This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Skepticism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of science, pseudoscience, pseudohistory and skepticism related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SkepticismWikipedia:WikiProject SkepticismTemplate:WikiProject SkepticismSkepticism
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Germany, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Germany on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.GermanyWikipedia:WikiProject GermanyTemplate:WikiProject GermanyGermany
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Virginia, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of Virginia on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.VirginiaWikipedia:WikiProject VirginiaTemplate:WikiProject VirginiaVirginia
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Women's History, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Women's history and related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Women's HistoryWikipedia:WikiProject Women's HistoryTemplate:WikiProject Women's HistoryWomen's History
The article begins with Anderson's discovery in Berlin at age 24. Would a bio with some relevant information (family, factory work, and prior medical record) from before her notability break up the flow of the article? Mostly asking since her original background from the 1910s is fairly well researched and pinpointed. Anderson's movements from West Prussia to Berlin are extensively documented in The Resurrection of the Romanovs by King and Wilson, as well as some German language sources. The book and the German sources (there strangely seems to be an absence of Polish works on her) state that Schanzkowska is not her birth name, but one she adopted when arriving in Berlin. There is certainty about her actual surname, Czenstkowski, but it's spelled very inconsistently even among her relatives.
Also wondering if her description as Polish might be oversimplified? Her family was Kashubian and spoke the dialect as her native tongue over either German or Polish, though she did seem to have a fluid grasp of both. Kashubs at the time didn't (and some still don't) consider themselves Polish, but German/Prussian would also not be accurate even if Anderson's family certainly was Germanised to a degree given the names in her genealogy and held citizenship of the German Empire.
We shouldn't select one source over another. When most sources say she was Polish, we don't throw them all out and say she's Kashubian. Similarly, the common spelling in English-language reliable sources should be used, not an unusual form. I think the recent insertion is over-colloquial in tone ("back then it was in Germany") and the references should be formatted like the others in the article, not unnecessarily repeating information already given. DrKay (talk) 17:48, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The book I mentioned is already in use in sources. Not sure what edit you're referring to, but what I was asking was if an "early life" section would be appropriate. So far, the only mention about her background is the bit about working as a factory worker when a lot more is known about her before she became known as an Anastasia claimant. I was talking about making a short section, with some details such as her family, upbringing and activities before Berlin. The Kashub question was just an example about the information left out, not my main concern. Yes, Polish *is* the more accurate label over German, but reducing it to that doesn't convey her background in full. Just mentioning details like that a single time at the very beginning would suffice.
Right now, the article just doesn't really read like a biography. The first section past the lead hinges on her lack of identifcation to switch from "unknown woman" to tentative names like "Tchaikovsky" and "Anderson", which is why I asked in the first place whether introducing her actual name in the beginning was appropriate. Since that would, as is already the case, make everything more confusing. Rubintyrann (talk) 19:43, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also, upon checking back with the source, it's not controversial that her birthname was Czenstkowski. Some of her siblings simply made it "von Czenstkowski" to denote a gentry status.
As to why it doesn't appear as often in English sources, most don't bother going back that far and like the article, they start and end with Franziska Schanzkowska, described only as a Polish factory worker. King & Wilson were the first to research Anderson's background before Berlin to find the Czenstkowski name on her birth registry. It's the subsequent spelling she adopted that is somewhat disputed (almost exclusively Schanzkowski/Schanzkowsky in German articles and books vs Schanzkowska in English works). Schwanzkowski is used significantly more in pre-2000s sources, with Schanzkowska becoming common in English works in the 2010s, coinciding with the publishing of King & Wilson.
I haven't seen the recently inserted "Francizka Szankowska" spelling used anywhere before, but it's literally just a retroactively applied modern Polonization of the more German sounding Franziska Schanzkowska. Rubintyrann (talk) 23:10, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As an example, let's just take the last sentence of the last insertion "Her brother Felix received a final letter from Schanzkowska on 17 February 1920 and on 9 March, she was reported missing to [[Berlin Police]] by her sister Gertrude.<ref>Klier and Mingay, pp. 105, 224; Kurth, ''Anastasia'', p. 166; Massie, pp. 178–179, 250</ref>" Let us examine pages 105 and 224 of Klier and Mingay. Any mention of Gertrude? No. Any mention of her disappearance being reported to the Berlin police? No. Any mention of the Berlin Police? Yes, but only saying that they failed to identify her after fishing her out of the canal. Let us examine Massie, pages 178, 179 and 250. Any mention of Gertrude reporting her disappearance to the Berlin police on 9 March? No. For Kurth, refer to multiple previous talk page discussions (now archived) complaining long and bitterly about how unreliable he is. The content is not supported by the purported sources. DrKay (talk) 20:51, 15 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My mistake on not deleting the sources from the paragraph I incorporated into the text. I used King and Wilson for the content. I cited this Spiegel article for the disappearance date and the date of her missing report from WDR. I guess I deleted these two citations while standardizing the citations. All faults on on my part. I already returned the copy of the book so now I can't check if I got the exact page count right, but everything I added was from the chapters 19 and 20, spanning some twenty pages. I'm assuming one look was enough to come to the assumption everything was fabricated but you're free to doublecheck.
