Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia (; – July 17, 1918) was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia, and his wife, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna. Anastasia was the younger sister of Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, and Maria, and was the elder sister of Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia. She was murdered with her family by members of the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police, in Yekaterinburg on July 17, 1918. Persistent rumors of her possible escape circulated after her death, fuelled by the fact that the location of her
Tsardom of Russia he went. Historians speculate that Godunov would have weathered this crisis had he not died in 1605. As a result, False Dmitriy I entered Moscow and was crowned tsar that year, following the murder of Tsar Feodor II, Godunov's son. Subsequently, Russia entered a period of continuous chaos, known as "The Time of Troubles" (Смутное Время). Despite the Tsar's persecution of the boyars, the townspeople's dissatisfaction, and the gradual enserfment of the peasantry, efforts at restricting the power of the Tsar were only halfhearted. Finding no institutional alternative to the autocracy, discontented Russians rallied behind various pretenders to the throne.