From: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org (precious-things-digest) To: precious-things-digest@smoe.org Subject: precious-things-digest V2 #122 Reply-To: precious-things@smoe.org Sender: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "precious-things-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. precious-things-digest Friday, May 2 1997 Volume 02 : Number 122 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: album art [Richard Handal ] Anastasia [violet@slip.net] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 02:10:56 -0400 (EDT) From: Richard Handal Subject: Re: album art Charlie Poole said: > I believe that the children represent the songs because Tori has so > often referred to her songs as her children and never knowing, before a > performance, which one of the girls will come out to play. > > Richard, raise your hand again and give us the definitive opinion. :-) Although I find it interesting--and often enlightening and informative--to see people discuss such things, unless Tori or Cindy Palmano came right out and said what all this art meant to them when they did it, I can't see that my opinion would be worth more than anyone else's. My tendency would be to try to provide some background information pertaining to the discussion, but although I recall recently seeing Tori discuss the album cover somewhere, I can't remember where that was just now, and I'm too tired to spend much time digging it out. I'll put that on my imaginary list of things to do. Maybe someone else will be helpful and post what Tori said about the Pele cover. I'll try to find it eventually if no one else does--along with responding to around a hundred *other* threads, here. :-) Be seeing you, Richard Handal, H.G. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 06:09:53 -0700 From: violet@slip.net Subject: Anastasia Scotch wrote: >but looking at men's failures and >motivations and relationships with women (however oppressive they may be) >and looking for something in the male other than Hunt-Kill-Fuck. On a very GOOD day, hopefully NOT in that order! Unless they belong to Necrophiliacs Anonymous or something. ;) I just put together a ton of info on Anastasia for a Torifan who asked if I knew anything about her. I figured I might as well share it here, especially since I flaked on telling you guys the result of the DNA testing that was revealed in the Nova episode last year. Anastasia Romanov, daughter of Nicholas II (last czar of Russia), was executed by the Bolsheviks in 1918 along with the rest of her family. For many years, her body was missing (along with her brother's) and people thought she might have managed to escape after all. A woman by the name of Anna Anderson surfaced in 1922 claiming to be Anastasia. Many people believed her, many didn't. She died in 1984, still a mystery. However DNA tests performed a couple of years ago determined that she was absolutely NOT Anastasia; it is believed that she was a Polish factory worker named Franzisca Schanzkowska who had been missing for decades. Anna Anderson's DNA closely matched that of one of Franzisca's relatives, and in DNA testing, "close" is amazingly accurate since only relatives of each other tend to have DNA that even remotely matches. Since then, the bones of Anastasia and her younger brother, Alexei, were discovered in a grave in a very remote section of forest (where soldiers tried to burn the corpses before burying them them -- it was one of the soldier's testimonies that helped researchers locate the missing bodies). After DNA testing proved positively that the two skeletons were members of the Romanov family, it's now certain that none of them survived the massacre. There IS some confusion between scientists about whether the female body was Anastasia or her sister Marie, but most think it's Anastasia. If I'm remembering right, Anastasia was 17 when she was killed. Films: There was a great film made last year by HBO films titled "Rasputin." Because Rasputin was around the Romanovs a great deal and worked with them in his capacity as a "healer," much of their story shows up in the movie, including the takeover by the Bolsheviks and the family's massacre. But the most interesting thing is that the film shows how Anastasia's and Alexei's bodies were taken into the woods while the other five family members' bodies were buried elsewhere. (You can probably find this film at a video store. It was made last year and stars Alan Rickman). Another film is the classic "Anastasia" with Ingrid Bergman which was made in 1956. This film is based on Anna Anderson's claim that she was Anastasia and is told from that viewpoint. Ingrid won an Oscar for her performance. You can also look for another film of nearly the same title - -- "Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna" -- that was made in 1986. It stars Amy Irving as Anna and is basically the same story as that in the Ingrid Bergman film, but it's not as good. Books: There are several books that will tell you more about the daily life of Anastasia and her family, but my favorite is titled "Anastasia," although I've forgotten who the author is. I can look it up, if you want. Anyway, that's the first one that you should look at. But there ARE other good ones out there (I'm thinking there's one other with the title of "Anastasia," which might be why I can't remember who wrote the one I like; but I know it when I see it -- it's a pretty thick book). TV: There was a great documentary made for PBS a couple of years ago, but I don't know that you'd be able to find it anywhere. It was on Nova -- maybe you could find it in a library? Some video stores have a section with tapes of PBS documentary series -- maybe you'll get lucky. By the way, for those of you who are familiar with Tori's story about how she came to write "Anastasia," you will remember that it was the spirit of Anna Anderson who wanted Tori to "tell her story." At the time, Tori said she didn't know