Grand Duchess Tatiana Nicholaievna: The second daughter of Nicholas and Alexandra, born on May 29 (June 11), 1897. She was her mother’s favorite companion.
Grand Duchess Maria Nicholaievna: Born June 14 (June 27), 1899, she was known as Marie or Mashka.
Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicholaievna: She was born June 5 (June 18), 1901, and throughout her life was the favorite of her grandmother Marie Feodorovna.
Alexis Nicholaievitch: Known as Alexei, the tsarevitch was born on July 30 (August 12), 1904. Called Baby and Sunbeam by his parents, just weeks after his birth, they realized he had hemophilia, a blood disorder transmitted only to sons from a mother who has inherited the gene. The family kept this a secret as much as possible.
An undated photograph of Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov, youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II.
An undated photograph of Russia’s last tsar, Nicholas II, and Alexandra Feodorovna at the time of their engagement.
Tsar Nicholas II and the imperial family. From top row: Olga, Tatiana, Maria, the tsaritsa, the tsar, Anastasia, and Alexei.
Tsar Nicholas II and the tsarevitch, Alexei.
A very rare and undated photograph of the eerie-looking Grigory Efimovitch Rasputin, trusted counselor to Tsaritsa Alexandra.
An aerial view of the expansive 800-acre compound Tsarskoe Selo (the Tsar’s Village) near St. Petersburg. On site are the great and lavish Catherine Palace (named after Catherine I) and the smaller, less grandiose Alexander Palace (100 rooms), which was the main residence of the Romanov family and Nicholas’s birthplace. The sprawling grounds included immaculately manicured lawns, gardens with elaborate fountains and statues, a man-made lake, and a park.
Peterhof Palace was built by Tsar Peter the Great, in imitation of the Palace of Versailles in France.
A view of the Winter Palace, former home of Russian emperors, including the imperial family of Tsar Nicholas II. Built between 1754 and 1762, the palace, where the wedding of Nicholas II and Alexandra took place, is now part of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.
Interior view of the tsar’s library in the Winter Palace.
Livadia in the Crimea overlooks the Black Sea. The favorite summer home of the Romanov family was built by Nicholas and Alexandra soon after their marriage.
Olga and Tatiana with tutor, Pierre Gilliard, on the terrace of Livadia, circa 1910.
Tsar Nicholas II and the imperial family aboard the luxurious royal yacht Standart, pictured above.
Thousands of soldiers marched off to the war traveling down this popular shopping boulevard, Nevsky Prospect, in St. Petersburg. Pictured circa 1900.
Designed by Peter Carl Fabergé, the imperial Easter egg of 1915, made of white enamel with a red cross, honors the Romanov women who became war nurses. Their photographs, shown here, fit inside the egg. Pictured left to right: the tsar’s sister Olga, his daughters Olga and Tatiana, Tsaritsa Alexandra, and the tsar’s first cousin Marie Pavlovna.
Alexei with his spaniel, Joy, on a visit to the imperial army in the field, photographed 1917.
Tsar Nicholas II and Alexei at the front in 1916.
The tsar, the tsaritsa, and their children working in the garden while imprisoned at Tsarskoe Selo.
Tsar Nicholas under guard by Russian soldiers at Tsarskoe Selo, photographed August 19, 1917.
Prisoners in exile. Anastasia, with her father, sisters, and brother, sits on the roof of their prison house in Tobolsk, Siberia.
Ipatiev House, “the House of Special Purpose,” in Sverdlovsk (formerly Ekaterinburg) where Tsar Nicholas II and his family were executed on July 17, 1918.
Russian president Boris Yeltsin and wife before the tomb with the remains of Tsar Nicholas II at the burial ceremony in the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul, July 1998.
Russian is a Slavic language spoken today by over 150 million people. The Russian alphabet, called the Cyrillic alphabet, has thirty-three letters based largely on the Greek alphabet. When Russian is translated into English, letters from the Roman alphabet are substituted for the sound of the Cyrillic letters, and not all translators make the same substitutions. This is why tsar is sometimes written as czar. Names also appear with different spellings: Alexei is sometimes written as Aleksey, and Anya as Annia.
In the Romanovs’ time, Russians properly addressed one another by their first, or given name, followed by the patronymic, the name of their father, with a feminine or masculine ending added. That’s why Anastasia was properly called Anastasia Nicholaievna (Anastasia, daughter of Nicholas), and her brother was Alexei Nicholaievitch (Alexei, son of Nicholas).
