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Anastasia (1997 movie)

Anastasia is Don Bluth's 1997 animated film, with music by Stephen Flaherty and David Newman, in which it is imagined that Anastasia, daughter of the last Russian tsar survives the slaughter of the royal family, loses her memory, battles the ghost of the evil monk Rasputin and his sidekick Bartok, a singing fruit bat, convinces her grandmother of her true identity, and falls in love with the kitchen boy who helped her survive.

The movie featured the voices of Meg Ryan as Anastasia, John Cusack as Dimitri, Kelsey Grammer as Vladimir, Christopher Lloyd as Rasputin, Hank Azaria as Bartok, Bernadette Peters as Sophie, Kirsten Dunst as the young Anastasia, Angela Lansbury as Dowager Empress Marie, Rick Jones as Emperor Nicholas II, Liz Callaway, and Andrea Martin.

Historical inaccuracy

While it may seem uncourteous to cavil at inaccuracies in a fictional film in which a bat can sing, the movie did inspire some controversy as many history teachers quailed at the prospect of having to correct the misimpressions of a generation of students educated only by its tutelage.

Some of the differences with actual history are recorded here: