Felix Yusupov and Grand Duke Dmitriy Pavlovitch

[valmont]

I read somewhere that Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich Romanov and Prince Felix Yussupov  did not remain friends in  exile. Did Felix Yussupov and Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich Romanov ever saw each other again?.
Does anyone know that reason(s) why the split appart?

[sushismom]

It's my understanding that GD Dimitri was upset that Yussupov broke their promise and talked about Rasputin's murder. I don't know if they ever did see each other, but considering the Yussupov's wife was a relative it's certainly possible. Hopefully someone with more knowledge about this can let us know.

[valmont]

Well, I read  a letter from GD Dimitri to Felix Yusupov yesterday in the Alexander palace site, and in that letter, GD Dimitri is practicly begging Fellix to write him back. It is obvious they were very close friends, and  you can actually feel  the closeness between them when you are reading that letter.
Is there any information regarding further contac between them after the revolution??

[csp]

I red somewhere that Gran Duke Dimitri was in love with Felix's wife (Gran Duchess Irina). Is that true?

And I also red that there were rumors about an homosexual relation between the two. Where can I have that information?

[JamesHogland]

For a very thorough account of the life of Felix Yusupv, his supposed homsexuality (there is contention as to whether he was homosexual, bi-sexual, or just a transvestite), his relationship with the Grand Duke Dimitri Pavelovich, and their relationship after the revolution, and a good account of the murder of Rasputin, try the book "The Man Who Killed Rasputin" by Greg King. King and Penny Wilson have also just written a new book "The Fate of the Romanovs" which captures the day to day life of the imperial family in the House of Special Purpose, and gives a bloody, dramatic account of the murder. In his book on Yusupov King dicusses the question of just who took part in the murder of Rasputin. The Grand Duke is suspected of doing the actual shooting and this was covered up to protect the imperial family, Yusupov taking the blame. It also discusses the fact that the Grand Duchess Elizabeth might have played a more important role than has been mentioned before. New documents indicate that a number of members of the Romanov family were involved in the plot.

[cfaye]

After the revolution Dmitri, Yussupov and Dmitri's sister, Marie all ended up in London and she writes in her memoirs, A Princess in Exile: "Felix tried to resume his friendly relationship with my brother but in spite of all his efforts he did not succeed in doing so........ Dmitri was revolted by Yussupov's lighthearted attitude towards the event of which he himself never had spoken, and could not forgive his chatter. The silence he himself continuously observed on the subject made me believe that he had never lived down this tragic and resounding affair, in which he had taken part only in hope of averting an impending revolution.  Dmitri avoided Yussopov, but I and my husband continued to see him."  

[sushismom]

I take with a grain of salt anything GD Marie says. In my opinion she was a spoiled brat and thinks nothing of telling lies to further her own cause.

[cfaye]

well, aren't most princesses spoiled brats (all those feathered hats and faberge...) I realize this topic is about Felix and Dmitri but really such an attack on Marie is uncalled for.  What is your reasoning to judge her so harshly?  She makes it very clear in her memoirs, which are quoted extensively in many books and biographies on the period, that she still socialized with Felix and Irena in London and Paris but her brother would have nothing to do with him, he was disgusted by Felix, by the way he capitalized on what was for him an act of honor and duty to their country not common talk and cabaret. Why should her saying that be taken with a grain of salt?  What cause is she serving?  Loyalty to her brother? The survival of the the survivors?  

[sushismom]

Her memoirs when compared to others makes me believe this, along with her actions themselves. Sorry you feel it's an attack on her, but that is my opinion and my belief.  I've read just about all the books available on the Romanovs (the ones in English, that is) and have drawn my conclusions of her through them - not just one book, but all of them.

[Forum Admin]

Without entering an opinion about Marie's books, I was most privileged to have known a genuine Princess from Moscow who was about 15 when she and her family escaped the Revolution to Paris (she would never reveal her true age, even to her daughter).  She passed away years ago at about age 92.  A charming, elegant and truly aristocratic lady in the most positive sense of the word with crystal clear memories of Moscow and the aristocracy she grew up in.  She and GD Marie were close friends after the Revolution and remained so until Marie's death. She described Marie to me in only the most positive of terms...and this lady would have definitely have made her true feelings clear! She pulled no punches, but was always "discrete" in her speaking.  I never got any sense of Marie being a "brat" or lying to further her cause, from this lady who knew her well. Just my 2 cents second hand, as it were.

[BobAtchison]

She did have a chip on her sholder when it came to Grand Duchess Elizabeth.  Between Sergei and Elizabeth she preferred Sergei.  GD Marie says Elizabeth was cold and distant.

I personally found her descriptions of Alexandra rather cruel and ungrateful, since Nicholas and Alexandra did so much for them, including taking them in and providing apartments for them in the palace.  It seems to me that GD Marie purposefully distances herself and her brother from Nicholas and Alexandra in her books.  They both (and especially Dmitri) spent lots of time with the family - practically living with them for weeks at a time.  You would never know this from reading GD Marie's books.