== Early life ==
=== Childhood (1896–1914) ===
Franziska Anna Czenstkowski was born in Borrowilaß as the second of four surviving children[1] to CatholicKashub parents Anton Czenstkowski and Marianna Witzke. She was baptized eight days after her birth at St. Marie Church in the neighboring village Borek and named after Frances of Rome.[2] She was raised with Kashubian as the household language, but also fluently spoke local dialects of Polish and German, favoring the latter in regular conversation.[3] Between 1897 and 1905, Czenstkowski's family moved around Kreis Bütow, earning day labor wages as sharecroppers and indentured servants.[1] In 1906, Anton inherited a 30-acre estate in Borrowilaß, which he sold to buy a farm property in Hygendorf.[4] The family developed a negative reputation in the village as Anton became known as an alcoholic layabout.[5] Czenstkowski had attended local grammar schools throughout her childhood and completed secondary education in 1910.[6]
In 1911, Czenstkowski's father contracted tuberculosis and died on 13 April 1912, after being bedridden for months. Czenstkowski became withdrawn following his death and frequently clashed with her mother for remarrying the following year.[7] With the growing strain, combined with the spread of unfounded rumours of promiscuity and incest, 17-year-old Czenstkowski was sent away to live outside of Pomerania, arriving in Berlin by train on 14 February 1914.[8]
=== Life in Berlin (1914–1920) ===
In Berlin, Czenstkowski went by the surname Schanzkowska, a "feminized and grammatically incorrect" Germanization of her original name,[9] although the name was also frequently spelled as the more common "Schanzkowski"[10] and "Schanzkowsky".[11] It's suspected that the name change was an attempt to "abandon her Eastern background".[9] While in Prussia she spoken Plattdeutsch, generally considered a working class dialect, she learnt standard Hochdeutsch during her time in Berlin.[12] Through 1914, Schanzkowska worked as a maid and Konditorei waitress, and after she was joined by her younger sister Gertrude in 1915, the siblings moved into a tenement flat in Wedding quarter.[13] In 1915, amidst the increased war effort during World War I, Schanzkowska took a position at a AEG munitions factory in Berlin-Mitte and in 1916, Schanzkowska became engaged to a recruit in the German Army, becoming pregnant the following summer.[14]
Franziska Schanzkowska, c. 1916
==== Involuntary confinement, break with family and isolation (1916–1919) ====
In June 1916, her fiancé was fatally wounded during the Brusilov offensive while deployed in Galicia on the Eastern Front. Not long after, while Schwanzkowska was working at the munitions factory, a grenade fell out of her hand and exploded on the assembly line. She sustained minor injuries and was treated for "nervous shock" as a foreman was killed in front of her.[15] According to Gertrude, Schanzkowska was left physically weak and later fell prone to momentary loss of consciousness, symptoms consistent with blood poisoning, likely as a result of an amateur abortion.[16] She was declared insane on 19 September 1916 at Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Schöneberg. For a year, she spent time in Karl-Bonhoeffer-Nervenklinik [de], commonly known as Dalldorf asylum, and Landesheilanstalt Neuruppin [de].[17] Schanzkowska was noted as a quiet patient, albeit "high strung and prone to violent changes of mood", refusing any interaction with medical staff.[17]
Following her release on 22 October 1917, Schanzkowska initially moved back in with Gertrude. However, she was overwhelmed with the task of taking care of Schanzkowska, and both sisters returned to Hygendorf in December 1917. The family had a similarly hard time handling Schanzkowska's stubborn demeanor and outright refusal to work. After she performed poorly during agricultural work, Schanzkowska was employed as a pub waitress in Bütow. During a workplace accident, her hand was caught in a dishwasher coil, leaving Schanzkowska with a permanent scar to the middle finger. In March 1918, renewed conflict with her mother led Schanzkowska to leave Prussia again, this time at her own volition.[15]
After traveling east, labored as a resident farmhand at Gut-Friederikenhof estate in Grotkoppel, near Döhnsdorf [de]. The estate also housed a prisoner of war camp for soldiers of the Imperial Russian Army, who were used as forced labor alongside regular farmhands, and in autumn 1918, a POW laborer attacked Schanzkowska with a sharp gardening tool, leaving her with significant facial and cranial injuries.[18] For a few months, Schanzkowska lived in her old tenement in Berlin, where she became increasingly reclusive. According to her landlady Doris Wingender, she hardly left her room, but most likely engaged in sex work to pay rent.[19] From spring to 20 November 1919, Schanzkowska again performed seasonal work at Gut-Friederikenhof, listing the Wingender apartment as her permanent residence.[20]
As an example, let's take the first sentence. "the second of four surviving children" sourced to "King and Wilson p. 271". Where is that in King and Wilson? Nowhere. Certainly not on page 271 which says she was the eldest surviving child. I don't see the point of checking the rest of the proposed text when in each check I've done so far, the first thing I've checked has been wrong. DrKay (talk) 09:02, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well I'm not getting that book back anytime soon so I guess that puts the kibosh on an early life section for another fifteen years with your veto. I should make a habit of listing direct quotes if possible to avoid rookie screw ups like that. There's always next time then. Rubintyrann (talk) 16:28, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
level-5 vital article is rated FA-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
