Fake Anastasias

Summary

Hoax! Podcast – “Fake Anastasias” (May 11, 2026)

Hosts: Dana Schwartz & Lizzie Logan

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Episode Overview

“Fake Anastasias” dives into one of history’s most remarkable and enduring hoaxes: the claim that Anastasia Romanov—youngest daughter of the last Tsar of Russia—survived her family’s execution. Hosts Dana Schwartz and Lizzie Logan peel back the layers of myth, pop culture, and psychological intrigue that fueled the legend of the “lost princess.” The episode tracks how these false Anastasias captivated the world, why people believed in their stories, and how the truth finally came to light.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

Pop Culture and the Myth of Anastasia

• Introduction to the Anastasia Story

  • The 1997 animated Don Bluth film Anastasia (commonly mistaken for Disney) serves as a jumping-off point.
  • “People popping onto the Internet to be like, it’s so funny in the movie Anastasia how they totally leave out the communism part... Like this is not the gotcha you think it is, Internet.” (Dana Schwartz, 05:06)

• The Real Romanovs and the Russian Revolution

  • Context of 1917–18: The Romanov family’s imprisonment and execution by Bolshevik forces, and the subsequent confusion and silence surrounding their deaths.
  • Complex royal family ties across Europe, and the missed opportunity for asylum in Britain due to political challenges (09:45).

The Birth of the Anastasia Hoax

• The Mystery After the Executions

  • Bolsheviks announce only the Tsar had been executed; his wife and children’s fate unclear—prime ground for rumors (13:10).
  • “There is a ton of disinformation happening, which is just the perfect breeding ground for conspiracy theories.” (Dana Schwartz, 14:35)
  • Bolsheviks’ motives for partial disclosure: didn’t want to look ruthless nor spark monarchist uprisings.

• The Emergence of Anna Anderson (19:00–46:20)

  • 1920: A mysterious woman, later known as Anna Anderson, is pulled from a Berlin canal after a suicide attempt, with no memory of her identity.

  • Mental health struggles, physical scars, and the projection of “Anastasia” by those around her.

  • Anderson attracts support from Russian émigrés and the son of the Romanov family doctor, Gleb Botkin, who becomes her biggest advocate.

  • Memorable: “To go from being suicidal to being told you are the lost princess, I’d be like, yep, I am, and don't ever tell me otherwise.” (Lizzie Logan, 22:13)

  • Intrigue over why people wanted to believe and continued to ignore evidence to the contrary.

• Rebuttals and the Unraveling of the Hoax

  • Investigations reveal Anna Anderson is really Franziska Schanzkowska, a Polish factory worker (37:26).

  • Disbelievers, even family members, are dismissed as conspirators trying to keep “Anastasia” from her inheritance.

  • “Her brother recognized her, but knew her life would be better if he didn’t out her.” (Dana Schwartz, 39:44)

The Enduring Appeal and Proliferation of Claimants

• Global Sensation and Court Battles

  • Anna Anderson’s decades-long legal and social journey, the sustained media fascination, and the “Anastasia gold rush” of other imposters (30:54–46:20).
  • Basis for the Oscar-winning 1956 film Anastasia with Ingrid Bergman.
  • “She’s, you know, a mentally ill woman who lives a pretty sad life, but, you know, an adventurous life in some ways.” (Dana Schwartz, 56:59)

• Copycats, Conspiracies, and the Power of Belief

  • Numerous other “Anastasia” and Romanov claimants emerge—most notably Eugenia Smith and Marga Boots—each with their own implausible or debunked stories (58:04–72:20).
  • Quote on the phenomenon: “People who want to believe it, believe it.” (Dana Schwartz, 69:11)

DNA Evidence and the Resolution

• The Science Solves the Mystery

  • In the 1990s, mitochondrial DNA conclusively proves Anna Anderson was not Anastasia, but Franziska Schanzkowska (51:20).

    • “No matter what the DNA says, I know in my heart she’s Anastasia. People who want to believe still believe.” (Dana Schwartz, 52:26)

  • 2007: Final remains of all Romanovs and their servants discovered and identified in Russia; the real fates of the entire family are confirmed (77:23).

  • “They are all accounted for. None of these people are Anastasia.” (Dana Schwartz, 77:59)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Pop Culture Representation:
  • “This movie has Hank Azaria voicing a bat. No one thinks this is a documentary.” (Dana Schwartz, 05:18)
• On the Creation of False Narratives:
  • “It’s a name.” (Dana Schwartz, 25:46) [On authorities issuing Anderson an ID as Anastasia]
• On the Human Urge to Believe:
  • “If you actually did believe you were Anastasia, wouldn’t you be like, my cousin Prince Rostislav?” (Dana Schwartz, 66:11)
• On the Persistence of Myths:
  • “Even after DNA evidence, people are defending her as the real Anastasia, because they want to.” (paraphrased, 67:18)
• Humorous Interlude:
  • “You might even say you were Russian.” (Lizzie Logan, 44:10)
• On the Emotional Truth:
  • “I am not a fan of authoritarian monarchy. But two things can be true at once: you shouldn’t murder children.” (Dana Schwartz, 79:19)

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Key Timestamps

• 03:46–08:06 – Explaining the real history: Romanovs, the Revolution, the movie vs. reality
• 13:14–18:18 – The fate of the Romanovs, the Bolsheviks’ announcement and coverup
• 19:00–47:14 – The rise, life, and supporters of Anna Anderson
• 51:20–53:04 – DNA evidence debunks Anderson’s claim
• 58:04–67:18 – Other claimants: Eugenia Smith, copycats, and durable conspiracy theories
• 73:17–77:59 – Discovery of the Romanov remains, confirmation of the true fate
• 78:08–81:48 – Wrapping up: cultural legacy, proposals for movies, and closing reflections

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Tone & Style

Dana and Lizzie maintain a witty, conversational tone, balancing historical thoroughness with irreverent pop culture asides, humor, and compassion for the individuals swept up in these tales. The episode is both educational and entertaining—respectful of tragic events, but unsparing about the foolishness and hopefulness that fuel persistent historical myths.

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Takeaways

• The “lost princess” myth capitalized on uncertainty, wish fulfillment, and the media’s appetite for sensation.
• Fake Anastasias and their enablers were driven by a mixture of grief, opportunism, psychological need, and public hysteria.
• Even overwhelming scientific evidence rarely dents the conviction of those invested in a hoax’s emotional truth.
• The Anastasia myth inspired decades of fascination across film, literature, and public imagination—rooted as much in longing for lost worlds and fairy tales as in fact.

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This episode is a sharp, insightful examination of how enduring hoaxes shape—and are shaped by—pop culture, and what our need to believe unlikely stories says about us all.

Transcript

[Dana Schwartz]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[Dana Schwartz]

You're listening to Hoax, a production of iHeart podcasts, folks. It's a hoax.

[Lizzie Logan]

How come no one ever seems to

[Dana Schwartz]

believe me when I swear I never The Steven of Lasswaterin. Welcome to Hoax, a podcast about the lies we wish were true and truths

[Lizzie Logan]

that sound like lies.

[Dana Schwartz]

I'm the ghost of Dana Schwartz.

[Lizzie Logan]

And I'm the evil twin of Lizzie Logan.

[Dana Schwartz]

Welcome to the show. This is very much a hoax that is about lies we wish were true. Great.

[Lizzie Logan]

And you said something funny right before we started recording.

[Dana Schwartz]

I said, this is going to be a light and funny episode. There's only five instances of child murder.

[Lizzie Logan]

Barely.

[Dana Schwartz]

Barely any child murder. But let's flag that if you are just very sensitive to the murder of historical figures who were children.

[Lizzie Logan]

Oh, I know what this is.

[Dana Schwartz]

Okay.

[Lizzie Logan]

But no. So I know what this is. Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

Well, let's just dive in. Lizzy, have you seen the Bluth movie Anastasia? People always think it's a Disney movie. Fox. Disney did buy Fox, so technically it is now a Disney movie.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. And I think we. Did we or did we not talk about it on a bonus episode of

[Dana Schwartz]

Nobleblood we maybe have. This is so.

[Lizzie Logan]

I think we've talked about it.

[Dana Schwartz]

I love this topic.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yes.

[Dana Schwartz]

And I'm very grateful to Hoax because the thing is, on Noble Blood, I talk about real history. Yeah. And this episode is giving me a very fun opportunity to talk about some not real history.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yes. And I think this is one of those, like, this is just like such Dana shit. Because not only is it real history, fake history, animation history, like all of those things, it's also one of your pet pet peeves in such a way that you love it because you get to talk about how it's your pet peeve a hundred percent, which is people making what they think is a really smart point. That's actually not a smart point. Which is people popping onto the Internet to be like, it's so funny in the movie Anastasia how they like totally leave out the communism part. Like, did you realize that that whole opening is like historically inaccurate?

[Dana Schwartz]

I'm like, it's like, haha.

[Lizzie Logan]

It's like, oh yeah. Did you realize that that movie about Rasputin being a wizard and there's a talking bat is historically inaccurate? Like this is not the. This is not the. Gotcha. You Think it is Internet.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yes. I love a fake. Gotcha. Someone like feeling really and really smart. Someone being like actually Frankenstein is the scientist.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. It's like this movie has like Han Gazaria voicing a bat. Like no one thinks this is a documentary.

