Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna and other claimants to the Throne 2: Oct '06-Jun '08

[DrosteSchattenburg]

Originally Posted by branchg

In reality, the rights passed after Vladimir's death under the strictest interpretation of the Pauline Laws through his sister, Grand Duchess Kira, who married Prince Louis-Ferdinand of Prussia. Her grandson, HH Duke Paul Vladimir of Oldenburg, is arguably the rightful heir.

If I got it right, the head of the imperial Russian family has to be an offspring of an equally and orthodox marriage, and the female Line is only considered if no male member of the family fulfils this qualities. Obviously no male living member of the Family satisfies the criteria of the strict Pauline laws.
Also a passing of the claim to the throne via Kira Grand Duchess of Russia to the Hohenzollern Family can be excluded, because this family is not orthodox.
To me it seems only one branch fulfils the Pauline Laws:
Helen of Russia (1882-1957), cousin of Nicolas II., was married to Nicholas of Greece and Denmark (equal in rank and orthodox).
They had three Daughters from whom one (I would think) married equal in rank and orthodox again: Olga of Greece and Denmark (1903-1997) married to Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (1893-1976). This couple had tree children: Alexander of Yugoslavia (1926- ), Nicholas of Yugoslavia (1928-54) and Elisabeth of Yugoslavia (1936- )
Quiet far fetched, but I wonder if not Alexander of Yugoslavia due to Pauline Law has got the best claim on the Russian throne.

[Jo of Palatine]

Originally Posted by DrosteSchattenburg

If I got it right, the head of the imperial Russian family has to be an offspring of an equally and orthodox marriage, and the female Line is only considered if no male member of the family fulfils this qualities. Obviously no male living member of the Family satisfies the criteria of the strict Pauline laws.
Also a passing of the claim to the throne via Kira Grand Duchess of Russia to the Hohenzollern Family can be excluded, because this family is not orthodox.

In some articles about the Pauline laws it says that the orthodox-rule is just for male dynasts marrying non-orthodox women.

The development of the Imperial House Statues from Paul I. to Nikolaus II. shows that each tsar changed some article or the other, adding annexes etc. So while one tsar may have decided against the equality of the Bagration of Georgia out of political reasons (Russia had annexed the kingdom of Georgia and negated the contract stating that the Bagration are Royality), the next one could well come to the reverse judgment on honouring that contract.

It's all up to the Head of the House IMHO - and the one to decide at the time of the marriage of Grand Duchess Maria's parents was her father, the bridegroom himself. Never forget that Tsar Peter the Great married a scullery maid (Catherine I.) and allowed her to become a empress regnant after his death. Empress Elisabeth adopted her nephew Peter of Holstein-Gottorp, even though his father had not been orthodox. And why are all the German dukes and princes of the minor branches of former Royal houses considered to be "equal" when the only difference between them and the Bagration is that the tsar could not annex their lands and not reduce them to just "nobility" -when Germany formed the empire of 1871 the German emperor (formerly king of Prussia) accepted the equality of the other rulers, though in fact he was the one to deal with external affairs from that moment onwards. Could have gone the other way round: with the tsar of Russia accepting the equality of the Bagration and the German emperor refusing it for his new subjects. The one is as absurd as the other! Because then Leonida would have been equal but the empress of Nicolaus II, Alexandra Fjodorowna of Hesse, wouldn't have been....

I wonder what the British Royal family thinks about all this? After all, Grand Duchess Maria is the great-great-granddaughter of queen Victoria, a granddaughter of a British princess, thus they should have an offcial opinion about it. Does the UK accept the claim of Grand Duchess Maria? She after all had married equally.

[BeatrixFan]

I don't think the British Royal Family have ever spoken about it. I think I saw a picture of Prince Michael with Grand Duchess Maria at the reburial and I did see a very small pic where she appeared to be kissing Princess Michael so I'd assume they don't ignore her.

