Maria Vladimirovna Romanova

Marija Wladimirowna Romanowa ( Russian Мари́я Влади́мировна Рома́нова , born December 23, 1953 in Madrid ), is a pretender to the throne of the Romanov dynasty, the Romanov-Holstein-Gottorp tsarist house that ruled until 1917 .

Since the death of her father Vladimir Kirillowitsch Romanov in 1992, she has been claiming to be the head of the Russian tsarist family and to bear the title of "Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess of Russia". In 2010 she founded the private “Imperial Order of Saint Anastasia”.

Life

Marija's monogram

Marija Vladimirovna Romanova was born on December 23, 1953 in Madrid, where she still lives today. She is the only daughter of Vladimir Kirillowitsch Romanov and his wife Leonida Georgievna Bagration-Moukhransky (1914-2010) from the house of the Georgian Bagratids .

In 1976 she married Franz Wilhelm Prince of Prussia and had their son Georgi Michailowitsch Romanow with him in 1981 . They divorced five years later.

Marija studied Russian history at the University of Oxford .

She visits Russia regularly. In August 2007, Marija presented the Cossacks of the Primorye region with the "Order of St. Nicholas" for "exemplary fulfillment of military duty."

She made several requests to rehabilitate the Romanovs, but these were repeatedly rejected until the royal family was rehabilitated on October 1, 2008 by the decision of the Supreme Court . On January 15, 2010, Marija applied to a Moscow court to reopen the investigation into the killing of the tsarist family after they had been discontinued a year earlier.

In May 2010, Marija and other members of the Romanov dynasty met with members of the Ottomans in the Topkapı Palace , which was the first official meeting between these two former ruling families. On August 20, 2010, Marija founded the Imperial Order of Saint Anastasia , which is awarded exclusively to women who have made a name for themselves in charitable, cultural, educational, scientific and medical fields for the benefit of the Russian state or the tsarist house. On January 4, 2012, she called for donations for a social foundation that wants to build a monument to Hermogenus of Moscow on Red Square .

On May 14, 2013, at a ceremony in the Romanov Museum in Kitai-Gorod , Marija awarded the Archbishop of San Francisco Kyrill of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad the "Russian Order of St. Anne 1st Degree" (the historical Russian Order of St. Anne became not awarded since the October Revolution). For the 400th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty in July 2013, Marija visited the Patriarch Kyrill I in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in Saint Petersburg . In an anniversary letter, she condemned "that the Bolsheviks had violently destroyed the religious and moral foundations of Russia " and that Russia still has to bear today from the "society of godlessness and totalitarianism" that came to an end around twenty years ago.

In an interview in April 2014, Marija described the events of the Euromaidan as a "coup d'état" and stated with regard to the annexation of Crimea that she was of the opinion "that a return of Crimea to Russian territory is legal and inevitable". On July 20, 2014, at a ceremony in the Church of the Protection and Intercession of the Virgin Mary in the Moscow district of Izmailovo in the eastern administrative district , Marija awarded Russian Vice Admiral Oleg Belaventsev the Russian Order of St. Anna 1st Degree, Prosecutor General of the Republic of Crimea Natalia Poklonskaya the Imperial Order of Saint Anastasia, and the former cosmonaut Alexei Leonow the Order of Saint Stanislaus 1st degree, both house orders of the Romanovs. On July 28, 2014, at the invitation of the Mayor of Irkutsk Viktor Kondrashov , Marija attended a commemorative event marking the 100th anniversary of Russia's entry into the First World War and, among other things, visited the Irkutsk State University , where she received a medal “In Commemoration of the 400th Anniversary of the House of Romanov ”. She knows the Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin from numerous meetings.

Claim to the throne

Marija (right) next to her son Georgi (2012)

Some of the Romanovs do not recognize Marija's son Georgi as heir to the throne because, as the son of a great-grandson of the last German Emperor Wilhelm II, he is a Hohenzoller and not a Romanov. After that issued by Tsar Paul I and most recently by Alexander III. confirmed version of the house law , female family members were excluded from the line of succession as long as male Romanovs were still alive. However, all Romanovs who entered into or came from unequal marriages were also excluded . However, this is the case with all male Romanovs still alive. If Marija's mother could be considered an equal, which some Romanovs deny, Marija would probably have become the pretender to the throne according to the rules of the historical house law. The elected head of the Romanov family association has been Dimitrij Romanowitsch Romanow since 2014 , who in turn is not recognized by Marija as the head of the family or as a pretender to the throne, which he does not claim.

