AnastasiaBackground

Anastasia was the fourth daughter of Tsar Nikolai II^WP and Alexandra^WP of the Imperial House of Romanov^WP of Russia^WP.^[1][2] Having ruled for around 300 years, Nikolai was the last Romanov to hold tsardom and Anastasia was the last imperial princess of the dynasty.^[2][3] Nikolai was a moderate ruler who raised his children with love, but, nurtured under the history of the Tsars, he was ignorant of the world and realities of Russia. Alexandra lived the idealistic life of a noblewoman.^[3] Anastasia was recorded as having to be a rambunctious girl who would cause mischief climbing trees but was also known to care for her sickly younger brother Alexei^WP.^[1][3] Since her childhood, she heard the voice of Viy, being the proper heir to the family's magecraft rather than her father.^[1][2][4]

Despite the moderate rule of Nikolai, the state of the world was in a tumultuous state. The prestige of the Tsar was lowering due to their defeat in the Russo-Japanese War^WP and shooting incidents^WP upon the populace. Though they might have known peace had they not been an Imperial House, revolutionary sentiment was brewing within the populous.^[1][3] Due to the ongoing World War I^WP causing mass famine, the frustrations of the populace reached a breaking point in 1917, leading to an incident in which a protest left citizens dead. Russian soldiers started a revolt, and the imperial guards sided with them despite martial law being declared in Moscow^WP.^[2]

Nikolai abdicated after much uproar, causing the Imperial House to fall into disarray. The family was confined to house arrest, leaving little record of that time other than that they still employed servants.^[2] They originally may have had the chance to go into exile in Germany, her mother's birthplace, ending in a bloodless revolution. However, rumors spread that Alexandra was having an affair with the monk Grigori Rasputin due to her reliance on him, lowering her already poor reputation and making exile in Germany impossible.^[3] In April of 1918, the new administration^WP feared that the Tsar may be reinstated into power by the force of the Czechoslovak Legion^WP or White Army^WP, so they decided to have the family executed. The day before their death, Alexei revealed the existence of Viy and the fairy's role and history to the Imperial household to Anastasia, but she did not make a contract with it.^[3] Despite wishing to hold an official trial, they felt the need to push it through due to the apparent threat the Tsar posed and executed the Imperial family and their servants in secret at the Ipatiev House^WP.^[1][3][2]

As Anastasia was dying, she contracted with Viy, not as a means to save her life, but as a means of killing those who wronged her. The soldiers stripped the clothes from her body, chopped her body into pieces, burned her to ash with gasoline, poured sulfuric acid over the bones, and buried the ashes in the ground.^[3][4] Retaining some sense of consciousness through Viy throughout the event, she cursed the soldiers such that they would never know peace, stating, "I am watching. Death is too good for you. No, you're going to live in fear for the rest of your lives. I, Viy, will always be watching you. I will forever pass judgment on your sins. I will forever see to your punishment. I will always, always be watching...until the day you die. Always, always, alwaaays!!!"^[4]

After the execution, there were rumors that Anastasia had managed to survive, including a girl^WP claiming to have been Anastasia, but DNA tests performed on bones discovered decades later disproved such theories.^[3][2]