WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Russians use a patriarchal name as a middle name. They take the first name of their father and add a suffix. If it’s a boy, they add ovich or (e)vich, which means “son of”. If it’s a girl, they add ovna or evna, which means “daughter of”. So, for example, the complete name of Anastasia Romanov, daughter of Czar Nikolai II, was Anastasia Nikolaievna Romanov.

Note:

If the father’s name ends in a vowel, (e)vich or evna is added.

If the father’s name ends in a consonant, ovich or ovna is added.

- Try finding out the middle names of the people below.

NAME	FATHER’S NAME	FULL NAME
Anastasia Romanov	Nikolai	Anastasia Nokolaievna Romanov
Valentina Tereshkova (firt woman in space)	Vladimir
Mikhail Gorbachev (former president)	Sergey
Fyodor Dostoevsky (writer)	Mikhail
Rudolph Nureyev (dancer)	Hamet

 - What would your name be like in the Russian tradition?

A royal mystery – The story

In 1918, after the Bolshevik revolution, Nikolai II and all his family were executed in the basement of a building in Ekateringburg, Russia. The remains of the family were buried at an unknown place about 20 km outside the city and were officially recovered only in 1991 after the perestroika. There was a problem though. They should have been eleven bodies, but only nine were found. Forensic specialists determined that the two missing bodies were those of the youngest Romanov children, Alexei and Anastasia. So Anastasia actually might have escaped the execution. But did she?

Over a sixty-two-year period, a woman better known as Anna Anderson, attempted to prove her identity as Anastasia. She lost three cases, and most members of the remaining Romanov family considered her an impostor. Her life inspired four films, a play, a musical and several books. Anna died in 1984, but her story is so passionate that even today there are people who believe her to be Anastasia. No matter who she really was, one thing is for sure: Anna Anderson truly believed that she was Anastasia Romanov.

The evidence

In 1994, a new fact came to give light to the mystery. Listen to the interview and find out:

1. If Anna Anderson really was Anastasia

2. How it was proved.

3. As many facts as possible:

a) in favor of Anna

b) against Anna