Patriarch Kyrill I stated in an interview in 2013 that he only considers Russian history to be preserved in the succession of Marijas and her son Georgi. The question of a possible occupation of the tsar's throne in the event of a reestablishment of a (possibly constitutional ) monarchy in Russia would therefore have to be decided politically - as with numerous heirs to the throne in Russian history. Russian President Boris Yeltsin had spoken out in favor of having Georgi educated in Russia and then serving in the military in order to create the conditions for his qualification. However, the parents decided against giving their son a western education in England and not exposing him to the interplay of political influences and corresponding dangers.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Grand Duchess Romanova plans to travel from Vladivostok to Moscow . RIA Novosti. August 7, 2007. Retrieved July 26, 2014.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Stefan Scholl. Another tsar on offer ( memento from July 30, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), Frankfurter Rundschau. June 30, 2009. Retrieved July 26, 2014.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Sergey P. Shishkin. "The Romanov Imperial dynasty in emigration XX century" ( Memento from August 28, 2006 in the Internet Archive ).
4. ↑ ^{a b} Императорский Орден Святой Великомученицы Анастасии . imperialhouse.ru. August 20, 2010. Retrieved July 26, 2014.
5. ↑ Elisabeth Binder. A prince for china . The daily mirror. December 15, 2004. Retrieved July 26, 2014.
6. ↑ The Russian Imperial Family: executed - canonized - rehabilitated ( memento of July 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ). arte.tv. May 26, 2010. Retrieved July 26, 2014.
7. ↑ ^{a b} Imperial family lacks money for an apartment in Russia . Russia News. January 15, 2010. Retrieved July 26, 2014.
8. ↑ Kai Strittmatter. Peak of the hereditary enemies . Southgerman newspaper. May 17, 2010. Retrieved July 26, 2014.
9. ↑ "В Марфо-Мариинской обители состоялась вторая церемония награждения Импераждения Императорским Орделаторским Орденом Свасин" . mmom.ru. October 23, 2013. Retrieved July 26, 2014.
10. ^ Appeal of Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna to Help Build a Monument to Holy Martyr Patriarch Germogen in Moscow . January 4, 2012. Retrieved July 26, 2014.
11. ^ Archbishop Kyrill is Awarded the Imperial Order of St Anne, 1st Degree . Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (website). June 1, 2013. Retrieved August 12, 2014.
12. ↑ Power and misery - 400 years of the Romanov dynasty: Russia recalls the splendor of the monarchy, but also the murder of the tsar 95 years ago. . Saxon newspaper. July 17, 2013. Retrieved July 26, 2014.
13. ↑ Maria Romanowa: "The Tsar's House is not concerned with politics"  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Russia beyond the headlines. April 21, 2014. Retrieved July 26, 2014.  
14. ↑ Полномочный представитель Президента РФ в Крымском ФО О.Е. Белавенцев и прокурор Крыма Н.В. Поклонская сопричислены к императорским орденам. politikus.ru. July 24, 2014. Retrieved August 10, 2014.
15. ↑ В Покровском соборе Москвы состоялось награждение отличившихся в присоединении Крыма к России . tv-soyuz.ru. July 24, 2014. Retrieved August 10, 2014.
16. ↑ Великая Княгиня Мария Владимировна Романова. Irkutsk State University (website). August 1, 2014. Retrieved August 12, 2014.
17. ^ Dynastic Succession . Archived from the original on June 9, 2009.
18. ↑ «Слово пастыря». Выпуск от 9 марта 2013 года . patriarchia.ru. March 9, 2013. Retrieved July 26, 2014.
19. ↑ Even Frederick the Great had spotted in his memoirs of 1775, about the occupation of the Tsarist throne decide the Preobrazhensky Regiment . To this day, Russian policy is under the formative influence of leading circles in the security forces.