[Dana Schwartz]

If you have not realized already we are going to be talking about Anastasia or really fake hoax Anastasia. The legacy of the legacy of Anastasia. Because on Noble Blood at different points I have talked about the real history and life of Anastasia. But I thought this podcast specifically would be a very fun opportunity to go into detail about the century of Anastasia related hoax that happened after. Spoiler alert. Anastasia's death. Not a spoiler alert for most people, I think to know that Anastasia is in fact dead.

[Lizzie Logan]

Well, and died at the same time as the rest of her family. Yes.

[Dana Schwartz]

So that said, let's.

[Lizzie Logan]

Anastasia Romanoff, to be specific.

[Dana Schwartz]

To be specific, the daughter, the youngest daughter of the Tsar Nicholas ii. So for a little bit of historical context, just to set the scene. If you are new to the story or have only seen the animated movie featuring the voice of Meg Ryan and she's not even a Russian. That's my like fake Internet correct Y voice.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, it's her.

[Dana Schwartz]

It's John Cusack.

[Lizzie Logan]

John Cusack. Kelsey Grammer, Hank Azaria.

[Dana Schwartz]

I think Jim Cumming.

[Lizzie Logan]

I think Jim Cumming is Rasputin and I wanna say it's not. Is it Julie Andrews? Is it Julie Andrews? And then Bernadette Peters as.

[Dana Schwartz]

Bernadette Peters is definitely Sophie. Oh, no. Christopher Lloyd is Rasputin.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, but the singing voices are all different. So that's why you thought of Jim Cumming. I think it's Liz Calloway. Liz Calloway as the singing voice.

[Dana Schwartz]

Kristin Dunst is young Anastas. Lacey Chabert is the singing voice for young Anastasia. Oh, Lacey. Gretchen Wieners herself. Christopher Lloyd. Jim Cummings singing voice. Angela Lansbury as her grandmother, the dowager empress. And Bernadette Peters as Sophie. Sophie.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay, great.

[Dana Schwartz]

I mean, an all star cast. Everyone should.

[Lizzie Logan]

Can you imagine the things I would know if this weren't the things that I know?

[Dana Schwartz]

But thank God you do.

[Lizzie Logan]

I could be a lawyer.

[Dana Schwartz]

But you shouldn't be.

[Lizzie Logan]

I could pass the bar.

[Dana Schwartz]

I hope you don't. Andrea Martin plays multiple roles as an old woman at train station.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[Dana Schwartz]

The orphanage's inconsiderate owner.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. Great. Well, historically, not in the animated movie. The Russian revolution happened in 1917. Not for magic reasons.

[Lizzie Logan]

No.

[Dana Schwartz]

Tsar Nicholas, he was unpopular for a lot of reasons. For a long time he was known as Bloody Nicholas because there was an incident about a decade before this when people were bringing a petition to the palace and his soldiers fired on innocent protesters. And so he was called Bloody Nicholas. Very unpopular, he abdicates the throne. He and his family is put under house arrest, quote, unquote, for their own safety. First, in Siberia, the Bolsheviks come to power after the October Revolution, and the Romanov family is moved to a house in Yekaterinburg near the Ural Mountains. And what's happening at this time? And again, we're just skating over this for background context. There's still a civil war happening in Russia at the time. So there's the Bolsheviks, who are known sort of as the Reds, and then there's the anti Bolsheviks. That is kind of called the White Army. So if I say the Whites, I don't mean white people, although they are, but I mean the Tsarist anti Bolsheviks. The family at this time is Nicholas ii, Tsar of Russia. His wife, Alexandra, who's a German princess and the granddaughter of Queen Victoria and their four daughters and one son. So in terms of, like, the English connection, Alexandra is the granddaughter of Queen Victoria, and Nicholas's mom is married to the grandson of Queen Victoria. So they're not actually related. They're related by marriage, but not by blood. His mom, Dagmar, was a Danish princess, okay. And her sister, a different Danish princess, married the King of England.

[Lizzie Logan]

And so this is how they're going to try and get asylum in Britain. But that's not gonna work.

[Dana Schwartz]

I mean, that just does not happen. It's like a very interesting historical, like, what if? And it's one of my favorite episodes of Noble Blood because Nicholas II was first cousins with the King of England at this time. And they looked like twins. Like, they looked like brothers, and they were very close. But the Romanovs are so unpopular that it just is not a politically feasible move to offer them asylum. And it actually breaks George V's heart when he hears about what happens to the Romanovs. He, like, is very depressing, I think, scary if you're a monarch and you hear about this sort of thing happening to other monarchs. But on a personal note, this is like a real situation where it was, like, putting the crown over family, because he's like, well, if I bring them here to England, even if I try. And then there's a whole additional question about even if he tried, whether he could have. But it's like, if he tries, maybe there would be a revolt in England and they would overthrow the monarchy.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, crazy, crazy.

[Dana Schwartz]

Okay, so Nicholas ii, Tsarina Alexandra, and their four daughters, Olga, Tatiana, Maria and little Anastasia. The daughters are 22 to 17 and the heir, the youngest son, Alexei, is 13. This family is in this terrible house in Yekaterinburg. The conditions keep getting worse and worse. There's like paper over the windows because the Bolsheviks don't want anyone to see them there. They're forbidden from communicating with the outside world. There's just like more and more soldiers. It feels like they're in prison. There's also four servants with them, but like also imprisoned with them, not like to take care of them. There's still a revolution happening. So the white anti Bolshevik forces are marching into Yekaterinburg. And so this is a question that is still asked in history. Like historians don't have an answer to this. Who makes this decision to this day? Like no one has found any specific orders. And people have said different things about who was responsible. But what we know is the White army was marching on Yekaterinburg. They were going to get there soon and someone makes a decision. And that decision is that the Romanovs are woken up in the middle of the night, July 17th. They're told to put on their clothes and get dressed because they're going to be moved to another safe place. The children we know put the kid jewels in their undergarments, which is an important detail. And the family is brought into a semi basement with their few servants, including their family doctor, Dr. Botkin, which will be important later. And while they're waiting in the cellar. And again they like don't know what's happening. Like Alexandra asks for a chair and then someone comes in. The commandant reads a statement saying that they're going to be, Nicholas is going to be executed. And an execution squad comes in. And July 19, two days later, the Bolsheviks announce that Tsar Nicholas was shot, was executed, and that his family was moved to a secret safe location. That's sort of what at the time, the information that is coming out. There are a few witnesses that will later say they saw a train with like blocked out windows. And they're like, yes, I assume that the Tsarina and the children were on that train.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

Two weeks later, the White army comes and occupies Ekaterinburg. And they do like a little investigation to try to figure out what happens. And there's a commission run by this guy named Sokolov who's trying to investigate what happens. He does not find any of the bodies, not even the Tsar. But he examines this basement where whatever happened, happened, looks at all the blood and the evidence. And he's like, I think the entire family was killed.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

He also claims that the execution of the Imperial family was carried out by, quote, a group of Latvians led by a Jew.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. You could tell that from the blood.

[Dana Schwartz]

And I just. I actually just want to be clear. Not. Not true. They actually were all ethnic Russians.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

Just that fun fact. But it doesn't matter.

[Lizzie Logan]

Listen, I mean, when has blaming the Jews ever not been just like a go to.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. A lot Latvians led by a Jew. Yeah. But he was incorrect. But he doesn't even get to really finish his investigation because then the Bolshevik forces return and he dies of a attack. And then even once Soviet government comes into power, they suppress his report. Okay, so all of this is to say there is a ton of disinformation happening, which is just the perfect breeding ground for conspiracy theories.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

And on one hand, the Bolsheviks at this time did not want to tell the world that they killed the Tsar and also his wife and children.

[Lizzie Logan]

Right. Makes them look quite bad.

[Dana Schwartz]

It makes them look quite bad.

[Lizzie Logan]

And also, isn't there. I mean, there's like precedent for sparing the family. Right. Because I'm thinking, correct me if I'm wrong, did they kill Marie Antoinette's kids?

[Dana Schwartz]

Not on purpose. They died in prison and.

[Lizzie Logan]

But they weren't planning.

[Dana Schwartz]

They weren't executed for.

[Lizzie Logan]

Right. And they sent Napoleon into exile, but

[Dana Schwartz]

his kids were totally fine.

[Lizzie Logan]

Totally fine.

[Dana Schwartz]

Well, he didn't have kids, but his nephews. Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

Right. Like the family was taken care of.

[Dana Schwartz]

More or less. Yes. Stepson. Yeah. Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

And like other. I mean, I don't know, off the top of my head, a ton of executed.

[Dana Schwartz]

It is without precedent, but yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

So it's like even in bloody revolutions, like, even super. No, we gotta burn the whole house down, people. This is not like a political theory that is like widely accepted. That it's like, ah, well, you know your party to the oppressors. Like, you gotta be killed too. Like killing kids is just like a. No, no for the human race.

