Some legends never die because a part of us wants - needs - them to be true. The legend of Grand Duchess Anastasia is, I think, one of them.
If you happen not to be familiar with this particular bit of history, or the many stories it has inspired, Anastasia Romanova was the fourth daughter of Nicholas II and Alexandra, the last Tsar and Tsaritsa of Russia. After the fall of the monarchy in 1917, the Romanov family were held prisoner until their brutal execution (or murder, depending how one views it) one night in July of 1918.
However, rumor, misinformation and legend multiplied in the years after, fueled by conflicting accounts and the fact that the bodies were not yet found. Many pretenders appeared, claiming to one of the lost Romanov children. Most were quickly forgotten, but the legend of Anastasia lingered on.
I think one reason we can’t forget her is because we want her to have survived. We want a happy ending, or a piece of one, in the midst of tragedy. Politics aside, most would agree that the death of the Romanovs was brutal, all the more as the eldest daughter was no more than 22, her siblings not much more than children. Somehow, we want Anastasia and her siblings to have a better end than to be shot down in a basement.
That’s why, in spite of historical evidence agreeing that none of the Romanovs survived, people (including myself) still listen to the songs of a Broadway musical where she somehow gets away and finds love and a happy ending and why publishers haven’t quit selling about the long-lost princess. Because, maybe, if a girl like Anastasia can have a happy ending, despite impossible circumstances, then, maybe, we, in our own impossible circumstances, can have our happy ending.
We still want a just world. We still want for there to be a happy ending somewhere. And I don’t think that’s a weakness within us, but a longing for what our world should be. For the Christian, our hope isn’t that we will create a new heaven and new earth by our own efforts. The failure of countless utopian visions, like the Russian Revolution, tells us that. Too often, utopia ends in dystopia, and the dream of a better and more perfect society ends in bloodshed and brutality in a basement or backstreet. For Anastasia, and for the rest of us, there isn’t always a happy ending in our lifetimes.
The hope of the Christian is the hope that Anastasia and her family were taught to believe: the hope of a Saviour Who, in His time, will put all things to rights. The Romanov sisters were devout daughters of their faith, girls who died in the hope of heaven.
They weren’t disappointed in that. And perhaps that hope is why some legends should never die.