Princess Zenaida Yusupova - discussion and pictures

[brnbg aka: liljones1968]

I just love this beautiful painting Brian, thanks for posting it, doesn't she make the the most gorgeous Russian Princess?
..A

most definately  

[ashanti01]

Very pretty painting of Princess Yussupova



Princess Yussupova

[hikaru]

I have just read in the memoirs of the Count Scherbatov that Zinaida and Tatiana were not the real daughters of
Prince Yusupov because he was unable to have children.

Somebody heard about it?

[Athena]

Zinaida hat gray hair  

[Marc]

Who is the Lady standing with Zenaida in Michailovsky Palace?She looks to me like Grand Duchess Catherina Michailovna,but I may be wrong...

[lancashireladandre]

Who is the Lady standing with Zenaida in Michailovsky Palace?She looks to me like Grand Duchess Catherina Michailovna,but I may be wrong...

You were on the right track Mark, the lady is Princess Helena Georgievna of Saxe-Altenburg, Nee Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz,(she was a sister of the Duke who married morgatically Countess Carlow).Her mother was a Romanov while through her father she was a decendant of a brother of George III of England's wife Queen Charlotte and thus was able to secure passage for herself and various family members on the flottila of British naval ships ( Grafton,Nelson,Princess Ena etc) who accompanied the HMS Marlborough when the Dowager Empress left Yalta in April 1919.

[Marc]

Thank you for this info!Do you know what happened to Helene after the WWI?Did she keep in touch with the Yussupovs?

[lancashireladandre]

Sorry have no idea. Perhaps she came to England as her two Carlow neices who left the Crimea at the same time,settled in London.Katia who had 3 sons had married Prince Vladimir Emmanuelovitch Galitzine.They had an antiques shop which was patronised by Queen Mary -their kinswoman who promptly paid for any purchases.Katia was killed in an air raid in 1940.The other neice Maria had also married a Galitzine but very saly he had been killed in the civil war leaving her with a small girl and a baby born soon afterward.In the late 1920's ( in Chiswick, West London?)she married Count Kleinmichel who during her latter years acted as a comptroller for Grand Duchess Xenia. Will try to find out more......

[Marc]

Please do,I am very interested...

[Eddie_uk]

Hey are there any good biographys of Zinaida? i would love to read more about her, she seems fascinating!!!

[Annie]

Hey are there any good biographys of Zinaida? i would love to read more about her, she seems fascinating!!!

I don't think there are any books about just her, I'd like to find one!

[Annie]

Who became "star of St Petersburg society" after her?

It didn't last long after that. There was the 1905-06 revolution, Alexandra not wanting to entertain (the 1903 ball was the last in the Winter Palace), then the war and the revolution. There was still an active party life for a few more years, just not with the IF.  Felix wrote of how great the 1912-13 seasons were, the last great days before the end.

[lancashireladandre]

Hey are there any good biographys of Zinaida? i would love to read more about her, she seems fascinating!!!

There is no biography of Zenaida (though several on Felix).However Meriel Buchanan wrote a chapter on the Princess in her book "Victorian Gallery" published in the mid 1950's here in the UK.It is among the 4 or 5 books by the author who was the daughter of the British ambassador in St P till the revolution.They are usually available through libraries.The best descriptions of her life though are stll those in Felix's own 2 volumes of memoirs,despite a couple of inconsistences

[Valmont]

Who became "star of St Petersburg society" after her?

Well... Zenaida  retired from  social life after the death of her son Nicolai, then MF moved to Kiev, Alexandra  did not care much for entertaining... So I may take a Wild guess and say that Marie Pavlovna the elder (Michen) had the social stage all for herself.. Unfortunately,  It did not last long....But then.. I do not know when she also left St. Petersburg ....

Arturo Vega-Llausás

[lancashireladandre]

I don't think there are any books about just her, I'd like to find one!

Meriel Buchanan's "Victorian Gallery" was published in 1956 by Hutchinson. Two years earlier she had written Queen Victoria's Relations and later before her death in 1959 she wrote a memoir "Ambassador's Daughter".The Buchanan's knew Zenaida in Rome in the earliest years of the Princesses exile.