[branchg]

Originally Posted by DrosteSchattenburg

If I got it right, the head of the imperial Russian family has to be an offspring of an equally and orthodox marriage, and the female Line is only considered if no male member of the family fulfils this qualities. Obviously no male living member of the Family satisfies the criteria of the strict Pauline laws.

The senior line is through Maria and she fulfills the criteria of the Pauline Law, with the only controversy being the status of the Bagrations. Since Grand Duke Vladimir ruled they were royalty as Head of House, it's a moot point.

[Marengo]

didn't emperor Nicholas II already aprove of the marriage of one of his cousins (of the Constantine branch) to a Bragation (and thus implicitely recognising them as equals)?

[Jo of Palatine]

Originally Posted by Marengo

didn't emperor Nicholas II already aprove of the marriage of one of his cousins (of the Constantine branch) to a Bragation (and thus implicitely recognising them as equals)?

No, he didn't. While he allowed the Grand Duchess to marry a Bagration, the marriage was considered morganatic with her kids having no claim to the succession. But it was still different from all other morganatic marriage, because this one was actually allowed by the emperor and he attended the wedding. Thus there are genealogists who explain Nicholas' reaction as due to the fact that Georgia was still upset about the annexation and Nicholas could not in this political situation accept a Bagration prince as equal. That would have been seen as encouragement for the opposition in Georgia. But he allowed the new princess Bagration and her husband to live at his court, which made it into the first morganatic marriage within the Romanow family where the punishment of exile for contracting a morganatic marriage (as stated by the Pauline laws) did not take effect. Thus it is thought that in fact Nicholas accepted the prince Bagration as Royality but couldn't do so openly. While his successor as Head of the house did it openly after the Revolution when it came to the Spanish marriage and the Bourbons wanted to have his opinion on it before agreeing to the marriage. That was before the Grand Duke himself married a princess Bagration but one can safely assume that he really meant it and could now, as an emperor in exile, act on it while his predecessor couldn't.

BTW - in 1946 a Wittelsbach-princess of Bavaria (daughter of a Spanish infanta) married as well a Bagration prince - thus one could safely assume that the Royal Wittelsbachs, the Royal Windsors, the Royal Bourbons and the Royal Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Gluecksborg have no problem with the Bagration being of Royal blood. IIRC there were other Bagration around at the court of Saxony and that of the Austrian emperor in Vienna who were treated as equals of the German Duodez-princes (which were considered to be equal in Russia by the Romanows). Goethe wrote about it in his diaries....

[branchg]

Princess Tatiana renounced her right to the imperial throne, but this was standard practice for Romanov females marrying a member of another royal house. The Tsar did not rule officially one way or another as to whether he considered the marriage morganatic, but he did assure Grand Duke Constantine privately that he did not.

There was no problem with relatively junior princes and princesses of the blood imperial marrying noblility and other princely families of good standing. The issue was Nicholas II refused to approve Grand Dukes marrying outside the Pauline Law. On that point, he was adamant.

[branchg]

Originally Posted by Marengo

didn't emperor Nicholas II already aprove of the marriage of one of his cousins (of the Constantine branch) to a Bragation (and thus implicitely recognising them as equals)?

It was not considered equal, but a marriage of good standing accepted by the Tsar for a princess of the blood imperial. If she had been male and a senior dynast, it would have been another story.

[Jo of Palatine]

Originally Posted by branchg

The issue was Nicholas II refused to approve Grand Dukes marrying outside the Pauline Law. On that point, he was adamant.

