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Gleb Botkin

Gleb Yevgenievich Botkin
Botkin,Gleb.jpg
Gleb Botkin ca. 1960
Native name Глеб Евгеньевич Боткин
Born (1900-07-30)30 July 1900
Finland
Died 15 December 1969(1969-12-15) (aged 69)
Charlottesville, Virginia
Occupation Author, illustrator, Church of Aphrodite Archbishop
Spouse(s) Nadezhda Botkina (née Konshina)
Children Marina Botkina
Nikita Botkin
Peter Botkin
Yevgeny Botkin
Parent(s) Yevgeny Botkin
Olga Botkina

Gleb Yevgenyevich Botkin (Russian: Глеб Евге́ньевич Бо́ткин; 30 July 1900 – 15 December 1969) was the son of Dr. Yevgeny Botkin, the court physician who was murdered at Yekaterinburg by the Bolsheviks with Tsar Nicholas II and his family on 17 July 1918.

In later years, Botkin became a lifelong advocate of Anna Anderson, who claimed to be the surviving Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia. DNA results later proved that she was an impostor called Franziska Schanzkowska.

In 1938 he founded his own neopagan church, The Church of Aphrodite, which was one of the earliest churches in the neopagan movement in the United States.

He was the youngest son of Yevgeny Botkin and his wife, Olga. His parents divorced in 1910, when Botkin was a child of 10, due to his father’s demanding position at court and his mother’s affair with his German tutor, Friedrich Lichinger, whom she later married. Yevgeny Botkin retained custody of the children following the divorce. His older brother Dmitry was killed in action during World War I. As a child, he and his sister Tatiana played with the children of Nicholas II during holidays. He used to amuse the grand duchesses on holidays and when they were all in exile at Tobolsk with caricatures of pigs dressed in human clothing acting like stuffy dignitaries at court.

Botkin was described by one historian as "articulate, sensitive, with pallid skin and soulful green eyes" and as "a talented artist, a wicked satirist, and a born crusader."

Following the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the murder of his father, Botkin fled Tobolsk. He later spent a summer at a Russian Orthodox monastery and briefly considered becoming a priest, but decided against the religious life. He married Nadezhda Mandrazhi-Konshina, widow of Ensign of the Dragoons regiment, nobleman Mikhail Nikolaevich Mandrazhi, who was the chevalier of the Order of Saint George and was killed in battle in June 1915 at Grodno in Belarus. Two months after his death, Nadezhda (sometimes anglicised Nadine) gave birth to their daughter, Kira Mikhailovna Mandrazhi (1915-2009). Nadezhda's father, nobleman Alexei Vladimirovich Konshin, was the president of the Russian Bank of State from 1910-1914 and the president of the Russian Industry and Commerce Bank from 1914-1917.


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