[Dana Schwartz]

Correct. Very bad. Which is, I mean, why they do not publicize that there is a civil war happening. They want support. And if you are claiming to be morally superior and that the czar was a bloody oppressor, you don't want to be like, and we murdered his children in a way. And this is the trigger warning part. And I think that, like, historically I read about things and now not to be like, no, I have a kid. So I read. But like, it just like in your body affects you emotionally. Okay, so if you don't want to know bloody details, Skip ahead like 30 seconds. But what happened was all these. The firing squad in the basement, all of the people, even though they were assigned to kill different people, they all just wanted to shoot the Tsar. Because if you're a soldier, you're like, yeah, I don't want to shoot a kid. I want to shoot the Tsar, the one I hate. And so they shoot the Tsar and then they're screaming in panic. And then a lot of the guns backfire and then also a lot of the bullets ricochet off the jewels in their underwear. And so some of the deaths are like by bayonet at close range. Like, this is like a brutal way to die in gun smoke and screaming. And there you can come back if you don't want descriptions of the brutal death. So it looks really bad. But on the other hand, they don't want to just outright lie. The Bolsheviks don't just want to be like, oh, but Tsarina and children are totally safe. They're fine. Because they don't want people for the White army to rally behind.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. And they also, like, presumably they can't keep that up for very long. Like, they're not going to go find them.

[Dana Schwartz]

They're not gonna find them. They don't exist and they don't want anyone to rally behind. So it is a bad strategy. And it's also why there's so much conspiracy minded thinking. Because if you want to believe these children are still alive, you're like, well, yeah, of course they wouldn't say anything because they don't want, you know, us to have a hero to rally behind. And also, I've seen the argument, it's pretty flimsy that because Alexandra was a German princess that the Bolsheviks would have wanted her as like a bargaining chip at the end of World War I. But the war was coming to an end, like Russia was out of the war. That just doesn't hold a lot of water. But that's also why to this day we don't know, no one really has taken responsibility for that order.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, okay, sure.

[Dana Schwartz]

So that's all the context.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

But at the time, if you're someone alive in 1918 and you just heard, okay, they killed the Tsar rumor in St. Petersburg. You've heard a rumor in St. Petersburg, but you're like, they killed the Tsar. They said that the Queen and her children went away to safety. Haven't heard much about that. Maybe they're dead. Who knows?

[Lizzie Logan]

Maybe they got knocked on the head and forgot who they were.

[Dana Schwartz]

You don't know. Most people, I don't think, are thinking too much about it until a few years later.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

Just 19 months later, in 1920, 1500 miles away, there's a young woman pulled from a canal in Berlin after she jumped off trying to commit suicide.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

She's brought to the hospital and then to Dahl Dorf Sanitarium, where she stays for two years. This woman has no memory of who she is. She doesn't have a name. And we've talked a lot about, like, pretty privilege. Yeah. She's like a young, pretty woman.

[Lizzie Logan]

Great.

[Dana Schwartz]

She appears to be about 20. She has some scars on her head and neck and body. Suffering from partial amnesia. Doesn't give her name. So she's kind of checked in under the German equivalent of, like, Jane Doe. Yeah, she has, I think, what that

[Lizzie Logan]

would be, like, Heidi. Like, nein.

[Dana Schwartz]

I think it's just like, unknown woman. Okay. It's, like, even more boring than that. They sort of see, they try to mark, like, is that a birthmark? Are their moles removed? She speaks German, but with an accent.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

They don't quite know what the accent is. So for two years, she's in this sanitarium. There's another patient in the sanitarium who had suffered from a nervous breakdown. And her name is Clara. And she's reading a magazine. And she looks up at the woman across from her and sees that this woman seems to bear a striking resemblance to Tatiana Romanov.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

Tatiana was sort of the beauty of the family.

[Lizzie Logan]

And the striking resemblance is from a photo or like an oil painting.

[Dana Schwartz]

A photo. There are photos.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, I know there's photos. I'm just wondering which one it is.

[Dana Schwartz]

I'm gonna actually show you some photos. This is some good timing I have.

[Lizzie Logan]

Do you have a picture of Jane. No name. And Tatiana?

[Dana Schwartz]

And indeed I do.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay. So I'm looking at a picture of the.

[Dana Schwartz]

The royal family.

[Lizzie Logan]

The royal family.

[Dana Schwartz]

This is Olga. This is Maria. This is Tatiana, the beauty. That's Anastasia.

[Lizzie Logan]

They're all real pretty. But Tatiana is.

[Dana Schwartz]

She's serving face. This is the unknown woman.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay. So they don't. They don't not look alike. I don't think they look like the same person necessarily.

[Dana Schwartz]

I mean, she's a pretty young woman.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

And this is. You know, there are other pictures of Tatiana, but that's basically, she's like, whoa. This unknown lady looks a lot like Tatiana. This woman, Clara, who had suffered the nervous breakdown, goes to a pretty connected friend named Baron Arthur von Kleist. The first Arthur of this episode. And she's like this lady I met at Daldorf, looks a lot like Tatiana. You know, some Russian nobles, maybe they knew Tatiana and you. And so he gathers up some Russian nobles because if you recall, the Russian Revolution happened. And so if you were a Russian noble, you got the heck out of there.

[Lizzie Logan]

Got the hell out of there.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. A lot of them are in Berlin. Some Russian nobles identify her. They're like, whoa, she does look like Someone. I'm not 100%, but something is happening. People get the idea in her head that she's not Tatiana, but she is, in fact, Anastasia.

[Lizzie Logan]

That's so interesting that it wasn't her idea.

[Dana Schwartz]

It was not originally her idea. Someone, all these other sort of people around her, someone in this circle of Russian expats, is like, that's not Tatiana. That's Anastasia.

[Lizzie Logan]

I mean, to go from being suicidal to being told that you are, like, the lost princess, like, I would be like, yep, aha. That I. Absolutely. I am. And don't ever tell me otherwise.

[Dana Schwartz]

Well, now, if you can believe it, now some of her memory starts coming back.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

She says that the scars on her body are from the knives and bayonets of the Bolsheviks in the massacre and that what had happened was she had somehow survived that and passed out and one of the soldiers had found her alive after the carnage and helped her escape to the West. That baron, Baron Arthur Von Kleist, takes her in for a few months while she kind of is meeting the Russian expat noble community. She doesn't seem to speak Russian, which you'd imagine Anastasia would. But. So her supporters say that she had a horrible trauma associated with Russians, so naturally, she kind of, like, doesn't want to go there. Von Kleist's daughter testifies that she is muttering what sounds like Polish in her speech in her sleep. Some people say that she speaks quite good English, like Anastasia would have. Some say that, oh, she speaks English a little bit.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

Some say that she does not speak English. So different people. Our sources on this are people who met her at the time. And so some are like, oh, and amazingly, this is Anastasia. She spoke quite good English. And then some are like, this is a problem.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay. So they just have different memories.

[Dana Schwartz]

People have different memories of meeting her. And some people say that she seems intimately knowledgeable about Russian court and able to name faces in photographs and identify uniforms and buildings, which is.

[Lizzie Logan]

I'm, like, getting convinced even though I know that it's not true.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. And she has basically this full Story that the guard who rescued her, his name was Alexander Tchaikovsky, that she had given birth to his child and they had gotten married. Then he was assassinated.

[Lizzie Logan]

That's a lot.

[Dana Schwartz]

And then he was assassinated in Bucharest. The infant was put in a foundling home. She made it to Berlin. She was trying to find Princess Irene of Prussia, who would be her aunt, her mom's sister. But then she was deserted by the person she was traveling with. And she was so frightened and ashamed that she tried to commit suicide.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

That's like her story.

[Lizzie Logan]

That's a lot more than I thought there was gonna be.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay. And. Cause a lot of that you could maybe verify.

[Dana Schwartz]

Well, interesting you say that. There is no evidence, independent evidence of two guards who are. She said the Tchaikovsky brothers had rescued her.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. And also, you can, like, see physically if a woman has given birth.

[Dana Schwartz]

I don't know if they're checking that. I think she actually might have.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

I think. I mean, actually, I know for a fact she has.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

But the other details of her story don't. Like, there aren't. Isn't, like, corroborative, hard evidence.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

But as it turns out, this woman has had a child. They introduce her to Princess Irene, her aunt. Do you have a guess what Princess Irene thinks?

[Lizzie Logan]

I've never met this woman in my life.

[Dana Schwartz]

Correct.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

This is not my niece. I do not know who this young woman is, but the German Foreign Office issues an identity card to her as Anastasia Tchaikovsky. Nay, Romanov. Wow. I guess they just take your word for it.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. I mean, I feel like in the absence of any other identity, the Germans are just like.

[Dana Schwartz]

I don't know.

[Lizzie Logan]

It's a name.

[Dana Schwartz]

It's a name.

[Lizzie Logan]

Because it's not like they're issuing her, like, a royal title or any money. They're just like it's a first and last name.

[Dana Schwartz]

Well, so what's going to happen now at this point is there are a lot of. As we sort of alluded to early on in the episode, there are a lot of cousins throughout Europe, both on your mother and father's side, if you are Anastasia. And various distant cousins, uncles, great uncles, will have different opinions on whether or not she is, in fact, Anastasia. And some of them think that she is so the mother of the tsar, the grandmama. Grandmama to me. Anastasia. Yeah. Maria Feodorovna is not in Paris. She's in Copenhagen, where she's from. And her daughter Olga has the Danish minister in Berlin look into this story. They hear about her and they're like, can you look into this. They're in Denmark. They ask the Danish minister in Berlin to look into this. And the minister actually pays this woman's bills for three years.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay. In this just in case.

[Dana Schwartz]

Just in case. And in this period, she's treated in a sanitarium in Switzerland and one in Germany. She's sort of in and out of mental institutions while she's being funded by Romanov relatives.

[Lizzie Logan]

I mean, but I mean it's not like she's really living the high life. She's like just she's a mentally ill woman who is getting help. So yeah, she seems like a mostly victimless crime.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

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[Dana Schwartz]

wasn't that delicious? So good. Your bill, ladies.

[Lizzie Logan]

I got it. No, I got it.

[Dana Schwartz]

Seriously, I insist. I insisted first. Don't be silly. You know me, silly. Silly people with The Wells Fargo ActiveCash credit card prefer to pay because they earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

Rock, paper, scissors for it.

[Lizzie Logan]

Rock, paper, scissors. Shoot.

[Dana Schwartz]

No. The Wells Fargo ActiveCash credit card. Visit wells fargo.comactivecash Terms apply. In 1927, the distant cousin Duke George of Luxenburg lets her stay at Castelcion.

[Lizzie Logan]

Cool.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. This is around the period also where she meets her biggest lifelong ally, who is Gleb Botkin.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

Gleb Botkin was a childhood friend of Anastasia's because he was the son of their family doctor. Right, the doctor who was also murdered in the massacre. Yes.

[Lizzie Logan]

And he's like, oh, my God, I have my friend back.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. He meets her and is like, this is Anastasia. And I am fully convinced. His sister Tatiana also is, like, fully convinced.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

He had drawn, like, caricatures with Anastasia. Is like, all the court members as little characters with animal heads. And he says she identifies each one.

[Lizzie Logan]

Cute.

[Dana Schwartz]

He's a pretty weird guy. By the 50s, he's leading a small religious sect in New Jersey.

[Lizzie Logan]

Oh, so that's like just being a

[Dana Schwartz]

weirdo in New Jersey 30 years ahead of it. But, like, we're back in the 20s now.

[Lizzie Logan]

Is this story making the news? Yes. Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, yeah. Like, worldwide news.

[Lizzie Logan]

Worldwide. Okay. In fact, as like, fraud found or princess found.

[Dana Schwartz]

As, like, possible princess found. Okay. Not as, like, woman claims to be Anastasia.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

Another thing is, during this period, more than a dozen women will come out as Anastasia.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay. So kind of based on her, where they're like, there's a. Is it like an Anastasia gold rush where they're like, oh, you can claim to be Anastasia. Or is it because the version that I had sort of, like, learned in history class was that there was, like, something unique about Anastasia's story that made her, like, especially susceptible to con artists, where it was like, they never found her body. That's why all these people were coming forward.

[Dana Schwartz]

When we get to the 80s, that actually will kind of be the case.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay. But right now, it's mostly based on this one lady who was identified by the nervous breakdown lady as Tatiana.

[Dana Schwartz]

And then people in Berlin were like, anastasia.

[Lizzie Logan]

And then Anastasia. And then that will have this sort of ripple effect of other Anastasia wannabes.

[Dana Schwartz]

We are also gonna talk about later in the episode, other people pretending to be other Romanov daughters.

[Lizzie Logan]

I was about to say, like, why? Like, it feels like we're crowded with Anastasias. Why hasn't anyone else tried to be like, Olga?

[Dana Schwartz]

In fact, they do. And which is kind of like the, like, saying, like, harris George is my favorite Beatle.

[Lizzie Logan]

George was a great Beatle.

[Dana Schwartz]

George is a great Beatle. You could be Olga. Why not?

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

The reason that Anastasia kind of captures the imagination.

[Lizzie Logan]

She was the youngest.

[Dana Schwartz]

She was the youngest, the sweetest, like, very cute. This case and this woman, she has not gotten this name yet in the story, but she's most commonly referred to as Anna Anderson.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

Becomes a worldwide sensation.

[Lizzie Logan]

The woman that we've been talking about.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yes.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

As we've said, gets the most publicity. There's a play about loosely inspired by her. I think it's like the amnesia and the suicide attempt. Like, there's a very romantic aspect to it. And there will be a movie in the 50s with Ingrid Bergman about this case.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

So the Movie in the 50s about this Anastasia sort of popularizes the missing Anastasia princess narrative. Okay.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay, I'm sorry. Let's go back to your timeline. I have ten hundred questions. Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yes. But I want to talk about all of them.

[Lizzie Logan]

The movie is about what she claimed happened, where she gets rescued and has a baby and is a missing princess. Or the movie is about her having the play and the mental hallucination of a fake identity.

[Dana Schwartz]

The play and the movie are what the animated movie is based on. It's about a young woman with amnesia who opportunists, sort of decide to say, like, let's pretend she's Anastasia. And then it's like, but is she really Anastasia?

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay, but I assume without the part where the Russian empire fell because Rasputin made a deal with the devil.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yes. No, it is more grounded. No, Rasputin Okay. It is like a love story. And it is like con artists decide to use this pretty woman with amnesia for their ends. And then it's like, oh, but is she Anastasia? Who knows?

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

And it's a movie that comes out in the 50s with Ingrid Bergman.

[Lizzie Logan]

I want to watch that. Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

I think she won an Oscar for it. I hope she did, but back in the 20s. Great. This woman is getting national, global attention because she is claiming to be Anastasia with a pretty credible group of people supporting her. The fact that Gleb Botkin was Anastasia's childhood friend and is like, this is my friend Anastasia. You're like, well, yeah. The Grand Duke of Hesse, who is Anastasia's uncle, her mom's brother, does not believe any of this. And he's like, enough is enough. Because relatives had kind of been paying for her way. And he decides to hire a private investigator.

[Lizzie Logan]

Sorry, I have. Like, I'm interrupting you so much. No, at any point, I mean, I know that it makes them look bad, but at any point, are the Bolsheviks gonna come out and say, like, no, we killed them. We killed them all.

[Dana Schwartz]

No.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

No, they will not.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

Also, because that order was sort of buried. It's kind of like a thing that there were no records of. Also, people will say it. So individual soldiers will come forward and be like, no, we killed them all. But people will be like, conspiracy.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay, okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

The Grand Duke of Hess hires a private investigator who investigates and publishes his findings in a newspaper on April 9, 1927. And this investigator did a very, very thorough job. He looked through photos and employment records and missing person reports and figures out that this woman is actually a woman named Franciska Szczanczakowska. And she was a Polish factory worker with a history of mental instability. She had a husband who was killed in World War I. She was injured in a factory explosion in 1916, hence the scars. Her former landlady describes her as a reader of romantic novels who kept a picture of the tsar's family on the dressing table. And apparently, the landlady was brought to the Bavarian castle where Anna Anderson was staying at this point. And she screamed, get her out of here. And this is, I think, very funny, because this is after Princess Caribou, the second time a landlady is IDing a fake princess.

[Lizzie Logan]

So it's a pretty convincing. She's known as Anna Anderson, even though her name's Francesca.

[Dana Schwartz]

No, Anna Anderson is an alias that this fake Anastasia will is known for now, like, in history. Okay. She hasn't. She calls herself Anastasia.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

And all of her. I was just calling her Anna Anderson to you, Lizzie Logan, because that is. There's so many different Anastasia imposters. Anna Anderson will become the alias that this one is most famous for.

[Lizzie Logan]

I know, but I'm saying in real life, her name was Francesca.

[Dana Schwartz]

In real life, her name was Francesca.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay. I'm just trying to keep it all straight.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, yeah. Francesca. Polish factory worker.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

People who are supporters of her fully dismissed the report. They think that it was rigged by the Hess family because they didn't want to share the inheritance with her, what

[Lizzie Logan]

would be left to inherit. The Bolsheviks didn't just take it all,

[Dana Schwartz]

so they did, but they're after 10 because even the Tsar's death was not, like, proven. You have to wait 10 years to claim, like, inheritance for, like, a, I don't know, missing person or whatever. And all the Soviet property has been confiscated. But there are reports that there are, like, secret Romanov bank accounts throughout Europe, and they do have, you know, land and some money around Europe that is out of the purview of the Bolsheviks. But as we will discover, not nearly as much as people want to believe.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. I feel like if they had, like, vast swathes of money, they would have, like, used it to, I don't know, flee. I don't know.

[Dana Schwartz]

They tried. It didn't work.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

But again, if you believe something, you're like, well, the. You know, the Duke of Hess doesn't want to share his inheritance. Young woman. So they say that the report is rigged. The report also has, like, skull and ear examination and comparisons to prove that she's not Anastasia. But, like, that's all dubious and, like, the fact that she is a Polish factory worker is actually true. Yeah. So we're going to focus on that.

[Lizzie Logan]

Great.