The calendar used in Anastasia’s time, called the Julian calendar, was significantly different from the Gregorian calendar that was in use in most other parts of the world. The Julian calendar, named for Julius Caesar, had been in use for more than 1,500 years. The Julian year was 365 days and 6 hours — 11 minutes and 14 seconds longer than the time Earth actually takes to revolve around the sun. Over the years those minutes and seconds added up, so by a.d. 1580 the vernal (spring) equinox was actually occurring ten days later than the date shown on the calendar.
Taking the advice of astronomers, Pope Gregory XIII corrected the difference by dropping ten days and making some adjustments to the leap year with its additional day in February. In 1582, the Pope’s Gregorian calendar was adopted by most Roman Catholic countries in Europe. German states kept the old calendar until 1700, and Great Britain and the American colonies did not change until 1752. Russia and Turkey were the last to accept the new calendar, in 1918.
During Anastasia’s time, the difference between the old Julian calendar and the new Gregorian calendar had increased to thirteen days. Her parents and many other educated Russians sometimes used both systems, perhaps dating a letter written to a relative in England “23 October/5 November,” meaning that the letter was being written according to the “Old Style” Russian calendar on October 23, but that on the Englishman’s calendar the date was November 5.
The calendar of Christian feast and fast days was also affected. Christmas was celebrated on December 25 according to the Russian calendar, but that date was thirteen days later than Christmas in Germany, France, and the United States, where it was already January 7 of the following year. Easter is more complicated, because the date changes every year according to ancient formulas. But the Russian Orthodox Church and the Greek Orthodox Church use a formula that is different from the formula used by Western Christian churches. As a result, the Russian Orthodox date of Easter and other holy days related to it can vary as much as a few weeks from the date observed in the rest of the world.
Anastasia’s diary uses both Old Style and New Style dates, as her mother did in hers.
ANASTASIA’S FAMILY:
Nicholas Alexandrovitch Romanov — tsar; Anastasia’s father
Alexandra Feodorovna Romanov — tsaritsa; Anastasia’s mother
Grand Duchesses; Anastasia’s Sisters
Olga
Tatiana
Maria (Marie, Mashka)
Alexei — tsarevitch; Anastasia’s brother
Marie Feodorovna Romanov — tsar’s mother; Anastasia’s grandmother
Olga Alexandrovna (Aunt Olga) — tsar’s sister
Xenia Alexandrovna (Aunt Xenia) — tsar’s sister
Alexander Mikhailovitch (Uncle Sandro) — Aunt Xenia’s husband and tsar’s cousin
Irina, Andrew, Theodore, Dmitri, Vassily, Rostislav, Nikita — children of Xenia and Sandro; Anastasia’s cousins
Michael Alexandrovitch Romanov (Uncle Misha) — tsar’s brother
Nicholas Nicholaievitch Romanov — tsar’s cousin; commander-in-chief of the armies
George Mikhailovitch Romanov — tsar’s cousin; husband of Queen Marie of Greece; father of Nina; Uncle Sandro’s brother
Elizabeth of Hesse (Aunt E
lla) — tsaritsa’s sister
Ernst Ludwig of Hes`se (Uncle Erni) — tsaritsa’s brother
Wilhelm II, Kaiser (Cousin Willy) — tsaritsa’s cousin
FRIENDS OF THE ROMANOVS:
Father Grigory (Rasputin) — holy man; adviser to tsaritsa
Anya Vyrubova — tsaritsa’s close friend
Lili Dehn — tsaritsa’s close friend
Members of the Imperial Suite
Baroness Buxhoeveden
Countess Hendrikov
Count Benckendorff
Prince Dolgoruky
Dr. Botkin — family physician
Gleb Botkin — his son; Anastasia’s friend
Dr. Derevenko — Alexei’s physician
Emir of Bokhara — exotic visitor
Crown Prince Carol of Romania — Olga’s suitor
King Ferdinand — his father
Queen Marie — his mother
Nicholas Dmitrievitch Demekov (Kolya) — Mashka’s friend
*Lieutenant Boris — Anastasia’s dancing partner
*Mrs. Phelps — English visitor
*Officer Saltikov — Tatiana’s dancing partner
MEMBERS OF THE HOUSEHOLD, SERVANTS, OTHERS:
Shura — Anastasia’s nurse-governess
Children’s Tutors
Monsieur Gilliard
Mr. Gibbes
Professor Petrov
Sailor Derevenko — Alexei’s sailor-guardian
Sailor Nagorny — Alexei’s sailor-guardian
Father Vasilev — family priest
Jim — American door attendant
Carl Fabergé — jeweler; creator of Easter eggs
Madame Gheringer — supplier of scarves, gloves, etc.