for certain whether Anna WAS Anastasia or not, but that she thought she probably was. Just goes to show that even Tori can be wrong from time to time. ;) The following bits are various news items and such about Anastasia. O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O [This is a synopsis from the Teacher's Guide for the "Anastasia" episode of Nova.] During the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Czar Nicholas Romanov II was overthrown and exiled to the town of Ekaterinburg. In the middle of the night of July 16, 1918, Bolshevik guards, using the pretense that the Romanovs were in danger, led the Czar and his family into a basement and killed them. Although reports indicated that no one survived, some people believe that one of the Czar's daughters, Princess Anastasia, may have escaped. In 1922 a woman claiming to be Anastasia surfaced in Berlin. Six years later, she visited the United States and registered in a hotel using the name Anna Anderson. Relatives, doctors, and former acquaintances of the Romanovs interviewed and studied her, but until the advent of DNA analysis,no one could prove or disprove her claim with certainty. NOVA investigates this mystery, presenting personal testimonies, evidence from DNA tests, and extensive efforts to determine her true identity. O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O [This article is from early 1994, shortly before the DNA testing was done.] Did any Romanovs survive the 1919 massacre? Genetic testing may decide. By Dean Robinson Science has already solved one great historical mystery--the fate of Russia's last czar, Nicholas II,whose bones were unearthed with those of his family outside Ekaterinberg, Russia, and authenticated by genetic testing. Now the same method will help sort through the muddle of people claiming links to Nicholas's youngest children, Alexei and Anastasia Romanov,believed by many to have escaped their family's 1918 massacre by the Bolsheviks. The stakes are huge: definitive identification of some of history's most romantic figures; a bit part in Russian politics; benefits from a possible media bonanza; and, most intriguingly, a potential claim on a hoard of gold rumored to have been stashed by Nicholas. Most aspiring Romanovs are either charlatans or deluded. But the Ekaterinberg find has touched off a high-tech Cinderella search, attracting many offers of "royal" DNA for comparison to the genetic material in the bones. Efforts are already under way in several cases, including that of the most famous alleged Anastasia, the late Anna Anderson of Charlottesville, Virginia. Like Russian history itself, the hunt for Anastasia and Alexei is populated with weird characters. The Anderson case alone has attracted legal briefs from everyone from the Russian Nobility Association to one "Anastasia Romanov" of St. Petersburg Beach, Florida, who thinks she's Anderson's long-lost daughter. And now an ancient German baron may hold the key to solving the puzzle. Meanwhile, a U.S. public-relations firm called Wink Inc. has emerged as a self-styled clearinghouse for purported Romanovs--including a woman in Scottsdale, Arizona, who says her late husband was the czar's only son. (This particular Alexei taught Ronald Reagan how to ride a horse, Wink claims.) Just how many would-be royals are out there? "We feel there are eight," says Richard Sutz, vice president of Wink. "Five Alexeis and three Anastasias." Of these, the case of Anna Anderson may be the first and most prominent to be resolved. Celebrated in articles, books, and a 1956 Ingrid Bergman movie, Anderson was cremated in 1984 after dying at age 82. Last summer, however, a couple that was friendly with her learned that a Charlottesville hospital still has part of Anderson's intestine from a procedure performed years earlier. Because the czar's alleged daughter had no heirs--she acknowledged no children, and her husband died in 1990--the couple sued the hospital to free up Anderson's tissue for genetic testing. Anderson's friends have a personal motive: The wife, Marina Schweitzer, is a granddaughter of Eugene Botkin, the czar's doctor. Anderson said Botkin was murdered along with her family, but his bones weren't identified with genetic certainty. If Anderson was indeed Anastasia, then Schweitzer would know her grandfather's fate. But as soon as the suit was filed, things got messy. Late last year, the judge gave an official say to the secretive Russian Nobility Association, a group of Emigres that has insisted Anderson was an impostor, and to the long-lost "daughter" in Florida. A bitter Richard Schweitzer thinks the obstructionist RNA wants to protect its self-proclaimed authority on Russian history--and, perhaps, dreams of the gold that Schweitzer says the czar kept in London as dowry for his daughters. The rumored hoard can't be confirmed; the RNA won't comment. The Florida woman, known as Ellen Kailing until she changed her name to Anastasia Romanov last year, is even curiouser. She says she didn't learn her true identity until 1990 but is certain great wealth awaits her--and that the Russian throne awaits her 16-year-old son. "I would say that history will turn 180 degrees around," she says, amid bizarre tales of plots and attempts on her life. To fend off such challengers, Schweitzer thinks he can rely on 86-year-old Baron Ulrich von Gienanth, executor of a series of wills Anderson made while living in Germany in the 1940s and 1950s --probably the only credible Anderson wills in existence. If his legal standing is confirmed, the baron apparently wants Anderson's tissue to be tested as soon as possible. Testing at the English lab that verified the czar's bones would cost the Schweitzers 10,000 pounds ($14,750). But that kind of expense doesn't deter other royal wanna-bes, including Canadian resident Sandra Romanov, who claims her late husband was Alexei. "I would like ten labs to be involved," she says. "That way there'll be no hanky-panky." The Wink