Prince Vsevolod Ivanovich of Russia
| Prince Vsevolod Ivanovich | |
|---|---|
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| Spouse | Lady Mary Lygon Emilia de Gosztoyi Valli Knust |
| Full name | |
| Vsevolod Ivanovich Romanov | |
| House | House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov |
| Father | Prince Ivan Constantinovich of Russia |
| Mother | Princess Helen of Serbia |
| Born | 20 January 1914 St.Petersburg, Russia |
| Died | 18 June 1973 (aged 59) |
Prince Vsevolod Ivanovich of Russia (20 January 1914 – 18 June 1973) was a great-great-grandson of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia and a nephew of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia. He was the last male member of the Romanov family born in Imperial Russia.[1] He spent much of his life in exile in Great Britain.
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[edit] Early life
Prince Vsevolod Ivanovich was the eldest child of Prince Ivan Constantinovich of Russia and Princess Helen of Serbia. He was born on 20 January 1914 at the Marble Palace in St Petersburg. In a manifesto issued the next day, Tsar Nicholas II decreed Vsevelod to be a Highness and a Prince of the Imperial Blood.[1] On 25 January the Emperor, along with his wife Alexandra and his mother, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, attended the Prince’s christening in service conducted in the chapel of the Marble Palace by the personal confessor of the imperial couple. Along with the boy’s grandmother grand duchess Elisabeth Mavriekievna, Nicholas II was appointed one of his godparents.[2] He spent his early years living with his parents in a suite of rooms in the northern wing of Pavlovsk [3] During the First World War, Vsevelod's father, Prince Ivan fought in the army and was decorated as a war hero, he was at the front when the Russian Revolution of 1917 started. Vsevelod's mother served as a nurse during the war, while Vsevelod and his sister Catherine were left in St Peterburg under the care of their paternal grandmother.
[edit] Revolution
During the Russian revolution, Vsevolod's father and two of his uncles Constantine and Igor were imprisoned by the Bolsheviks. They were killed at Alapaevsk, along with other Romanov relatives, in July 1918. During the chaotic rule of the Provisional Government, and after the October Revolution, Prince Vsevolod lived with his grandmother and some relatives, at Pavlovsk.[4] For a time, they lived a precarious existence, and his grandmother was forced to secretly sell family heirlooms to provide for the family.
Four-year-old Vsevolod escaped to Sweden aboard the Swedish vessel Ångermanland in October 1918 with his paternal grandmother, his sister Catherine, his uncle George, his aunt Vera and his first cousins: Prince Teymuraz Constantinovich and Princess Natalia Constantinovna Bagration-Mukhransky when they were permitted by the Bolsheviks to be taken by ship to Sweden, via Tallinn to Helsinki and via Mariehamn to Stockholm, at the invitation of Queen Victoria of Sweden. At Stockholm harbor, they met Prince Gustaf Adolf, who took them to the royal palace.
[edit] Exile
In Sweden, Vsevolod was reunited with his mother.[5] They moved to Paris and eventually went to live in Belgrade with his paternal grandfather King Peter I of Serbia.[5] After his death in 1921 Vsevolod's uncle King Alexander bought a Villa at Cap Ferrat in the south of France for Vsevolod, his mother and his sister.[5] They eventually settled in England.[5]
Prince Vsevolod was educated at Eton and Oxford.[5] He spent much of his life in Great Britain. On 31 May 1939, he married in London Lady Mary Lygon (Madresfield Court 12 Feb 1910-Faringdon 27 Sep 1982); the marriage lasted until 1956, when it ended in divorce.[6] On 28 March 1956, he married a Hungarian woman, Emilia de Gosztoyi (Budapest 19 Apr 1914-Monte Carlo 9 Jul 1993); this union ended in divorce five years later.[6] In London on 8 June 1961, Vsevolod married again, this time to Valli Knust, (b.London 4 Apr 1930), a woman sixteen years his junior.[6] He sought and was granted morganatic titles for all three of these wives by Grand Duke Vladimir Kirilovich, head of the Imperial house in exile; no children were born of any of these unions.[6] At his death on 18 June 1973, in London, the male line of the Constantinovich branch of the Romanov family died out.
[edit] Title and style
- His Highness Prince Vsevolod Ivanovich of Russia
N.B. After the Russian revolution members of the Imperial family tended to drop the territorial designation “of Russia” and use the princely title with the surname Romanov.[7]
[edit] Ancestry
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b King & Wilson," Gilded Prism, p. 122
- ^ King & Wilson," Gilded Prism, p. 123
- ^ King & Wilson," Gilded Prism, p. 163
- ^ King & Wilson , Gilded Prism, p. 164
- ^ a b c d e Zeepvat, Romanov Autumn, p. 230
- ^ a b c d King & Wilson," Gilded Prism, p. 192
- ^ Almanach de Gotha (186th ed.). 2003. pp. 314. ISBN 0953214249.
[edit] Bibliography
- King, Greg, and Penny Wilson. Gilded Prism. Eurohistory, 2006. ISBN 0-9771961-4-3
- Zeepvat, Charlotte, The Camera and the Tsars, Sutton Publishing, 2004, ISBN 0-7509-3049-7.
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