The Art of the Authoress of Anastasia

Description

“The Art of the Authoress of Anastasia” by J. (Johannes) Froebel-Parker is a slim 2014 volume — forty-eight pages, published by AuthorHouse — built around an extraordinary claim. Its subtitle promises “The Autobiography of H.I.H. the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicholaevna of Russia”: the life story, in her own words, of a woman who said she was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II and had survived the 1918 execution at Ekaterinburg.

According to the book’s account, the “authoress” was a woman known as Evgenia Smetisko, an immigrant who reached the United States in 1963 claiming the Romanov identity — and who, like the historical Anastasia, was artistically inclined. Froebel-Parker, founder of the Froebel Gallery in Albany, New York, frames her narrative with his own commentary on the art, the handwriting, and the tangled history of Anastasia survival claims, inviting readers to weigh the story for themselves.

Part memoir, part historical curiosity, the book belongs to the long tradition of Anastasia literature — and to the debate over one of history’s most persistent mysteries. Readers should approach it as its author presents it: a claimed autobiography, fascinating precisely because of what it reveals about memory, identity, and the enduring pull of the Romanov legend.