Prince Rostislav Alexandrovich of Russia

Prince Rostislav Alexandrovich
Spouse Princess Alexandra Pavlovna Galitzine
Alice Eilken
Hedwig Maria Gertrud Eva von Chappuis
Issue Prince Rostislav Rostislavovich
Prince Nicholas Rostislavovich
House House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov
Father Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia
Mother Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia
Born 2 November 1902
Ai-Todor, Crimea, Russian Empire
Died 31 July 1978 (aged 75)
Cannes, France

Prince Rostislav Alexandrovich of Russia (2 November 1902 – 31 July 1978) was a member of the Imperial Family of Russia.

Russian prince

Prince Rostislav Alexandrovich was the son of HIH the Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich ‘Sandro’ (1866–1933) and HIH the Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna (1875–1960). His parents were first cousins once removed. Consequently Prince Rostislav was the great-grandson of Tsar Nicholas I (from his father's side), also the great-great-grandson of the same Tsar Nicholas I (from his mother's one), the grandson of Tsar Alexander III and the nephew of Tsar Nicholas II.

During the Russian Revolution Prince Rostislav was imprisoned along with his parents and grandmother the Dowager Empress at Dulber, in the Crimea.[1] He escaped the fate of a number of his Romanov cousins who were murdered by the Bolsheviks when he was freed by German troops in 1918. He left Russia in December 1918 aboard the Royal Navy ship HMS Marlborough for Malta where they spent nine months before moving to England and later settling in Cannes, France.[1][2]

Family

Rostislav was married three times. He married first Princess Alexandra Pavlovna Galitzine (7 May 1905 – 5 December 2006) on 1 September 1928 in Chicago. They had one child before divorcing in 1944. She remarried to Lester Armour.

Rostislav married Alice Eilken (b. 30 May 1923) on 24 November 1944. The couple had one child before they divorced on 11 April 1951.

Rostislav married Hedwig Maria Gertrud Eva von Chappuis (6 December 1905 – 9 January 1997) on 19 November 1954. No children were born of this marriage.

It is often alleged that Rostislav's marriage with Princess Alexandra Galitzina would have been morganatic. However, Pieter Broek at the Wayback Machine (archived February 12, 2002) holds that it was as acceptable dynastically as the Bagrationi marriage of Vasili's cousin, Vladimir Kirillovich. Since the extinction of the Korecki family in the 17th century, the Golitsyns [Galitzin] have claimed dynastic seniority in the House of Gediminas. The Gediminids were a dynasty of monarchs of Grand Duchy of Lithuania that reigned from the 14th to the 16th century and Emperor Peter I had permitted the Golitsyns to incorporate the emblem of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into their coat of arms.

Title and style

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.[4]

Ancestry

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Princess Xenia of Russia". The Daily Telegraph. 2001-08-23. Retrieved 2008-02-05.
  2. ↑ Royal Russia - The fate of the Romanovs: The Survivors
  3. ↑ Deaths
  4. ↑ Almanach de Gotha (186th ed.). 2003. p. 314. ISBN 0-9532142-4-9.