To face facts, both Dmitri and Marie betrayed Nicholas and his wife after 1916.  They were involved in and encouraged conspiracies against them when both had sworn oaths of loyalty to the Tsar.  One can make excuses for this, that conditions in the country drove members of the Tsar's own family to this, but I think it was opportunistic and dishonest.

[cfaye]

Who was really betrayed.  Nicholas and Alexandra went to great lengths to shame Grand Duke Paul when he decided to marry his second wife.  Marie and Dmitri were not allowed to follow their father into exile.  Sergei and Ella were too into their own worlds of misery and duty to foster little more than cursory victorian child raising customs on these children whose exsitence reminded them daily of their father's liberation from the rules and regulations and dreadful duties of the familgia Romanov. After the assasination of Sergei, Ella became more and more isolated in her religious fervor and by then Alexandra was going crazy over "baby" so who was really there for either child.  

Marie was still a girl when she was married off to the Swedish prince and were it not for the war would probably have been as harshly treated as her own father had been for breaking up her miserable marriage. It was to her own father that she finally went when she left the prince.  Her own father who believed it was his duty to return to Russia at the outbreak of war and do what he could for family and country.

It is at this point you say Dmitri and Marie started to betray Nicholas and Alexandra.  I think it was at this point that they realised what they had been deprived of by their judmental and vindictive Uncle and Aunt: a loving, intelligent, vibrant family and present father. Nicholas and Alexandra felt betrayed because Marie and Dmitri chose their father and his "unworthy" wife over them.  In addition Grand Duke Paul and Princess Paley had an active salon which drew family and statesmen alike who were concerned at the turn the court was taking and how profound the influence of Rasputin and his ilk had become.  Alexandra was furious about these goings on and was aware that the family thought Nicholas should lock her up in a convent for the sake one and all so she isolated Nicolas from their reasonings and threw everyone who came to try out of the palace including her own sister.

Though they may seem to have been disloyal, Dmitri's patriotic assasination of Rasputin and the extreme exile that saved his life as well as Marie's post-mortem memoirs only confirm the tragic and inevitable facts of Nicholas and Alexandra's responsibility and complicity in their own fates, the fates of their children and many others in their family including The Grand Duke Paul who was shot with some other Grand Dukes and Ella who was thrown down a mineshaft with Marie and Dmitri's half brother among other relatives.  

[sushismom]

Thank you, Bob for so eloquently expressing my exact opinions on GD Marie. Perhaps spoiled brat was a bit extreme but that is how I feel about her.  I wonder what her first son thought about her?

[Nick Nicholson]

Dear All,

I read with great interest the string regarding Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna (the younger).

I'm afraid that I have always felt a certain degree of sympathy for Maria.  The early death of her mother certainly affected the way she was treated by her father--many biographies (except MP's own...) mention that Paul treated his children with distance after the death of his wife, finding them a painful reminder.  GD Paul was also very familiar with the House laws of the Imperial Family, and was certainly aware of what would happen in the case of  morganatic marriage.  To choose that over his children, was acually quite selfish, and Marie's golden recollections of her father and her own childhood have often struck me more as wishful thinking and revisionism than as fact.

On Marie's wardship to Sergei and Ella, I am afraid that MP's description of Ella's coldness have less to do with Ella's personality, than a young wife's reaction to her own marriage and surroundings.  Though Ella was devoted to Sergei, his homosexuality precluded a normal marital relationship, and I am certain that her disappointment was aimed at the wards she didn't really want, and who reminded her that she would probably have no children of her own.

Marie's arranged marriage was unhappy, and her adult life was marked by very serious depression, which ultimately resulted in her suicide.  I would hesitate in calling her "spoiled" or judging her in any way; she was surrounded by unhappy people, and had a life filled with little joy.  She blamed her unhappiness on her father's absence, and certainly blamed the Emperor for that, when in fact, it was her father's own doing -- and that is a bitter pill to swallow.

Best,   Nick

[David]

I quite agree with Nick. Marie actually was one of the few royal women to actually get out and work after the revolution. True, she was lucky enough to have a yearly stipend from the King of Sweden to help make ends meet, she nonetheless made some attempt at finding a purpose in life. Be it working for Chanel or on the lecture circuit, the GD Marie didnt just sit around and wait for restoration. While she definately wouldnt have won mother of the year, she was a far cry better than any of the Grand Dukes that got out. I am wondering if anyone knows if Dimitri and Maries rooms were in the Alexander or Catherine Palace> I seem to recall reading they were in the Catherine, in which case there familial connection with the Emperor and Empress might be more superficial than it first seems. The point that the children did in effect loose their father due to the banishment of Pauls morganatic marraige is well taken. Remember that they never did fully get him back. Even when permitted to return to Russia with Princess Paley, their was alot of jealousy between the old and new family. The Princess Paley had a particular grudge against Dimitri, and I recall reading a letter she had written to Paul scolding him for wasting a good bottle of champagne from their cellars on his son!