[Dana Schwartz]

Franciska's brother comes to visit her, and there's kind of differing accounts to how he reacted. Some people are like, yeah, he recognized that it was his sister. And other people say that he just said that she had a strong resemblance to her sister. And his family will later say he did recognize her, but knew that her life would be better if he didn't out her.

[Lizzie Logan]

That's, like, nice of him.

[Dana Schwartz]

He's just like, what. What good is gonna come of this fraud? Like, she's living in a castle with, like, rich people supporting her. Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

And I also, like, you know, if you haven't seen her in years and she's gained some weight and she's dressed really differently and got a haircut, maybe he's like, you look like My sister.

[Dana Schwartz]

But she says she's in his.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

And later, this is in the 20s, but in 10 years, in 1938, the Nazis will be like, is that your sister? And then he's like, no, the Nazis are going to put you in jail for fraud if I say you're my sister. So, no, you're not my sister.

[Lizzie Logan]

I'm always pro lying to Nazis.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. So that's sort of what happens. Like in terms of the. This report comes out. Which is true.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. But people have their reasons for denying it.

[Dana Schwartz]

People have their reasons for denying it. And this is not the end of her story. So 10 years have passed at this point. Late 20s, Gleb Botkin is leading the fight to get her inheritance that he thinks she's owed. They hire lawyers, they're gonna fight it out. And she comes on this whirlwind trip to New York City in February 1928, and it's paid for by Xenia Leeds, who's like a distantly related Russian princess. And at this point, she's going by the name Anastasia Tchaikovsky. She has a press conference where she says that she's coming to America to have her jaw reset because it was broken by Bolshevik soldier and it was still out of whack. And she's treated like a celebrity in New York City and she's staying with Xenia Leeds and going to fancy parties. But she is still mentally unstable. She acts pretty erratically. She's kicked out of the Leeds mansion at a certain point, possibly because Xenia is like, I actually don't think this is Anastasia anymore.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. I mean, the Anna Delvey vibes.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, very Anna Delvey vibes.

[Lizzie Logan]

In terms of being a small time fake royal.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yes. Yeah. And she checks into a hotel when she's kicked out of the Leeds mansion, which is actually arranged by Rachmaninoff, the pianist who became friends with her as Anna Anderson to avoid the press. And that's how she gets her sort of most famous alias.

[Lizzie Logan]

Gotcha.

[Dana Schwartz]

But she and her supporters will always refer to her as Anastasia.

[Lizzie Logan]

Gotcha.

[Dana Schwartz]

But for clarity, maybe we should. I'll start calling her Anna. Okay. Just because that's who she is. And you know, the mother of the Tsar, Grandmama Tomi Anastasia dies in 1929 in Copenhagen. And the rest of the family gets together for the funeral. And they all like, jointly are like, can we all just make a statement right now that that lady going around talking to the press saying she's Anastasia is not our relative, she's an imposter, and they're like, yes. So the entire family makes a statement.

[Lizzie Logan]

Gotcha.

[Dana Schwartz]

Or like, the most powerful inner sanctum of the family. They're still like, distant cousins. Who will support her. Gleb Botkin replies to the statement with an open letter accusing them all of trying to swindle her out of her fortune.

[Lizzie Logan]

I love when family drama is just being aired out in, like, the New York Times.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. She moves. In 1929, she moves in with a Park Avenue spinster named Annie Burr Jennings, who. It's kind of like the socialite person just kind of likes hosting someone famous.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

I'm kind of also picturing, like, the people at the beginning of Inside Llewyn Davis who are just, like, hosting their. This erratic person just because they like that. It makes them feel artsy.

[Lizzie Logan]

I feel like this is just like a twist on Grey Gardens.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yes.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

But again, this is not like a mentally well woman. Yeah. She kills a pet parakeet, she tantrums, apparently runs naked onto the roof, and. And in 1930, she's forcibly admitted to a sanitarium under the name Anna Anderson.

[Lizzie Logan]

I mean, I do feel for her. This, again, this wasn't her idea.

[Dana Schwartz]

No, she did continue it.

[Lizzie Logan]

No, I know, but, like, again, like, this was. Many people told her this.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yes. True.

[Lizzie Logan]

Insisted.

[Dana Schwartz]

Insisted. True. She's declared mentally incompetent and sent back to Germany to another institution. When she's brought back to Europe, this is like another. Again, this ca. This situation is over decades. Like, I'm just, like, skating through big periods of time because the story becomes. You might. What?

[Lizzie Logan]

You might even say you were Russian. Listen, I never said. Oh, my jokes were going to be good.

[Dana Schwartz]

No, it was good.

[Lizzie Logan]

Thank you. Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

There are various points over the decades where her story becomes, like, more or less popular in the public imagination. When she comes back to Germany, it does sort of bring more attention to it because it's like she's back in Europe. Her lawyers are still hard at work. It becomes the longest running court case in German history. Her trying to get her inheritance. Her lawyer is working pro bono and I think genuinely seems to believe that she is Anastasia and he actually will go broke trying to find the Romanov fortune, quote, unquote. And when I say that fortune, I'm doing air quotes because her supporters claim that there's this, like, Romanov deposit of 20 million gold rubles in the bank of England, when really kind of all there is is, like, a few thousand marks in an East Berlin bank. We're going to spend basically the next 25 years of Anna's life jumping between German towns. And it's actually very sad, to quote a source. Someone describes it as the drab, dependent life that Francisca had hoped to escape. And like I said, there are still some distant cousins who do support her. But then it sort of becomes this inter family drama. Like, there's the Cassel branch of the House of Hesse that does support her, but mostly just as a fuck you, because they're in a feud with the Darmstad branch of the family, so they kind of use her as a pawn in this, like, family feud of the Hesses. Frederick of Saxe Altenburg helps her across the border during the Soviet occupation. She's moved to the French occupation zone during World War II. After World War II, she eventually settles in a former army barracks in a small village at the edge of the Black Forest and becomes like a recluse surrounded by cats, kind of like a tourist attraction.

[Lizzie Logan]

Ugh.

[Dana Schwartz]

The French play Anastasia debuts in 1954. The movie comes out in 1956. Ingrid Bergman does in fact win an Oscar. And then the story, like, because of the movie, has another, like, little jolt of popularity. I found an article from the New York Times in 1958 which described her as, quote, wasted by tuberculosis, living in the Black Forest, in poverty, still suing in Hamburg civil court for legal recognition, which she is never going to get because the burden of proof is on her. And then by the late 50s, a lot of witnesses are dead. Yeah. So if the sort of end of the German run of her story is she's found unconscious one day in her cottage. The cottage had become like, like, very derelict, like, hoarder, like, falling apart. She has an Irish wolfhound in 60 cats.

[Lizzie Logan]

Oh, man.

[Dana Schwartz]

When she's brought to the hospital, the prince, whose property it is, begins cleaning up her wolfhound. And cats are euthanized. And she is furious. And it's at this point that Gleb Botkin says, come with me to America. He's living in America at this point. He says, come to America in Jersey,

[Lizzie Logan]

running a small religious sect.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. But in 1968, she comes with Gleb Botkin to America. And then right before her visa expires, she meets. She doesn't meet. I mean, she met him, but she marries one of Gleb's friends, Je. Jack Manahan, who's, like, a local eccentric at the University of Virginia. He's a genealogist. Oh, he's a professor there.

[Lizzie Logan]

I was about to say, like, is eccentric a job you can have at a university?

[Dana Schwartz]

I mean, yes, he's also. He was the son of a Dean. Okay. He's 20 years younger. Younger than her.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

And the two of them just sort of live as eccentrics in Charlottesville for a while. They have a house on University Circle. It kind of becomes known for being, like, derelict and dirty. But for a while, you know, for like 10 years, they're like, kind of enjoying. I think he kind of enjoys being like, I'm the Tsar's son in law.

[Lizzie Logan]

I mean, quirky people deserve happiness, too.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yes. In 1978, they are fined $1,750 for rat harborage because their house is so messy.

[Lizzie Logan]

I don't like that.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, they just have, like multiple cats and two dozen dogs. They just, you know, are driving around with them. And then the city officials find them suffering from Rocky Mountain spotted fever. And she's committed to the psychiatric ward at Blue Ridge Hospital. But then Jack, her husband, pulls a big fish and abducts her from the hospital. And they're found three days later living out of their car in Amherst, Virginia.

[Lizzie Logan]

Oh, this is sad.

[Dana Schwartz]

And then, you know, she goes to, at this point, you know, Anna Anderson Manahan, she goes by Anastasia manahan, dies in 1984 at the hospital of pneumonia.

[Lizzie Logan]

Well, that's sad.

[Dana Schwartz]

So she dies in the 80s to her dying day. People still think that she is Anastasia. There is this author, James Blair Lovell, who writes a book called the Lost Princess, based on research and interviews with Anna. He met her in the 70s. The book was originally published in 1991. It's a very interesting book that I actually have. I ordered this book. You can still find it. It's out of print, but it's not expensive. It's like 500 pages. He seems like a very smart guy, but he is entirely 100% convinced that she is Anastasia. He is like, after meeting with her and speaking with her, this is Anastasia. He calls her Anastasia throughout the book.

[Lizzie Logan]

So I know his book came out in 91.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yes.

[Lizzie Logan]

Is he still alive?

