Prince or Grand Duke?

[moonlight_tsarina]

I have recently been wondering and am not too sure about this... Why were the children of a grand duke or duchess named prince or princess instead of also being bestowed the title grand duke or duchess? For example, Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna's daughter Irina was called a princess. Why is it so?

help me on this one here guys. haha.

[Sarushka]

Only the children and grandchildren of the tsar could be Grand Dukes/Duchesses. Nieces, nephews, and great-grandchildren therefore became princes and princesses.

[royaltybuff]

Only the children and grandchildren of the tsar could be Grand Dukes/Duchesses. Nieces, nephews, and great-grandchildren therefore became princes and princesses.

Interesting question, Moonlight. I have often wondered the same thing.

Sarushka, Princess Irina Alexandrovna was the granddaughter of Tsar Alexander III. Was she titled "Princess" because her grandfather died in 1894 before her 1895 birth? At her birth she would have been the niece of Tsar Nicolas II, so was it dependent on her relationship to the sovereign at the time of her birth?

[Sarushka]

I'll have to check Greg King's The Court of the Last Tsar. I believe at some point the titles were scaled back to spare the imperial treasury...

[Sarushka]

From page xi:

"In 1886, Alexander III restricted the use of grand duke and grand duchess to the children and the grandsons of an emperor; lesser members of the imperial family were thereafter titled a prince or princess of imperial blood." [my emphasis]


and page 233:

"To curtail this immense financial drain on his annual state income, Alexander III issued an imperial ukase that restricted the titles of 'Grand Duke" and "Grand Duchess," confining the use of "Prince and Princess of Imperial Blood" to great-grandchildren of emperors and their eldest sons."

[royaltybuff]

Wow, fast research, Sarushka! Thanks for the information! Now we know!

[mcdnab]

Irina Alexandrovna, was a great grandchild, in the male line,of an Emperor and as such was Princess of Russia. In the female line she was of course the grandchild of a sovereign but it was male line descent that dictated whether you were Prince or Princess or Grand Duke or Grand Duchess. Although her brother's births were greeted with the traditional gun salutes that would have been used to greet the birth of a Grand Duke (apparently at the Empress Dowagers insistance - mentioned i think in Xenia, Once A Grand Duchess - which I highly recommend)

[royaltybuff]

Thanks, mcdnab, on the book recommendation! I haven't read much about Xenia.

[moonlight_tsarina]

Wow, thanks everyone. Completely answered my question!

[LisaDavidson]

An interesting sidebar to this issue is the circumstances of KR's eldest son, John (Ioann) Constantinovich. Ioann was born in July 1886, 9 days before his cousin's Ukase. So, he was born a grand duke of Russia, and in a circumstance unprecedented in Russia, was stripped of this title scant days later, when he was downgraded to a Prince of the Blood Imperial.

His father, Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich, was known to be quite upset by this decision by cousin Alexander III, but could not change what the Emperor had ordered.

Ironically, the Constantinovichi, who once stood a chance of becoming the largest of Romanov branches (something A III undoubtedly was worried about as shown by his Ukase) became extinct in the male line upon the death of Ioann's only son, Prince Vsevelod Ioannovich in 1973.

[Vecchiolarry]

Hi,

No other family group suffered so great a lose of members than the Constantinovichi.
Sons - Only Gavril & George came out of Russia and they both died without issue.
Grandsons - Vsevold & Teymouraz survived but also died without issue.
Granddaughters - Catherine married Marquis de Villaforesta and had children and grandchildren but they are not Romanov dynasts
                      - and Natalia married Lord Johnston but I don't tink they had children.

Larry