Irina Alexandrovna Romanova

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Irina Alexandrovna Romanova (1913)

Princess Irina Alexandrovna of Russia ( Russian Княжна Ирина Александровна Романова ; born July 3 jul. / 15. July  1895 greg. In Peterhof , Russia ; † 26. February 1970 in Paris , France ) was the only daughter of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich Romanov and the Grand Duchess Xenija Alexandrovna Romanowa . She was the only niece of Tsar Nicholas II and the wife of Prince Felix Yusupov , heir to Russia's largest private fortune and one of the men who murdered Starez Rasputin in 1916 .

childhood

Princess Irina with her parents and brothers

Irina was the oldest child and the only daughter in a family with seven children. Her family had lived in the south of France for a long time from around 1906 due to political differences between her father and the tsar. In addition, her father had an affair with a woman from the south of France and his wife Xenija often asked for a divorce; this refused to grant him this. Xenija also enjoyed extramarital affairs. Irina's parents tried to hide their unhappy marriage from their seven children, and Irina, a shy girl with blue eyes and dark hair, had a happy childhood. Irina was called in the family circle "Titi", often also "Irène", in the French version of her name, or "Irene", in the English version. Her mother sometimes used the nickname "Baby Rina". The Romanovs, heavily influenced by French and English, spoke French better than Russian and often used the foreign versions of their first names among themselves.

marriage

Princess Irina, center, with her cousins, Grand Duchess Tatiana , left, and Grand Duchess Olga , right (around 1909)

Before her marriage on February 22, 1914, Irina was considered one of the most sought-after women in the Russian Empire. Her future husband Felix Yusupov was a man full of contradictions: a man from a wealthy family who shocked society by having fun wearing women's clothing and having sexual relations with men and women, but also being sincerely religious and willing to helping others even if it reduced his own financial situation. Once, in a fit of enthusiasm, he planned to give all his wealth to the poor, succeeding his mentor, Grand Duchess Yelisaveta Fyodorovna . "Felix's ideas are absolutely revolutionary," said Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna , who rejected him . His mother, Sinaida, convinced him not to give all of his money away because, as her only surviving son, he had a duty to marry and continue the family line. Felix, the future murderer of Rasputin, had a horror of the bloodshed and the violence of war.

Irina Alexandrovna with her husband Felix Yusupov (1915)

Felix, with his tendencies towards homosexuality, was not sure whether he was "suitable for marriage". Even so, he was drawn to Irina and her iconic beauty when he first met her on a horse ride. In 1910 he paid a visit to Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich and Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna and was happy to discover that the girl he had seen on the bridle path was their only daughter, Irina. He renewed his acquaintance with Irina in 1913 and became even more drawn to her in the process. Yusupov wrote that Irina, perhaps because she grew up with so many brothers, did not display any artificiality or lack of honesty, which had repelled him in other women.

Princess Irina with her parents and brothers as teenagers

Irina understood Yusupov's wild past, but not her parents. When her parents and her maternal grandmother, Empress Dowager Maria Fyodorovna, heard the rumors about Felix, they wanted to cancel the wedding. Most of the stories about him had been spread by Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich Romanov , Irina's cousin and one of Felix's friends. Felix was able to convince Irina's family to give in and make the ceremony possible. It was the wedding of the year and the last such event in Russian society before the First World War . Irina wore a dress that was more in line with twentieth century fashion than the traditional dresses other Romanov brides wore at their wedding when they became princesses of the imperial house. She wore a diamond and rock crystal tiara that had been commissioned from Cartier and a lace veil that had belonged to Marie Antoinette . Irina was given by her uncle, the tsar, and his wedding present was a bag with 29 rough diamonds, about 3 - 7 carats . Irina and Felix also received a wide range of gemstones from other wedding guests. Many of these gemstones were later successfully removed from the country, and after the October Revolution they used them to make a living in exile.