[Dana Schwartz]

You know, I don't know. Oh, I know he is not. And I have an interesting addendum to

[Lizzie Logan]

that because things have happened since 1991 that I wonder if they would change his mind.

[Dana Schwartz]

Well, that's very interesting. And I can tell you the answer to that is no, because my edition of the book was published a little later and there's a preface in my version of the book. Okay, so what you are alluding to is in the early 90s, something becomes feasible, which is analyzing mitochondrial DNA.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

So the difference is like nuclear DNA is like, I think what most people think of, which is like the DNA in the nucleus, but that disintegrates pretty rapidly. Mitochondrial DNA stays around for hundreds of years. They figure out that they can test that. And in 1994, scientists use a tissue sample of Anna Anderson's recovered from a Virginia hospital, compare it with Romanovs and Romanov descendants and determine that she is not a Romanovation.

[Lizzie Logan]

Right?

[Dana Schwartz]

And then they later compare it with the DNA of the great nephew of Franciska Szankowschka, who is the Polish factory worker. And wouldn't you know it, the DNA is a match. Right.

[Lizzie Logan]

And don't they also use DNA to confirm that they have found the remains of the Tsar, the Tsarina and all five of their children?

[Dana Schwartz]

So they won't actually confirm that until 2007.

[Lizzie Logan]

Right. But again, wouldn't that then really confirm that? Yes, yes. Okay, but so what? So tell me about this preface in the book.

[Dana Schwartz]

The book. Cause the book comes after this edition of the book that I have is after the mitochondrial DNA, which is like, hey, she's 100% not a Romanov and she is this fat Polish Polish lady. And the preface of the book is like written by the, the publisher. And it's like, so, by the way, new information has come to light. But we talked to, you know, Jim Lovell. James Lovell is dead. We talked to him. He died in 1993, before the, the year before the DNA testing. But before he died, we asked him like, are you ner. Are you upset that you're gonna die before the DNA testing is done? And he goes, I don't care if I don't see the DNA results. I know in my heart, no matter what the DNA says, that she's Anastasia. And even the people who are true believers are like, these DNA tests were not done perfectly. These were contaminated samples. People who want to believe still believe.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay?

[Dana Schwartz]

Even in the prologue it's like, so we've done these DNA tests, but there are still questions.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay? That is information.

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[Dana Schwartz]

So good. Your bill, ladies.

[Lizzie Logan]

I got it.

[Dana Schwartz]

No, I got it. Seriously, I insist. I assisted first. Oh, don't be silly. You don't be silly. People with the Wells Fargo Active Cash credit card prefer to pay because they earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

Rock, paper scissors for it.

[Lizzie Logan]

Rock, rock, paper scissors.

[Dana Schwartz]

Shoot. No, the Wells Fargo ActiveCash credit card visit wells fargo.com ActiveCash terms apply. So that is the sad, long life of the woman, the claimant known as Anna Anderson, the most famous Anastasia imposter, the one who inspired the play, the movie, and then later, the animated movie loosely. Oh, yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

I mean, they got, like, the amnesia from her and sort of the story. I feel like Gleb kind of inspired the John Cusack character of, like, her childhood friend, then links up with her later, and it's not her idea.

[Dana Schwartz]

And there's something about, like, the lawsuit of, like, oh, there's money in them hills if we can convince people that she's Anastasia. Yeah, elements.

[Lizzie Logan]

Elements of it, for sure, but, like,

[Dana Schwartz]

she's, you know, a mentally ill woman.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

Who lives a pretty sad life, but, you know, an adventurous life in some ways.

[Lizzie Logan]

It gave her some, like, I don't know, hope and identity and, like, fame for a little bit, you know? And again, like, I don't know, it's all very sad that, like, the family that had lost so much was then maybe, like, torn apart by this thing, but again, like, kind of mostly a victimless crime. Like, it's not like she snookered them for all their worth.

[Dana Schwartz]

Especially because the closest relatives. Anastasia's grandmother, was never convinced.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

And her uncle, her aunts and uncles. Like, the people who were the most emotionally affected by this massacre never were either comforted nor distraught by this. Yeah, I mean, I think they were at some point distraught by, like, just the press that it was like, ugh. Like, but that might have still happened,

[Lizzie Logan]

but, like, I feel like they were most distraught by the murders, and, like, you're gonna be distraught by that no matter what.

[Dana Schwartz]

So, as I mentioned, there are more than a dozen Romanov claimants that come up in these decades.

[Lizzie Logan]

Copycats.

[Dana Schwartz]

Copycats. In 1963, a woman named Eugenia Smith will bring a manuscript to the publishers, Robert Speller and Sons. And it's a fascinating story. It's a manuscript about Anastasia escaping from Yekaterinburg, trying to make it to the west, but then ultimately dying. And Smith says.

[Lizzie Logan]

So it's not a memoir, because she did.

[Dana Schwartz]

She died. Okay. She said that, you know, in the book, Anastasia regained consciousness in the cellar, was rescued by an unidentified woman who moved her to a basement, nursed her back to health, and then, you know, was brought to the west with two men, including one who was a soldier who had been stationed there. And then they traveled by train and made it to Serbia. And then the memoir ends, and Eugenia Smith is like. And unfortunately, then Anastasia died. Anastasia was A friend of mine, a childhood friend of mine, she had told me this story. So she had made it out, but then she died. And the publishers are like, wow, quite the story. They do a polygraph test. It's 1963. They're doing what they can. Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

Polygraphs are all the rage in the Cold War.

[Dana Schwartz]

And they ask her, you know, were you a childhood friend of Anastasia? And the polygraph is like, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie. But then they say, are you Anastasia? And the polygraph is like, you're telling the truth?

[Lizzie Logan]

And she says, yes.

[Dana Schwartz]

And she says, yes. Well, she's like a first dancer.

[Lizzie Logan]

Found it. Like, why would she say yes if that was not the.

[Dana Schwartz]

Well, she said, you caught me. I was trying to keep it a secret, but it turns out I actually am Anastasia. She didn't die after this of fever or whatever. She came to America. But I didn't want to say anything because the truth is, and this is actually a very good point, the Bolsheviks killed the Romanovsky, killed all the people associated with the Romanovs, and even after this family massacre, killed a lot of Romanov associates still in Russia.

[Lizzie Logan]

Sure.

[Dana Schwartz]

So if you were in Russia, you were in danger. And if the Anastasia survived, she would not want to be like, hey, everyone, it's me, Anastasia. That would be a very dangerous thing.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

So the publishers reach out to Gleb Botkin, who this is the 60s. He is at this point, still a vocal, fervent supporter of Anna Anderson. And he is like, that lie detector has a screw loose. You should not proceed with this project

[Lizzie Logan]

because she's right here.

[Dana Schwartz]

She's right here. Anna Anderson is Anastasia. There can't be two.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

They publish it anyway with the ending

[Lizzie Logan]

that she's alive and well.

[Dana Schwartz]

She's alive. This is her. Oh, we got you.

[Lizzie Logan]

She's based on the polygraph.

[Dana Schwartz]

Well, this is it.

[Lizzie Logan]

Does it sell well?

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, it does. Published in 1963, it's called the Autobiography of HIH, or Her Imperial Highness, the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia. There's an excerpt in Life magazine. They do handwriting analysis and comparison of facial features. People, you know, reject the claim. A few people who knew Anastasia, obviously, the Gleb Botkin. Gleb's sister Tatiana also rejects the claim. And another, like Romanov princess, unlike Anna Anderson, there aren't a lot of contemporary friends of the real Anastasia who correctly identify her. But the publishers are contacted by this man, Michael Golaniewski, who is a. Who was a former Polish army officer who was an imposter claiming to be The Tsarevich Alexei and he's like my sister. And the two of them are like, we found each other. And this is from that Anna Anderson biography that James Lovell, James Blair Lovell wrote. He wrote, quote, the two imposters tearfully embraced and affirmed one another's authenticity.

[Lizzie Logan]

Wow. So they really, in, in this version of history, the Bolsheviks did a really bad job killing that family.

[Dana Schwartz]

The kids got away.

[Lizzie Logan]

I mean, you know, that's nice. Yeah. They didn't kill the two youngest members of the family.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. And you know, that honestly is not like entirely implausible where you're like, these soldiers didn't want to kill this 13 year old child.

[Lizzie Logan]

I mean, I would agree. Except Alexei, famously a hemophiliac.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

One shot that kid's done.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

You even graze him with a bullet.

[Dana Schwartz]

He's not doing well. Can't climb, can't fly. I just think it's very funny that people who are like, yes, Anna Anderson, this is Anastasia, was like these stupid imposters. Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

Although a woman who is like covered in scars and showed up in a mental institution after trying to kill herself only a couple years after the supposed killing and was only told about it and looks strikingly like her. To me that is and is in Europe. To me, that is much more believable as your long lost friend than this random lady with a book in America, like 40 years later. Yeah, like that. Like, like. I get what you're saying of being like, it's weird to out and out believe one imposter and then be like, bullshit. My bullshit detector.

[Dana Schwartz]

In terms of plausibility of the stories, I agree. Anna Anderson, much more plausible.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. If you told me that my friend was murder, someone claiming to be my friend showed up two years later seeming like they had just gone through a terrible trauma, both physically and mentally. I would be like, oh my God, my friend is back. And then if 40 years after that someone showed up trying to sell a book claiming to be my friend, I'd be like, well, this is a person with a scam.

[Dana Schwartz]

I mean, it is funny that you say that because like, okay, so this woman, Eugenia Smith, we know just based on paperwork, she was born in Austria, Hungary, January 25, 1899. Although later she would say that she was born on June 18, 1901, Anastasia's birthday. She like, you know, emigrated from Austria, Hungary, settled in Chicago. She was claiming pre book to be the long lost Anastasia and staying with prominent European affiliated nobles and wealthy people in Chicago.

[Lizzie Logan]

Do you think that it was her plan all along to reveal herself to be Anastasia, or did she actually want to sell the book as friend of Anastasia?

[Dana Schwartz]

I kind of think she was always being like, I'm Anastasia, but it's a secret.

[Lizzie Logan]

That's, like, very clever to have. Like, to realize that, like, part of the best ruse is to not claim to be Anastasia the way Anna Anderson didn't claim to be Anastasia. She got told she was Anastasia. So she was like, I'm gonna tell them I'm a friend of Anastasia and I'm their idea that I'm Anastasia.

[Dana Schwartz]

It's pretty clear.

[Lizzie Logan]

Like, you're right.

[Dana Schwartz]

And again, she benefited from this. When she moved to Chicago, she was, like, the house guest of, like, wealthy and prominent people. And we have, like, stories of her being, like, not a great roommate and, like, throwing temper tantrums when she was not permitted to use the family car.

[Lizzie Logan]

Do you think that was because she thought that was how a princess would act?

[Dana Schwartz]

Maybe. And I also kind of think it's possible this woman believed it.

[Lizzie Logan]

Oh, really?

[Dana Schwartz]

I don't know. Although this is where I think maybe she didn't believe it. Anastasia's actual first cousin, Prince Rostislav, lived in the Chicago area. And his ex wife hears the story of Eugenia Smith going around and is like, let's have her over for lunch. And she invites Eugenia Smith over to lunch on multiple occasions. And Smith always refuses. She says she's too nervous.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, that's that compulsive liar thing.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. Where it's like, I don't know, if you actually did believe you were Anastasia, wouldn't you be like, my cousin, Prince Rostislav?

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

She dies at 95, lives a long life, dies in 1997. Okay, this is the most interesting thing about Eugenia Smith and the reason I'm including her because, again, there's a lot of imposters. But the reason I like her is because in 2018, after all the DNA evidence proves that. Spoiler alert. Anastasia is, in fact accounted for. This local gallery owner in Albany, near where she was buried becomes obsessed with Eugenia Smith and self publishes a book defending her.

[Lizzie Logan]

Defending her actions or defending her as the real Anastasia.

[Dana Schwartz]

As the real Anastasia. So he. Again, this is after DNA evidence. She was buried at the Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Monastery near Albany. Like, founded by exiled monks. I don't know why she chose there, because I don't think she was like, whatever, but it's like a Russian Orthodox church.

[Lizzie Logan]

She believed that she was Anastasia.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. Buried under the name, you know, Anastasia. And this man and I'm sorry to just out this man who's still alive with an Instagram. His name is John Froebel Parker. And he becomes obsessed with her. She had later in life like become a painter, just like whatever painting memories of her childhood in Russia. And he buys all of her paintings. He's an art dealer and he commissions a portrait of her as this is long after she's dead. Commissions a portrait of her as Anastasia.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, but like as a, like adult to maybe middle aged Anastasia.

[Dana Schwartz]

This is the woman who painted it smiling at.

[Lizzie Logan]

It's like as she might have been had she lived long enough to be like an adult Romanoff princess.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. It's Eugenia Smith, present day as Anastasia. So this is the facial analysis of Eugenia Smith and Anastasia.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, I mean they look like two ladies from like the same part of the world.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. Froibald Parker is so convinced that Smith is Anastasia, he points to the gravestone as evidence. He's like, the gravestone says June 18, 1901, Anastasia's birthday. And you're like, that's.

[Lizzie Logan]

You can put whatever you want on a gravestone.

[Dana Schwartz]

It's just a gravestone. And he also says comparing the photographs is his like main evidence. He's like, I did forensic analysis on these photographs and it's the same person.

[Lizzie Logan]

I mean they do look similar but like in the same way that like Katy Perry looks like JonBenet.

[Dana Schwartz]

And now he does like his Instagram has just like AI portraits of Anastasia. Reading his own book about Anastasia.

[Lizzie Logan]

Oh, this is sad.

[Dana Schwartz]

Enthralled with the story of her life.

[Lizzie Logan]

This is so weird.

[Dana Schwartz]

So but that's just to say that like people who want to believe it, believe it. Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay. Random conspiracy to be into. But I guess it's not hurting anyone.

[Dana Schwartz]

You had mentioned like the Anna Anderson copycats. So the main copycat that, you know, the only other case that we're going to talk about is this woman named Marga Boots who claimed to be Olga, the oldest daughter, which again to me is like very like George is my favorite Beatle.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

Because not everyone has to be Anastasia. But the real secret answer, there's another woman who I can't even get into named Susanna DeGroff, who claims to be the secret fifth daughter.

[Lizzie Logan]

Oh, shut up.

[Dana Schwartz]

That actually the Tsarina had another daughter.

[Lizzie Logan]

I mean that's just like fan fiction.

[Dana Schwartz]

I mean, yeah, there actually is an account. Alexandra lost a baby in between. Cause she had these four daughters. And we're like, we need a son, God damn it. And so the story is like, we know historically that it's possible that she had lost a pregnancy in between children 4 and 5. But it's like, what if she did have a baby and it was another girl, so they just gave it to

[Lizzie Logan]

a maid or something?

[Dana Schwartz]

Exactly. Okay, so that's the secret story.

[Lizzie Logan]

I mean, again, like, that's a good idea for a book.

[Dana Schwartz]

It's a good idea for.

[Lizzie Logan]

It's not a good idea for a fake identity.

[Dana Schwartz]

Susanna Katharina Degraaf, missing princess. But this woman, Marga Boots, claiming to be Olga, goes public when Anna Anderson is big news. When Anna Anderson is taking her case to the Hamburg courts, Boots speaks up and is like, I never wanted to speak up. I always wanted to be quiet about this, but I saw my sister Anastasia executed. This is an imposter. I'm, like, willing to go to court to unmask her. The two of them never met, but she said in an interview, quoted, I found this interview cited by the St. Petersburg Times in February 12, 1960. Quote, Now I have decided to break my silence because I do not want the name of my family Romanov, smeared by a mystifier whom the Hamburg court is apparently taking a bit too seriously.

[Lizzie Logan]

And did she have any other, like, did she take her story anywhere else?

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, I mean, her claim is actually supported by Prince Sigismund of Prussia, who actually introduced her to Nicolas, the Grand Duke of Oldenburg, who gave this woman financial support until he died. You know, Prince Sigismund is convinced, so are a few other random nobles, that she is Olga. But for the record, Prince Sigismund of Prussia also supported Anna Anderson's claim, which kind of makes him hard to buy as a witness because she's like, that's definitely not my sister. It's like, you're gonna believe both of them. But she has, you know, a very similar story, which is like, a Cossack soldier had knocked her unconscious, pretended she was dead, and replaced her corpse with a young local woman. And then she was brought to Germany and married a German officer in 1926. So don't look into that. And then, like, lived in Lake Cuomo, Como, under the radar and, like, supported by a few Romanov relatives, which, like, if you're gonna do this con, that's the way to do it.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

Lived under the radar. She signed a contract to write her memoirs in Italy, but they were never published. She died in 1976, but for some reason, in 2011, her memoirs were published in Spain. And she's random. You know, after she died, she was buried under the name Olga, Olga Nikolaevna. You can put anything on a gravestone.

[Lizzie Logan]

Do we know who she actually was?

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, I think just Marg Da Boots.

[Lizzie Logan]

Oh, right, you said that.

[Dana Schwartz]

Sorry. I think that, like, the identity. That she had been living secretly because she claims that when she came to Germany, you know, and married this German officer, that she met the Kaiser himself and he offered her financial support. But he told her, apparently, don't tell anyone who you are for protection of your own life.

[Lizzie Logan]

But she wasn't, because we know that all the Romanovs.

[Dana Schwartz]

So let's get into that. In 1979, this geologist and amateur investigator named Alexander Evdenen discovers a burial site outside Yekaterinburg. Yeah. And Alexander Avdinen is from Ekaterinburg. And so he kind of like, the story of the Romanov murder is sort of like, in the soil around him. He's been fascinated by it since he was a child. And he's just an amateur investigator, and he figures out where the bodies were buried because, again, this was such a messy operation, that this is why there was so much information. What we know now is that there was this, like, who ordered this shooting? We don't know, but they were panicking. The Bolsheviks were panicking because the White army was coming. They were like, we can't have the Romanov still alive. Killed them all. They brought the bodies to, like, a mine, an abandoned mineshaft, and dumped them, and then realized the abandoned mineshaft was too shallow, took them out, doused their bodies in acid to try to disguise them, and then buried them in shallow graves.