PR agency has offered to spring for testing of other alleged Romanovs--in return for book and film rights, of course.Wink's Sutz says the firm considered targeting the gold hoard, too, but decided to skip "an enormously long and difficult legal battle." Thinking of claiming the Russian throne yourself? Beware: Even Wink has standards. "We would have to have some kind of screening," says Sutz. "It's just like a crime: There are always 50 people who will pop up and admit to it." O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O [This article mentions a little about the confusion about which bones were buried where, but all agree that all members of the Romanov family are now accounted for. It was written after the DNA testing had been done on Anna Anderson.] After The Execution According to Massie's article in the August issue of The New Yorker, the site of the Romanov bones had been discovered in 1979 but were not allowed to be exhumed until July 11, 1991. Dr.Sergei Abramov headed the Russian team to identify the bones. They did not have enough money for DNA testing so they, "matched skull formations to photographs, calculated similarities and probabilities of likeness"("The Last Romanov Mystery" 78). His results showed that the bones are the remains of the Romanov family and that two bodies were missing: Alexi, the tzarevich, and Marie (pictured opposite). Dr.William Maples headed the American team that went to Ekaterinberg to assist in the identification process. Dr.Maples used hip bones and dental remains to conclude that the two missing bodies are Alexi and Anastasia (pictured below) since none of the skeletons, "were young enough to have belonged to Anastasia" ("The Last Romanov Mystery" 82). In Yakov Yurovsky's account of the murders, he states that he burned two bodies near the burial site, one being Alexi and the other he was not able to recall. Dr. Abramov still believes his findings are correct and that Marie was burned along with her brother. Maples claims that his results are more accurate ("The Last Romanov Mystery" 83). A third country entered the scientific investigations, England, headed by Dr. Peter Gill. It is this team that has wrestled with all the DNA testing. To begin, they had to contact distant relatives to the tzar and the empress. The DNA from the blood samples given matched with the DNA from the bones. Along with Abramov and Maples, Gill declared the bones to be those of the Romanov family. Gill's DNA testing does not solve the question regarding the Grand Duchesses. What it does solve is the mystery of Anastasia. While the scientists debate between Anastasia and Marie, we now know that no one survived the execution. In September of 1994, remains left by Anna Anderson (the woman who had the strongest claim as The Grand Duchess) proved that she is not Anastasia Romanov, but a Polish factory worker (The Romanovs 246). On February 25th, 1996, a funeral ceremony was arranged for the last Tzar of Russia and his family in St.Petersburg, and was canceled for the fourth time. The Moscow church states that: "The DNA testing has to be done over again" to verify the identification of the bones ("Bones of Contention" 33). Regardless of scientific data from Russia, England, and the United States all ending with the same conclusion, that the bones are indeed the Romanovs, the Moscow Church is not satisfied. Whether or not the family will be canonized in the ceremony has not been decided but, the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad has already done that for the imperial family in 1981. "In the meantime, the remains of Nicholas and Alexandra and their children continue to lie on metal tables in a morgue in Siberia" ("Bones of Contention" 33). O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O [A short news item.] The Romanovs. In 1993 bones found two years before in a shallow grave in Ekaterinenburg in Russia, were identified as the remains of the last Tsar, Tsarina and three of their five children, the royal physician and three servants. To prove relationship with the Romanov family, the DNA extracted and amplified by polymerase chain reaction, was compared to a blood sample provided by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, husband of Queen Elisabeth the second of England, and a grand nephew of the tsarina. Soon after, Anna Anderson Manahan, a US immigrant, deceased in 1984, who had claimed all her life to be the youngest daughter of the last Tsar, Anastasia, supposedly escaped from the bolshevik firing squad, was proved NOT to be who she claimed. Moreover, her DNA very closely matched that of an other immigrant from Pomerania (Germany-Poland), a great nephew of the women Franzisca Schanzkowska. Already in the 1920s a private investigator of the Grand Duke of Hesse had identified Anna Anderson with Schanzkowska. O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O [Another news item that came out after the DNA testing of Anna Anderson ws completed.] TESTS PROVE ANASTASIA CLAIM TO BE FALSE LONDON (Reuter) -- The late Anna Anderson, who for decades claimed to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia, could not have been the youngest daughter of Russia's last tsar, according to tests using blood of the husband of Britain's Queen Elizabeth. Instead, Ms Anderson, 83, who died in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1984, was identified as being of Polish peasant stock. Doctors compared Ms Anderson's DNA with that of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, who is related in the intricate web of European royalty to the dead tsarina through his mother. O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O Hope all this is useful to somebody. :) Violet xoxox * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * "I'm Glenda, The Good Bitch." * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ------------------------------ End of precious-things-digest V2 #122 *************************************