First World War

Irina and Felix with their daughter (1916)

The Yusupovs were on their honeymoon in Europe and the Middle East when World War I broke out. You were briefly detained in Berlin after the outbreak of hostilities. Irina asked her cousin, Crown Princess Cecilie of Prussia , to intervene with her father-in-law, the Kaiser Wilhelm II . He refused to let the couple go, but offered them a choice of three country estates to stay during the war. Felix's father appealed to the Spanish ambassador to Germany, who enabled them to return to Russia, whereupon they reached St. Petersburg via neutral Denmark and Finland.

Felix converted a wing of his Moika Palace into a hospital for wounded soldiers, but avoided military use of his own by taking advantage of a law that exempted only sons from serving in war. He joined the cadet corps and trained as an officer, but had no intention of joining a regiment. Irina's first cousin, Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna Romanova , with whom Irina was very close as a child, spoke contemptuously of Felix. She described him in a letter to her father as an 'absolute civilian', "an idle man in such times".

The only daughter of Felix and Irina, Princess Irina Felixowna Jussupowa, called Bébé , was born on March 21, 1915. "I will never forget my happiness when I heard the child's first cry," wrote her father. Irina, who liked her name, wanted to pass it on to her first child.

The murder of Rasputin

Basement of the Yusupov Palace where Rasputin was murdered

Both Felix and Irina were aware of the rumors about Rasputin's connection with the deteriorating political situation, which resulted in increasing unrest, political protests and violence. Yusupov and his co-conspirators, including Dmitri Pavlovich , decided that Rasputin was destroying the country and must be killed. Felix began visiting Rasputin in an attempt to gain his trust. He could have told him that he needed help to overcome his homosexual impulses and enjoy a satisfying marriage with Irina, or alternatively that it was Irina who needed Rasputin's “cure”.

On December 16, 1916, on the night of the murder, he invited Rasputin to his residence in the Moika Palace and told him that Irina was in the residence and that Rasputin would have an opportunity to meet her. Rasputin had often expressed interest in meeting the beautiful 21-year-old princess. However, Irina was on a visit to the Crimea at that time . Irina was aware that Felix had spoken of the murder of Rasputin and it may have originally been intended that she participate in the murder. "You too have to take part in it," Felix wrote to her before the murder. “Dm [itri] Pawl [owitch] knows all about it and helps. It will take place in the middle of December, when Dm [itri] comes back. "At the end of November 1916 Irina wrote to Felix:" Thank you for your insane letter. I didn't understand half of it. […] I see from your letter that you are in a state of wild enthusiasm and ready to climb a wall […] I will come to Petrograd on the 12th or 13th, so don't you dare do it without me, or I don't want to come at all. ”Felix confirmed the plan on November 27, 1916 and instructed Irina to act as bait. A terrified Irina suddenly withdrew from planning on December 3, 1916. “I know that when I come, I will certainly get sick [...] You don't know how it is with me. I wanna cry all the time. My mood is terrible. I've never had one like this before […] I don't even know what happened to me. Don't rush me into Petrograd. Come here instead. ”Also on December 9, 1916, she warned Felix, reporting on a foreboding conversation she had with her 21-month-old daughter:“ Something unbelievable has happened to Baby. She didn't sleep well for a couple of nights and kept repeating: 'War, nanny, war!' The next day she was asked, 'War or Peace?' And baby replied, 'War!' The next day I said, 'Say: Peace.' And she looked straight at me and replied, 'War!' It's very strange. "