But that surely was a very political issue - the Romanows are not that old a family and the scandals surrounding them were impressive - from Peter the Great marrying a kitchen maid to Catherine the Great killing off her husband and then there's the paternity question of tsar Paul... The Romanows reigned more through the sheer force of their power and their political cunning when it came to dealings with their bojars than through legitimist issues like eg the Hanovers reigned in the UK. During their reign of Russia the Romanows saw the ancient kingdom of France go down the drain and they saw the nationalist movement change the face of Germany but they saw as well how secure their direct neighbors, the Habsburgs, had formed their empire on marrying. So surely for the tsars after Paul Royal marriages were not something that had to do with prestige or keeping their blood clean, but of political alliances. Thus they married their Grand Duchesses in as many Royal houses as they could find but were careful not to "socialise" too much with their own nobility (which had weakened the power of the monarch eg in the UK).

The Imperial House Statue aka the Pauline laws were made as much as other constitutional ukases to secure the reign of the Romanows. There simply was no other way for the Romanows during the times when they actually ruled. They couldn't have discussions about the status of their male dynasts, they couldn't have relatives from a Russian mother's side taking part in their political game.

But after the revolution this changed. Then a marriage to a princess Bagration was no political problem anymore and the Head of the House could decide to declare her as equal. I mean, only some years ago Dr. Otto Habsburg, current Head of the family of Habsburg-Lothringen, declared a commoner as "ebenbürtig" (equal) on her marriage into the family. The same happened in the Wittelsbach-family, when princess Kathrin Beatrix (formerly Miss Wiegand) was declared equal after close to 20 years of marriage, because the Wittelsbach have needed her firstborn son with prince Luitpold as their future Head of the family and so the current Head granted the young prince the right to succession on declaring the marriage of his parents as in accord with the House law.

House laws need to be changed sometimes if they should still fulfill their raison d'etre, they were there to guarantee the survival and the power of a noble family and when times are changing, they have to be adjusted. See the Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg-case, where the family goes against the stipulations of the will of a former Head of the House, who decreed that only noble and Aryan women are eligible for marriage. While queen Margarete of Denmark as aunt of prince Gustav could easily ennoble his intended, she can't make the girl into an "Aryan" - thus the house laws need to be changed in order to be according to current laws. The time of Racial laws in Germany is over for such a long time, thank God!

So what's good for the Habsburg or the Wittelsbach (or the Windsors with a future queen Camilla) should be good for the present day Romanows as well, IMHO.

[Black Cat]

That is possible to bring infinite amount of examples about enthronement. But practice shows, that in case of restoration monks in Russia, only the God indicate Tsar and only people will confirm that. Naive to believe, that the Russians will serve voluntary to overseas king or prince brought up far away from Russia, which one never understand expectations and hopes of people and hardly will be able to kept power (the last much more important). It will be very funny, if somebody will try to win the right to a throne through court.

[Benjamin]

Guestlist for the religious wedding of Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna of Russia and Prince Franz-Wilhelm of Prussia which occured in Madrid on 22 Sep 1976.

H.M. Queen Mother Geraldine of Albania
H.M. King Leka of Albania
H.M. Queen Suzani of Albania

H.I.R.H. Archduke Andreas Salvator of Austria, Prince of Tuscany

Princess Elena Bagration-Moukhransky (bride's grandmother)
Prince Irakly Bagration-Moukhransky
Prince Bagrat Bagration-Moukhransky and his fiancee, Doña Maria del Carmen Ulloa y Suelves

H.R.H. Dom Duarte, Duque de Bragança

H.M. Queen Mother Giovanna of Bulgaria
H.M. King Simeon of Bulgaria
H.M. Queen Margarita of Bulgaria

T.R.H. The Duque and Duquesa de Cadiz

H.M. Queen Farida of Egypt

The Duquesa de Franco and the Marquis de Villaverde

H.M. King Umberto of Italy

H.S.H. Fürstin Eilika zu Leiningen

T.S.H. Prince and Princess Aloys-Konstantin zu Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg

H.R.H. Duke Christian of Oldenburg
H.H. Duke Friedrich-August of Oldenburg

H.I.R.H. Prince Louis-Ferdinand of Prussia
H.R.H. Princess Karl Franz of Prussia (groom's stepmother)
H.R.H. Princess Alexandra of Prussia
H.R.H. Princess Désirée of Prussia

