Roman Petrovich Romanov

Prince Roman Romanov 1917

Roman Petrowitsch Romanow ( Russian Роман Петрович Романов ; * 5 October ^July / 17 October  1896 ^greg. At Schloss Znamenka , Saint Petersburg ; † 23 October 1978 in Rome ) was a Russian nobleman from the house of Romanow-Holstein-Gottorp .

Life

Origin and education

Roman Petrovich (left) with his mother and two sisters, 1898

He was the only son of Grand Duke Peter Nikolajewitsch Romanow and his wife Militza of Montenegro . Godparents were Tsar Alexander II , his paternal grandmother Alexandra Petrovna , his four-year-old sister Marina and, on behalf of his maternal grandmother Milena of Montenegro, Countess Yelisaveta Andrejewna Vorontsowa-Daschkowa.

Although he had been enrolled in the Vladimir Cadet School in Kiev since the fall of 1910 , for the next four years he was taught at home in Saint Petersburg according to the school's plans. In 1914, shortly after the outbreak of World War I, he actually went to Kiev to graduate from the cadet school and then to attend the Nikolai Engineering Academy.

Immediately before the final exam he contracted typhoid fever towards the end of spring, from which he recovered in the summer of 1915 in the Crimea . He then lived in the Caucasus , where his uncle Nikolai Nikolayevich had been appointed governor. The cadet school was credited to him as completed with the annual grades even without an exam.

As a flag boy he studied in Tbilisi from the beginning of 1916 , at the beginning of July 1916 he went to Kiev for a shortened practical training at the Alexei Engineering Academy, where he learned in particular fortress construction and topography .

Military service

On September 15 (Julian) 1916 he was appointed officer. In October he traveled to his unit, the First Caucasian Engineer Battalion. On the way he handed a message from his uncle to General Yudenich in Kars , after which he arrived at his battalion in Erzincan . From there he traveled to Alexandropol , where he was assigned to the Caucasian reserve battalion.

At his request, he was transferred from there to Tbilisi in November. At the beginning of December he arrived in Trebizond , in the vicinity of which he worked in January and February building coastal bases. In March he was ordered back to Tbilisi by his uncle. During the crossing on the destroyer Bystryj , the commander informed him that the Tsar had renounced the throne. For the first time he recognized "the importance of the events of which I had not the slightest idea in Trebizond."

In Tbilisi he learned that he was being attached as an orderly officer to his uncle, the highest commanding officer who had been reinstated by the tsar. In his uncle's special train he arrived at the headquarters in Mogilew , where Nikolai Nikolayevich was recalled as the highest commander the next day. Roman Romanov then also signed a resignation letter, which ended his only six-month military service.

He then spent two years with his relatives in the Crimea in Djulber. The first house search was carried out in April 1917 and this increased from the summer onwards. Roman and his relatives have been under arrest since the October Revolution . After weeks of tension, the Bolsheviks finally withdrew from the Crimea before the advancing Germans. After the end of the World War, however, they recaptured the Crimea, so that Roman and his relatives finally had to be evacuated by the British HMS Marlborough .

emigration

Roman Petrovich (right) with his son Nikolai and his father Grand Duke Peter in the 1920s

After a short stay in Italy, Roman and his parents settled on Cap d' Antibes in a house bought by Roman's father. Roman founded his family there. In 1936 he moved to Rome with his family. The family spent the time during the German occupation of Rome in World War II in hiding. From 1946 to 1951 he lived in Egypt and then returned to Rome.

In 1954 he began to write down his memories, exchanging letters intensively with his two sisters Marina and Nadeschda as well as other relatives. He could only complete the work about his life in old Russia , the planned book about his life in exile no longer came about. He himself did not live to see the publication because the publishers refused to accept the Russian manuscript without submitting a complete translation. It was not until his sons published the work in Denmark in 1991 in honor of the origin of the mother of the last tsar.

family

Roman Romanov married on November 16, 1921 in Antibes Praskowja Schermetjewa (1901-1980). The sons Nikolai (1922–2014) and Dimitri (1926–2016) result from the marriage .

proof

1. ↑ At the court of the last tsar , chapter Mogilew , p. 389

literature

• Prince Roman Romanow: At the court of the last tsar. The glamorous world of old Russia, edited by Prince Nikolai and Prince Dimitri Romanow. From the Danish by Lothar Schneider, 1991, April 2005 Piper Munich Zurich ISBN 3-492-24389-4

Web links

Commons : Roman Petrovich Romanov  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files