Irina's requests were in vain. Her husband and his co-conspirators proceeded according to their plan without her. After the murder of Rasputin, the tsar banished both Yusupov and Dmitri Pavlovich. Felix was sent to Rakitnoye , a remote Yusupov country estate in the central Russian province of Kursk . Dmitri was exiled to the Persian front in the army. Sixteen members of the family signed a letter asking the Tsar to reconsider his decision due to Dmitri's poor health, but Nicholas II was amazed at the petition and refused to take it into account. Irina's father "Sandro" visited the couple in Rakitnoye in February 1917 and found their mood "lively but militant." Felix still hoped that the Tsar and the Russian government would react to the increasing political unrest after Rasputin's death. Felix refused Irina to leave Rakitnoye and visit her mother in Petrograd because he found it too dangerous. When Tsar Nicholas II abdicated in early March, he and his family were placed under house arrest by the Provisional Government and finally murdered by the Cheka on July 17, 1918 after the Bolsheviks came to power in Yekaterinburg . Since the tsar had exiled Felix and Dmitri, they were one of the few members of the Romanov family to escape execution during the revolution.

exile

After the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the Yusupovs returned to the Moika Palace and took some jewels and two paintings by Rembrandt with them, which they could later use to live in exile. In 1919 they first went to the Crimea , from where they left Russia with the Tsar's mother Marija Fjodorovna , other members of the Romanov family and close relatives on the British warship MS Marlborough for Malta and Italy, from where they reached Paris by train. On the ship, Felix enjoyed bragging about the murder of Rasputin. When a visa was missing in Italy, Felix bribed the officers with diamonds. In Paris they stayed at the Hotel Vendôme for a few days before moving on to London.

Felix and Irina Jussupov in exile.
Felix and Irina Jussupov in exile.

In 1920 they returned to Paris and bought a house on Rue Gutenberg in Boulogne-Billancourt , where they lived most of their lives. The Yusupovs founded a short-lived tailoring shop called Irfé , named after the first two letters of the names Irina and Felix. Irina modeled with some of the couple's clothes and other designers. The Yusupovs became known in the Russian émigré community for their financial generosity. This philanthropy, persistently high cost of living, and poor financial management destroyed what was left of the family's possessions. Her daughter was largely raised by her paternal grandparents until she was nine years old and was very spoiled by them. According to Felix, her unstable upbringing made her “moody”. Felix and Irina, raised by nannies themselves, were unsuitable to take on the burden of bringing up children day after day. Irina, the only child, loved her father, but had a distant relationship with her mother.

The family later lived on the damages that the MGM film studio paid to the princess. The princess successfully demonstrated that portraying a fictional character in the 1932 film Rasputin: The Demon of Russia would cast a false image of her person. In the film, Rasputin raped the only niece of the tsar, who is called "Princess Natascha" here. In 1934, the Yusupovs finally reached an out-of-court settlement with the studio after the studio had previously been sentenced to pay damages in England. In 1965, Yusupov also sued Columbia Broadcasting System in a New York court for a film adaptation of Rasputin's assassination. The claim was that some scenes were fictional and that due to New York law, Felix had the commercial rights to his story denied. Felix wrote his memoirs and was both celebrated and despised as the man who murdered Rasputin. For the rest of his life, Yusupov was haunted by Rasputin's murder and suffered from nightmares. However, he also had a reputation as a faith healer.

Irina and Felix remained closely connected, had a happy and successful marriage for more than 50 years. When Felix died in 1967, Irina mourned deeply and died three years later. She was buried at the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois with her husband.

DNA and offspring

As the maternal relatives of Nicholas II of Russia, Irina and all of her descendants in the female line are members of the mitochondrial haplogroup T. A DNA sample from Irina's granddaughter Xenia Sheremeteva-Sfiris was used to identify the remains of Tsar Nicholas II after these had been exhumed in 1991.

