Eugenia Smith

author

Eugenia Smith

1899–1997

Best remembered for a strange and much-debated literary claim, this American writer published a 1963 book presenting herself as Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia. Her life sits at the crossroads of memoir, myth, and one of history’s most enduring royal mysteries.

1 Audiobook

Anastasia: The autobiography of H.I.H. the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicholaevna of Russia

Anastasia: The autobiography of H.I.H. the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicholaevna of Russia

by Eugenia Smith

About the author

Born on January 25, 1899, Eugenia Smith was also known as Eugenia Drabek Smetisko. She became known in the United States as a claimant to the identity of Grand Duchess Anastasia, the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra.

Her name is most closely tied to the 1963 book Autobiography of HIH Anastasia Nicholaevna of Russia, written as an account of "her" life and survival. Whatever readers make of those claims, the book gave Smith a lasting place in the long cultural afterlife of the Romanov story.

Smith died on January 31, 1997. Today she is remembered less as a conventional literary figure than as an unusual author whose writing became part of a larger fascination with royalty, identity, and historical legend.