[Lizzie Logan]

Horrible, horrible, bad.

[Dana Schwartz]

Alexander abdomen figures this out. He, like, even finds in the mineshaft, like, little piece, like, relics, like, I don't know, jewelry or, like, little pieces of clothing, things that were from them. So he finds it in 1979. But the thing is, it's Soviet Russia right now.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yes.

[Dana Schwartz]

And the Soviets are not big fans of the czars.

[Lizzie Logan]

Right.

[Dana Schwartz]

And he very intelligently, I think, keeps his mouth shut. Yes. So he does not tell people for 10 years.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

Literally in 1989, during, like, glasnost, like the. The when, like, Soviet Russia is, like, we're opening, you know, to the world. It's 1989. He tells people, and there's actually professional exhumation, and they find nine bodies. So they find. So that's the five family members. They find Nicholas, the Tsar, the Tsarina, three children and four servants. Okay, so I'm. You don't have to do the math. You're missing two children, Right? They had five children. Well, that's Interesting. Two children are missing. Maybe Anastasia got away.

[Lizzie Logan]

Are they. What's the gender breakdown on the kids?

[Dana Schwartz]

We're missing one daughter and the son.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

Maybe the, you know, Anastasia and Alexei got away. Maybe Olga and Alexei got away. Maybe Maria. Who knows? The bodies are exhumed, the ones they do find. And because mitochondrial DNA is matrilineal, if, you know, the British royal family is patrilineal. So, like, Queen Elizabeth became queen because her father was king, and it's like, by your father. But since mitochondrial DNA is matrilineal, they actually test Prince Philip, the late husband of Queen Elizabeth ii, because he is a matrilineal descendant of Alexandra. She is Alexandra's great nephew.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

Alexandra, the Tsarina. The Tsarina.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

One of her siblings. He's the grandchild of.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

And so they use his DNA and they identify that the five family members, four servants, all accounted for, five family members are, in fact, Romanovs. But we are missing one of the daughters and the prince mystery. So now for 10 years, more than 10 years, for, like, 15 years, there's the mystery of, like, well, maybe Anastasia did get away. Even though we're testing. They've tested the DNA of Anna Anderson, like, the most likely con, and they're like, it wasn't her. And then AMATEUR Investigators in 2007 sort of resumed the dig and realized that there was, like, an area about 90 meters away that hadn't been examined. And they find two more bodies, and they identify Alexei, and one of the other bodies is a young woman. And actually, scientists believe that it's most likely Maria, which means that they had found Anastasia all along.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

And that's the truth of the story. And so hoax, hoax accounted for.

[Lizzie Logan]

Where are they now buried?

[Dana Schwartz]

Yep. They are buried in the St Catherine Chapel of the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg. I think there was a move to make some of them saints, like Russian Orthodox martyrs, but I don't think that has happened to the best of my knowledge. I think they're like. I don't mean to reveal my ignorance of the Russian Orthodox Church, but, like, junior saints or whatever.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yes. I have no opinion on the sainthood of Russian Orthodoxy.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

But, yes, they were buried. They are all accounted for. None of these people are Anastasia.

[Lizzie Logan]

But, you know, we got a real good movie out of it.

[Dana Schwartz]

I like that movie possibly, too.

[Lizzie Logan]

I haven't seen the old one, but

[Dana Schwartz]

I've seen the animated one and a Broadway musical.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, but I've heard that the Broadway musical, like, takes out all the fun stuff.

[Dana Schwartz]

Lizzie, it's so disappointing.

[Lizzie Logan]

I know.

[Dana Schwartz]

Can I tell you what I hated about it? Please. Rasputin. Not in it.

[Lizzie Logan]

I know. They are like, bartok, not in it.

[Dana Schwartz]

Bartok. Not in it. Dark of the night. Cut that song.

[Lizzie Logan]

I love that song.

[Dana Schwartz]

Great song. The villain is a. The son of one of the Bolshevik soldiers who executed them. Fine. You're doing, like, a grounded version. Can I tell you what the villain's name is? His name is Gleb. And I'm like, okay, Gleb was whatever involved. And that's like a real Russian name. But she's like, gleb, we can't do this. And I'm like, that's not a name you can say that way.

[Lizzie Logan]

No, it does say, like, Victor.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, sure. Much better. Did not like it. Also, it was a set. One of my pet peeves with, like, a Broadway musical is. It was a set that, like, really relied on, like, screens.

[Lizzie Logan]

I don't like a screen set.

[Dana Schwartz]

And you're like, this is supposed to be Russia in the. In the 20th century. Paris. Don't give me a screen set. Dear Evan Hansen. Fine. We're all about TikTok or whatever.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

Didn't like a screen set. Didn't like a villain named Gleb. I'm gonna do my hot take before this episode ends and say, I am not a fan of authoritarian monarchy. I don't think that.

[Lizzie Logan]

No, that was never our deal.

[Dana Schwartz]

I just wanna be very clear. I do not think that czars should be in charge of everything. I also think. Cause two things can be true at once. You shouldn't murder children.

[Lizzie Logan]

No. And I do love hearing about, mostly from the Noble Blood episode, about how hard it was to kill Rasputin.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, it is very fun.

[Lizzie Logan]

Dana, if you were to make a movie about any version of the Anastasia story. Which version of it?

[Dana Schwartz]

You know what?

[Lizzie Logan]

I kind of fictional Anastasia. Real Anastasia or like Anna Anderson or like, what Anastasia movie are you making and who are you casting as Anastasia?

[Dana Schwartz]

Okay, mine.

[Lizzie Logan]

Or. Or the protagonist.

[Dana Schwartz]

My blacklist script now is Anna Anderson married to this eccentric professor in Virginia, doing the big fish break out of the hospital. And it's in the three days before they're found with flashbacks.

[Lizzie Logan]

Amazing.

[Dana Schwartz]

So it's a true Anna Anderson story movie about this crazy older woman, her husband 20 years younger than her. Does she believe it? Does he believe it? Are they both losing their minds? They're on the run, Bonnie and Clyde style.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

What's your movie? Or you can write that one with me.

[Lizzie Logan]

I would totally write that with you. I think it's like Emma Stone pulling off the scam of a lifetime.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. Yes. Emma Stone as like a knowing Anastasia. Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

I think it's Emma Stone just like seizing the day of just being. You know what I mean?

[Dana Schwartz]

Like the favorite style.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. Of just of like noticing that she looks like this lady and just being like, I gotta get out of my life in Poland. I'm gonna be a princess.

[Dana Schwartz]

I mean, I don't blame her. A life as a widowed Polish factory worker who was severely injured and probably suffered brain injury from a factory explosion, whose husband died in World War I, is a bad situation. And I do not blame anyone for coming up with a more exciting version of your life. But there was no Romanoff fortune to even inherit in the end.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, that's the twist ending.

[Dana Schwartz]

Lizzie. Where can the good people find you?

[Lizzie Logan]

The good people can find us @hooksthepodcast on Instagram. That's also a great place to check to find out more about the future of this podcast, which will hopefully just continue on this feed at. After season one ends in like three or four episodes. Not too many episodes left on season one.

[Dana Schwartz]

Three more episodes.

[Lizzie Logan]

Three more episodes and then there will be a break of indeterminate length and then we will be back with season two, hopefully on this feed. But if, if not. Anyway, all of the updates will come. I will post about on the Instagram so that will be the first place to learn about it.

[Dana Schwartz]

And if you want to email us, you can email [e-mail] you can also follow me on social media. Aynashwartz with three Z's at the end. And on TikTok, Dana Schwartz, also with three Z's at the end. Please order the book the Arcane Arts. If you are in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York or Phoenix, come out. I'm very excited for the Phoenix event on Monday, June 1, because we are in conversation with Diana Gabaldon who wrote the Outlander books. And I'm very excited to talk to her about that.

[Lizzie Logan]

I won't be there, but you guys can talk to Diana Gabaldon, who is actually much cooler than I am. So that's. That's.

[Dana Schwartz]

You might be at the LA one.

[Lizzie Logan]

Oh, sure.

[Dana Schwartz]

Tuesday, May 19th.

[Lizzie Logan]

Maybe we'll see. Maybe we'll see.

[Dana Schwartz]

All right, thanks for listening.

[Lizzie Logan]

Please Hoax responsibly.

[Dana Schwartz]

Bye.

[Lizzie Logan]

Hoax is a production of I Heart Podcasts. Our hosts are Dana Schwartz and Lizzie Logan. Our executive producers are Matt Frederick and Trevor Young with supervising producer Rima El Kayali and producers Noams Griffin. And Jesse Funk. Our theme music was composed by Lane Montgomery. Summary for more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening.

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This episode is brought to you by Choiceology, an original podcast from Charles Schwab hosted by Katie Milkman, an award winning behavioral scientist and author of the best selling book how to Change. Choiceology is a show about the psychology and economics behind our decisions. Hear true stories from Nobel laureates, authors, athletes and everyday people about why we make the choices we do and how to make better ones to help avoid costly mistakes. Listen to [e-mail] podcast or wherever you listen.

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[Dana Schwartz]

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[Dana Schwartz]

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