Descendants of Irina and Felix are:

  • Princess Irina Felixovna Yusupova, (born March 21, 1915 in Saint Petersburg ; † August 30, 1983 in Cormeilles , France) ∞ Count Nikolai Dmitrijewitch Sheremetev (born October 28, 1904 in Moscow ; † February 5, 1979 in Paris ), son of Count Dmitri Sergejewitsch Sheremetew and wife Countess Irina Illarionovna Voronzowa-Dashkova and a descendant of Boris Petrovich Sheremetev; Progeny:
    • Countess Xenija Nikolajewna Sheremetewa-Sfiris (born March 1, 1942 in Rome ) ∞ on June 20, 1965 in Athens Ilias Sfiris (born August 20, 1932 in Athens, Greece); Progeny:
      • Tatiana Sfiris (* August 28, 1968 in Athens) ∞ May 1996 in Athens Alexis Giannakoupoulos (* 1963), divorced, no descendants, ∞ Antoni Vamvakidis; Progeny:
        • Marilia Vamvakidis (born July 17, 2004)
        • Giasmin Xenia Vamvakidis (born May 7, 2006)

swell

Web links

Commons : Irina Yusupova  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Charlotte Zeepvat: The Camera and the Tsars: A Romanov Family Album. Sutton Publishing Ltd., 2004, p. 38.
  2. ^ King, Greg, The Man Who Killed Rasputin, Carol Publishing Group, 1995, p. 108.
  3. ↑ Andrei Maylunas and Sergei Mironenko, A Lifelong Passion: Nicholas and Alexandra: Their Own Story, Doubleday, 1997, pp. 312-313
  4. ↑ a b King, p. 109
  5. ↑ King, p. 62
  6. ↑ King, pp. 83-89
  7. ↑ King, p. 98
  8. ↑ King, pp. 93-97
  9. ↑ a b King, p. 97
  10. ↑ King, p. 112
  11. ↑ a b c Yussupov, Felix: Lost Splendor . In: alexanderpalace.org . 1952. Retrieved December 22, 2006.
  12. ↑ King, pp. 109-110
  13. ↑ King, pp. 110-111
  14. ↑ King, p. 112.
  15. ↑ King, p. 111
  16. ↑ King, pp. 114-115
  17. ↑ King, pp. 115-116
  18. ↑ Bokhanov, Alexander, Knodt, Dr. Manfred, Oustimenko, Vladimir, Peregudova, Zinaida, Tyutyunnik, Lyubov, editors, Xenofontova, Lyudmila, translator, The Romanovs: Love, Power, and Tragedy, Leppi Publications, 1993, p. 240
  19. ↑ King, p. 116
  20. ↑ Tsarina Alexandra: Letters of the Tsaritsa to the Tsar From 1914-1917 . In: alexanderpalace.org . Retrieved January 1, 2007.
  21. ↑ King, pp. 118-119
  22. ↑ King, p. 130
  23. ↑ Radzinsky, Edvard, The Rasputin File, Nan A. Talese, a division of Doubleday, 2000, pp. 439-440
  24. ↑ King, p. 144
  25. ↑ Radzinsky, p. 435
  26. ↑ Radzinsky, p. 440
  27. ↑ Radzinsky, p. 400
  28. ↑ Radzinsky, pp. 444-445
  29. ↑ Radzinsky, p. 447
  30. ↑ King, p. 189
  31. ↑ King, pp. 190-191
  32. ↑ Maylunas and Mironenko, p. 530
  33. ↑ King, p. 193
  34. ↑ Maylunas and Mironenko, p. 534
  35. ↑ King, p. 209
  36. ↑ King, pp. 257-258
  37. ↑ King, p. 240-241
  38. ↑ King, p. 275.
  39. ^ Massie, Robert K., The Romanovs: The Final Chapter, Random House, 1995, p. 94
  40. ^ Paul Theroff: Genealogy of the Romanovs at An Online Gotha - Russia . In: An Online Gotha . 2007. Archived from the original on December 31, 2006. Retrieved January 3, 2007.
personal data
SURNAME Romanova, Irina Alexandrovna
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Irina of Russia; Княжна Ирина Александровна Романова (Russian spelling)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Princess of Russia
DATE OF BIRTH July 15, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Peterhof Palace
DATE OF DEATH February 26, 1970
Place of death Paris