Historical Current Affairs Analysis

Grand Duke Vladimir Cyril Romanov- 1917 to 1992
Exiled Russian Imperial Claimant -1938-1992
By David Bennett

The seemingly entrenched nature of the Soviet Communist regime (1917 to 1991) was apparently confirmed by the absence from the 1940s onwards of any coherently organised anti-communist Russian émigré movements. A notable exception to this phenomenon was the existence of a viable Russian monarchist émigré movement throughout most of the Soviet era. This exception was all the more remarkable when one considers that in the early stages of Russia’s communist rule that the monarchist cause seemed to be the most marginalised of all the Russian anti-communist émigré movements.  This was despite the very recent fall of the Russian monarchy. How the Vladimir branch of the exiled imperial Romanov family defied this trend is testament to their courage, tenacity and ultimately the support they received from Russian émigrés. The qualities of courage and tenacity were demonstrated by the long-standing Russian imperial claimant, Grand Duke Vladimir Cyril Romanov.

His Imperial Highness, Vladimir Cyril was born on the 30^th of August 1917 in Burgo, Finland to which his parents, Grand Duke Cyril (Nicholas II’s estranged first cousin) and his wife, originally an English princess, Grand Duchess Victoria Melita, had fled to from Petrograd the preceeding month. Arguably as the most senior Romanov survivor, Cyril along with his family was in a precarious position and they left Finland (which neighboured Russia) for Germany in 1919. Due to attacks on the family by the German Communist Party, Cyril’s family left Bavaria in the mid 1920s and eventually established a Court in St. Briac, a small coastal town in western France in 1927 on the advice of the British Royal Family.

Asserting that he was the most senior surviving member of the decimated Imperial Romanov Family, Vladimir Cyril’s father proclaimed himself Tsar Cyril I in August 1924. Vladimir Cyril was accordingly elevated to the rank of Tsarevitch and his mother was accorded the title Tsarina. Although all surviving Romanovs (with the exception of Cyril I’s two brothers) refused to accept Cyril I’s immediate family as Russia’s new Imperial Family, they received strong support from Russian exiles around the world. This was primarily due to the extensive publicity that Tsarina Victoria Melita’s 1924 visit to the United States received. Ironically if the consort of a royal claimant were to visit the United States today it would receive negligible attention. But because the shock and horror of Tsar Nicholas II’s family demise in 1918 was still entrenched in public consciousness, Tsarina Victoria Melita’s visit to the United States was highly newsworthy. (President Coolidge reputedly absented himself from Washington so as to avoid Tsarina Victoria Melita).

Utilizing the flood of telegrams and correspondence from Russian exiles that was subsequently sent to Tsarina Victoria Melita on her return to Germany, she established an efficient secretariat that maintained contact with Russian exiles around the world. This secretariat and the relatively modest imperial court that was later established in St. Briac were supported by donations from Russian exiles. Shattered by his wife’s death in 1936, Cyril I died in1938.

Vladimir Cyril subsequently assumed his father’s imperial claim to the throne as ‘Grand Duke of Russia’. The Grand Duke briefly studied at the London School of Economics and then worked briefly as a mechanic in Britain under a pseudonym. Placed under house arrest by the occupying Germans following his return to France in 1940, Grand Duke Vladimir Cyril, although staunchly anti-communist, unambiguously refused to entertain any ideas of collaborating with the Nazis following their June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union.

Repatriated to Germany in 1944 Grand Duke Vladimir Cyril was liberated by the Americans in 1945 and following an invitation from Franco he departed for Spain. For the rest of his life Grand Duke Vladimir Cyril commuted between his residences in Madrid and St. Briac. In 1948 the Grand Duke married a Georgian princess, Leonida of Bagration-Moukhransky. The Grand Duchess was the wealthy widow of an American Jewish businessman, Summer Moore Kirby who had died in a Nazi concentration camp in 1945. Grand Duchess Leonida’s outgoing and warm hearted personality was a source of considerable support to Grand Duke Vladimir Cyril. Nonetheless his reign in exile was not without controversy, particularly when he changed the imperial succession laws in 1969 to name his sixteen year old daughter Maria as his imperial heir. (Previous imperial Romanov succession law had strictly forbidden female succession).

Although wealthy due to Grand Duchess’s Leonida’s inheritance, the imperial couple still received financial support from Russian émigré communities around the world. For them, the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess represented Russian resistance to Soviet communism. The Grand Duke was ably assisted by his long time chancellor, Ivan Bilibin. In contrast to other Russian émigré movements Grand Duke Vladimir Cyril was able to ward off KGB attempts to infiltrate the exiled Russian monarchist community. This was because it was based on close knit network of descendants of families that had fled Russia following the 1917 Revolution and the communist victory in the Russian Civil War in 1920.