*Dunyasha — Olga’s maid
*Natasha — Dunyasha’s daughter
*Vladya — Natasha’s fiancé
*Miss Kropotkin — children’s music teacher
*Lutka — servant
*Sonia Petrovna Izvolsky — servant
*Kremikov — court photographer
MILITARY AND POLITICAL OFFICIALS:
General Kornilov — respected leader who informed the tsaritsa of arrest
Alexander Kerensky — Minister of Justice
Colonel Yevgeny Kobylinsky — officer in charge of prisoners
Commissar Rodionov — officer who replaced Kobylinsky
Commissar Vassily Yakovlev — representative of Bolshevik government in Tobolsk
Commandant Avdeyev — head of guards at Ekaterinburg
Commandant Yurovsky — head of Secret Police
OTHER IMPORTANT FIGURES:
Mathilde Kschessinska — prima ballerina assoluta of the Imperial Ballet
Vladimir Ilyitch Lenin — Bolshevik leader
Leon Trotsky — Bolshevik leader
Prince Felix Yussupov — husband of the tsar’s niece, Irina; assassin of Rasputin
FAMILY PETS:
Vanka — Alexei’s donkey
Eira — tsaritsa’s Scottish terrier
Ortino — Tatiana’s French bulldog
Joy — Alexei’s spaniel
Jimmy — Anastasia’s spaniel
Long ago, Carolyn Meyer fell in love with the story of Anastasia Romanov, the daughter of the last tsar of Russia. “The movies made her life seem so romantic, like a fairy tale. Years ago I saw a movie starring Ingrid Bergman as Anastasia. Later, I saw the animated version of the story. Those movies always made it seem as though everything turned out beautifully for Anastasia. I was broken-hearted when I found out the truth.
“Anastasia was born in this century. It was hard for me to imagine a girl born about the same time as my mother living a life of such incredible wealth and privilege. I loved looking at photographs of the Romanovs’ palaces and their enormous yacht and luxurious train. And those marvelous Fabergé Easter eggs! But I hated reading about what really happened to the Grand Duchess Anastasia and her family — the part you don’t see in the movies. The tragedy made me want to weep — and in fact I did, as I wrote the final pages.”
Carolyn Meyer is the acclaimed author of nearly sixty books for middle school and young adult readers. Among her many award-winning novels are Victoria Rebels; Cleopatra Confesses; Marie, Dancing, a Book Sense Pick; and Mary, Bloody Mary, an ABA’s Pick of the Lists, an NCSS-CBC Notable Children’s Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies, and an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and you can visit her at www.ReadCarolyn.com.
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to use the following:
Cover art by Mélanie Delon.
Filigree on front and back cover by albumkoretsky/Shutterstock.
Crown appearing on spine and throughout interiors, ibid.
Anastasia, Library of Congress.
Tsar Nicholas II and Alexandra, Culver Pictures.
The imperial family, Library of Congress.
Tsar Nicholas II with his son, ibid.
Rasputin, AP Images.
Tsarskoe Selo, Steve Raymer/Corbis.
Peterhof Palace, Sergey Peterman/Shutterstock.
The Winter Palace, Library of Congress.
Tsar’s library at the Winter Palace, a painting by Eduard Petrovich Hau, akg-images/The Image Works.
Livadia Palace, Hana/Shutterstock.
Pierre Gilliard with Olga and Tatiana Romanova, Corbis.
The Standart, Library of Congress.
The imperial family, SuperStock.
Nevsky Prospect, North Wind Picture Archives.
Fabergé egg with red cross, the Granger Collection.
Alexei, Corbis.
Tsar Nicholas II with Alexei at the front, 1916, the Bridgeman Art Library.
The imperial family in the garden at Tsarskoe Selo, 1917, Library of Congress.
Tsar Nicholas under guard, ibid.
The imperial family in exile, Culver Pictures.
Ipatiev House, Albert Harlingue/Roger-Viollet/The Image Works.
Burial ceremony, Sovfoto/Eastfoto.
While the Royal Diaries are based on real royal figures and actual historical events, some situations and people in this book are fictional, created by the author.Copyright © 2000 by Carolyn Meyer
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc.
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e-ISBN 978-0-545-57634-5
This edition first printing, November 2013
The display type was set in Aphrodite Text.
Book design by Natalie C. Sousa
This edition’s photo research by Amla Sanghvi
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
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