Princess Zenaida Yusupova - discussion and pictures

[valmont]

I read somewhere that  Princess Yussupova was able to flee to Yalta and then take a British ship with the remaining members of the  Imperial family. I saw a picture of her in exile while she was living in Italy, but  I have not been able to find anything regarding her life in exile. Where did she live?. What was her life like?, Did she share the same faith as Grand Duchess Vadimir who could not take her lost and died shortly after the revolution?, Where is she burried?

[Nikolai04]

The Yussupovs managed to escape from Russia and they lived in exile in Paris as most of russian "lucky" aristocrats did...I think France, basically Paris and the Côte d'Azur on the Mediterranean Sea(where for example Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaievich settled), was the top place where russian exiles ended living in... Maybe, because of the traditional alliance between the two countries...?

[Chris Snyder]

Did the Youssopovs manage to take any of their wealth with them into exile? They were considered to be the wealthiest family in Europe at the time.  I know some jewelry and a few paintings were taken out of Russia by them, but what of the rest of their fortoune?

[valmont]

Felix  was able to go back to St. Petersburg, and  hide two hundred and something diamond broches  and some art work from one of the Yussupov Palaces. As I said I have not being able to find anything regarding The Yussupov in exile, but I remember reading  something about Felix down to his last Kopeck making an scene at Christies were his Mother's jewelery was to be auctioned.
Being the Yussupov, the wealthies family in Europe at that time, the most logical thought, will be that they had some investments in other countries, but maybe the did not have anything outside Russia. Does anyone knows anything about this?

[Forum Admin]

Felix took two Rembrandt paintings with him, which are now in the National Gallery in Washington DC, as well as his mother's jewelry. He had inherited a small estate in France before the Revolution which he still owned, and was awarded a sizeable libel judgement in the early 1930s from MGM, as he found his portrayel in the movie "Rasputin and the Empress" objectionable.  They lived comfortably, but no where near what they had before leaving Russia.

[Forum Admin]

In "The Lost Fortune of the Tsars" William Clark writes that Nicholas II had repatriated his own money back to Russia at the outbreak of the War and expected all Russians to do the same. Prince Felix told an interviewer (Dr. Idris Taylor jun.) that his family had done as the Tsar wished, and had only an estate on Lake Geneva and an apartment in London which they had yet been unable to sell, the jewelry and valuables they carried and the two Rembrandts, after they left. (see pg 219-220)

[Nick Nicholson]

Unfortunately, the larger part of the Yusupov jewels were left behind in Russia, hidden by Felix in the palace the family held in Moscow (He describes this in "Lost Splendour," his recntly reissued autobiography.)  The jewels were discovered when a servant revealed their whereabouts.  A bolshevik era photograph of this cache (including two massive silver swans commissioned from Faberge) illustrated on page 125 of Alexander von SOlodkoff's "Masterpieces of the House of Faberge" (Abrams, 1984).

Prince Felix's wife, Irina (Born Princess Irina of Russia) had fortunately sent her vast collection of jewelry to Paris to be reset by Chaumet when they were exiled to the Crimea after the murder of Rasputin.  When they arrived in Paris, this collection is what sustained them for many years --- not the jewelry of Princess Zinaida, as far as I know.  I have also heard that several key pieces remain in the hands of the only surviving Yusupov descendant.

[valmont]

I understand the  decendent of the Yussupov lives in Grece, but  where is Pincess Zinaida Yussupova burried?
Does anyone has a picture of the house she lived in after she left Russia?

[NIck Nicholson]

Yes, the Iusupov descendant lives in Greece for part of the year.

Princess Zinaida died in 1923, and I am told that she is buried in the Russian Cemetery in Paris.

[Galina Alexander]

I remember reading somewhere that elder Yusupovs lived in Italy with their grand daughter Irina for a while. Yes, they are burried in St Genevieve de Bois(surely wrong spelling).

[wwwnyc]

The Princess died in Paris on 24 November 1939 and not in 1923 as someone at this site stated.

Excellent book (tons of photographs most of us have never seen before) on the Youssupovs is the one by Jacques Ferrard, the remarkable French genealogist who specializes in books on the princely families of Russia.

Full title is:  "Les princes YOUSSOUPOFF & les comtes SOUMAROKOFF-ELSTON, Chronique et Photographies", Paris, 1991.

I bought a copy several years ago at Galignani, a book shop on the rue de Rivoli in Paris.  Friend was in Paris last May and went there and bought a copy also.  I believe Galignani has a web site and you can probably order this book on line.

WWW

[NIck Nicholson]

FOrgive me.  I made a mistake in my posting regarding the death date of Zinaida Youssoupoff.  I was looking at a Russian text, and it was artist Francois Flameng who died in 1924 (He painted a famous portrait of Z.Y., at which I was looking.)  This is what happens when you don't double-check before writing.

Sorry!   Nick

[Jane]

I seem to remember reading (possibly in "The Flight of the Romanovs") that Felix and Irina Yusupov also started a couture house in Paris after the Revolution.  I think they called it "Irfe"--a combination of both of their names.  Has anyone else heard this?  

[valmont]

I just read the Biography on Princess Zinaida Yussupova by Greg King, and in a paragraph it says that P Zenaida Yussupova  and GD Elizabeth Feodorovna were very close friends, and  that closeness  was still strong by the time GD Elizabeth Feodorvna was killed, "the worst blow came when she learned that her close friend Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna had also been murdered, thrown down an isolated mineshaft in Siberia along with six others with whom she had been imprisoned."
Now, reading the letters that P Yussupova wrote to her son Felix, there is one dated on December 11, 1916, where she writes
"I do not like the celebrated "sister" [the Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna Romanov]. In my opinion, she poses most impudently as a member of the family. She calls Irina by her Christian name, and evcn "Tata"! I strongly object to her behaviour. When I visit Irina I constantly find her there, lounging in a chair, without in the least understanding that her presence does not interest me. She sports a kind of operatic costume of a Sister of Mercy, and generally spoils the whole atmosphere by her presence. Irina seems to accept it all as inevitable, whereas I simply cannot stand it. You will see for yourself soon, when you come home. "
To me, it seems like P Yussupova  couldn't stand  GD Elizabeth Feodorovna and they were not friends (at least not anymore) by the time GD Elizabeth Feodorvna was killed.  
So, Is the Biography incorrect??

[Greg_King]

When I wrote that they were close friend, I was referring to both their past associations and for the feelings, as Felix recalled, that his mother had on learning of the Grand Duchess's death.  I can't speak on the state of their relationship in 1916 except to say that they remained close enough that when Ella was trying to convince Alix to give Rasputin up, she first went to Zenaide and asked her to go to Tsarskoye Selo and speak to her sister-scarcely a request she would make of someone she disliked.

My sense is that it's a more complicated situation than mere like vs. dislike, as Ella was a woman of complex character, capable of great good and at the same time great selfishness-and Zenaide's letter may reflect some situation more akin to the latter than to the former.  But I have no evidence that Zenaide actively disliked Ella, ever.

Greg King