Grand Duke Vladimir Cyril’s action of elevating his new German son-in-law, Wilhelm Franz of Prussia to the rank of a Russian Grand Duke on his marriage to Grand Duchess Maria in 1976 was opposed by descendants of the Imperial Romanov Family. These descendants also refused to recognize Vladimir Cyril’s claims to the throne. Nonetheless this royal marriage in 1976 was celebrated with great gusto. Crucially this marriage produced an heir, Grand Duke George who was born in 1982. Following his daughter’s divorce in 1985, Grand Duke Vladimir Cyril moved swiftly to secure custody of his grandson. On a happier note that year (and perhaps to strengthen his position as Imperial claimant in the wake of his daughter’s divorce) the Grand Duke attended a banquet at which the Russian Monarchist League was launched in London in 1985. The Grand Duke was naturally the guest of honour at this event, which was organised by Count Leo Tolstoy.

With the onset of limited political liberalization in the Soviet Union with Mikhail Gorbachev’s ascension to power in 1985 a few Russians begun to tentatively take a revived interest in their imperial past. Due to the horrendous suffering that communist rule had inflicted it was not surprising that this nostalgia took the form of grieving for the murdered Tsar Nicholas II and his immediate family. The city of Yekaterinburg where the deposed imperial family were butchered in 1918 (officially known as ‘Sverdlovsk’ during the Soviet era) in the Urals mountainous region subsequently became a place of pilgrimage that was visited by more people as the shackles of totalitarian control atrophied.

The extent to which Russia was moving away from its totalitarian present by embracing its imperial past was manifested in 1990 when the Russian Monarchist Party (which was reputedly founded secretly in 1924) surfaced that year. Grand Duke Vladimir Cyril established open contact with this party which intimated that it supported his imperial claim. This imperial claim seemed to receive a rousing endorsement in November 1991 when the Grand Duke visited Russia for the first time. His invitation came from the then mayor of St. Petersburg and then an avowed monarchist, Anatoly Sobchak. This official visit coincided with the anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik coup and the presence of the imperial couple was intended to represent the close of a dark period in Russian history. Russian monarchists were surprised and elated by the tumultuous reception and media coverage that this visit generated in Russia.

Sadly at the point when Grand Duke Vladimir Cyril was connecting with his people he died from a sudden and unexpected heart attack while on a lecture tour in Miami, Florida in April 1992. But in death the Grand Duke was officially accorded an imperial status by the Russian government when it granted him a state funeral. The man who claimed the Russian throne throughout most of his life was accordingly buried with Russia’s Tsars and Tsarinas in the Romanov imperial crypt in St. Petersburg in the Cathedral of Peter and Paul.

The majority of the descendants the Imperial Romanov Family, nearly all of whom live outside of Russia, have refused to acknowledge Vladimir Cyril’s daughter Maria as Grand Duchess of Russia. This refusal is not surprising as they had also refused to recognise Vladimir Cyril’s imperial claims. Instead these descendants have linked any on-going connection to their imperial heritage to a commitment to a charity, the Romanov Family Foundation. Membership of this foundation is open to descendants of the Romanov Imperial Family. This foundation is headed by an avowed republican, Prince Nicholas Romanov, who is based in Italy.

The foundation’s legitimacy as the depository of the Romanov family’s historical heritage is based on the wishes of Nicholas II’s mother, the Dowager Empress Marie who died in her native Denmark in 1928. Her Imperial Majesty made the telling point that monarchy can not be imposed on people. She accordingly willed that surviving Romanovs and their descendants should not style themselves as imperial claimants unless and until the Russian people actually recalled them of their own free will.

Those Romanovs that have given their allegiance to the Romanov Family Foundation are to be praised for wanting to do justice to the Dowager Empress’s wishes and for their democratic principles. However it should not be forgotten that Vladimir branch of the Romanov family pursued its imperial claims, not in spite of, but because of the popular support that support it received from Russian émigrés. Now that Russia has broken with its totalitarian past (although whether it can handle its authoritarian present remains to be seen) there is now support for a reinstated monarchy in Russia. This support is relatively small and it is credibly and currently estimated to stand at about 10% of the Russian population. (This figure approximately correlates with the proportion of practising Orthodox Christians in Russia today).

It would therefore be a dereliction of duty on Grand Duchess Maria’s part if she were to forsake those Russians that now support her cause by abandoning her imperial responsibilities. By persisting with her duty, Grand Duchess Maria can follow in the brave footsteps of her grandmother Tsarina Victoria Melita. In an amazing masterstroke the exiled Tsarina effectively reached out to Russian émigrés who remained loyal to the seemingly lost monarchist cause that had apparently been foresaken by most surviving Romanovs. In a similar vein, Grand Duchess Maria’s continued commitment to her imperial duty not only follows on in the tradition of her grandmother and father but ultimately honours the democratic intentions of the Dowager Empress Marie by keeping alive a cause that is supported by Russians who want to re-connect with their historical past.
Dr. Bennett is the Convenor of Historical and Current Affairs Analysis (HCAA), editor of Socail Action Australia Pty Ltd and the International Liaison Officer of the Australian Monarchist League (AML).