anastasia Poltoratskaya

Anastasia Poltoratskaya Biography

Anastasia Romanov (1901-1918) has become one of the most romanticized figures in history, due to her noble birth, playful personality, and the tragic, mysterious circumstances of her death.

To understand Anastasia Romanov, one must understand the world "Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess (equivalent to a princess) Anastasia Nicholaievna Romanov" entered at birth. She was the youngest daughter of Czar (equivalent to an emperor or king) Nicholas II, who, as progenitor of the Romanov dynasty (autocratic rulers of Russia for almost three hundred years), believed he inherited the God-given right to rule. The Romanovs embodied Russia and maintained inseparable ties to the Orthodox church. Many of their subjects, especially peasants, looked to them as demigods.

When Anastasia was born in 1901, Russia was the largest, richest country in Europe. Great wealth was concentrated among the aristocracy and a small upper class, while eighty percent of the population lived in poverty. The opulence and grandeur of imperial Russia outshone the remaining royal courts of Europe, most of which had lost absolute power by 1900, and had accepted redistribution of land as a new reality. Anastasia: The Lost Princess, describes the gulf between Russian rulers and their subjects, which began with small revolutionary reform groups during the mid-nineteenth century. Even though reformers within the nobility attempted to make changes, the imperial rulers' attitudes and traditions remained largely unchanged. Conflict was inevitable.

Early Life

Despite her privilege and status, Anastasia grew up to be a remarkably warm, down-to-earth young woman with a spirited personality. She was the darling of the family, popular with the Russian people, and world press. When imperial rule ended with the family's brutal execution, loyalists to the crown-and others around the world-grasped at the possibility of her survival. A woman named Anna Anderson, claiming to be Anastasia, kept the fantasy of her escape and survival alive until 1994 when it was definitively disproved.

The first years of Nicholas II's reign were peaceful. By all accounts, the czar and czarina's primary interest was their family. They spent a great deal of time with the children, and kept them as far away from the social whirl of the court as possible. For Anastasia and her older sisters-Olga, Tatiana, and Marie-and later her brother, Alexei, home within the Winter Palace's 1, 000 rooms was the family's private apartment. Less opulent and imposing, the chambers reflected Alexandra's English upbringing with her grandmother, England's Queen Victoria. An observer noted, "English was the language which she always spoke and wrote to the Emperor…. the Empress always thought of herself an English woman."

Russia Under The Czars describes Nicholas "as handsome, charming, gentle to the point of weakness, and religious to the point of mysticism." When he met the beautiful, and equally religious and mystical, Princess Alix of Hess-Darmstadt (Germany), they were immediately drawn to one another. The match was as unpopular as it was strong. Russia was on unfriendly terms with Germany, and the czar's family disliked Alexandra's English upbringing. As time went on, and she had not produced the requisite male heir, she retreated from public life.

Both parents agreed that discipline was important; hence, the children slept on hard camp cots with no pillows, made their own beds, and took a cold bath every morning just as their father had done as a boy. Their studies included four languages, in addition to music, drawing, and needlework. Nobility had its rewards, as well; the family traveled aboard a blue imperial train or royal yacht when they went to Tsarskoe Selo, the "tsar's village." The imperial couple preferred the seclusion of Alexander and Catherine Palaces; and the children loved the relative freedom they had to roam around the palatial grounds, which included a small lake with an island where they had a playhouse.

Anastasia Poltoratskaya