H.I.H. Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich of Russia (bride's father)
H.I.H. Grand Duchess Leonida Georgievna of Russia (bride's mother)

H.M. King Juan Carlos of Spain
H.M. Queen Sofia of Spain
H.R.H. Infanta Maria del Pilar, Duquesa de Badajoz and her husband
H.R.H. Infanta Margarita, Duquesa de Soria y Hernani and her husband

Other guests:
H.E. M. Jean-François Deniau and Mme. Deniau
Helene Kirby
H.E. Prince Nicolas Makaeff
H.E. Don Alberto de Mestas and his wife
The Count and Countess de Roany
H.E. Prince Nicolas Tchkotoua

Source: Point de Vue

[Benjamin]

Here are some links to articles about Georgiy's father, Franz Wilhelm.

¡Un príncipe en Panamá!
Si decidió ir hoy a la playa, preste mucha atención a su alrededor, podría toparse con un verdadero príncipe. ¡En serio! Es que la monarquía...full article
Source: El Panamá América (13-10-2002)
-------------------------
Príncipe de Prusia anuncia interés de invertir en Panamá
Un grupo de inversionistas de Europa se ha fijado en Panamá y durante los próximos meses visitará el país con el fin de iniciar las...full article
Source: La Prensa (13-10-2002)
-------------------------
Both articles are about FW's business trip to Panama in 2002.
They each contain a picture of the prince.

[Toledo]

25 December 2006
Moscow Patriarchate wants legal assessment of royal family's murder

...The issue of rehabilitation of the last Russian emperor found itself in the limelight after Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna Romanova filed a relevant request with the Prosecutor General's office on December 1, 2005...

[Benjamin]

Statement from the Head of the Russian Imperial House, H.I.H. Grand Duchess Maria Wladimirovna on the Death of Her Serene Highness, Princess Ekaterina Ivanovna (3/15/2007)

International Herald Tribune
Russian press review: March 15, 2007

IMPERIAL AFFAIRS: Exactly 90 years after Nicholas II, Russia's last czar, abdicated the throne, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, the head of the Russian Imperial House, said that the royal family hoped to be useful to Russia and its people, and to help the president remake the country into a strong and stable state. While acknowledging that 90 years of "anti-monarchy" propaganda had taken its toll, she said that, in principle, "a monarchy in the modern world has no less right to existence than a republic." She insisted, however, that the royal family chose not participate in politics on principle; the historic dynasty, she said, "should unite and not divide."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/15/new...russiapress.php

Moscow Patriarchate: Russia may some day become Orthodox monarchy

Moscow, March 28, Interfax - The Russian Orthodox Church believes contemporary Russian society does not feel any special piety toward the government, but cannot rule out the future emergence of an Orthodox monarchy in Russia...

http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=2804

[Will]

Originally Posted by Jo of Palatine

I wonder what the British Royal family thinks about all this? After all, Grand Duchess Maria is the great-great-granddaughter of queen Victoria, a granddaughter of a British princess, thus they should have an offcial opinion about it. Does the UK accept the claim of Grand Duchess Maria? She after all had married equally.

The GD Maria and her mother have been to tea with the Queen at Buckingham Palace; and QEII recognizes Maria as Head of the Imperial House and the legitimate claimant to the Russian Throne--most reigning Houses do.

The Russian government accords her the Head of House honor as well.

[Toledo]

Grand Duchess Maria continuing saga to rehabilitate the name of Czar Nicholas and his family:

Moscow court delays hearing on tsar family exoneration

(Excerpts)
MOSCOW, April 20 (RIA Novosti) - A Moscow court postponed until May 11 hearings of an appeal by a descendant of the Romanov family requesting that the murder of the last Russian tsar and his family be declared political repression...
...Both the Prosecutor General's Office and lawyers for Grand Duchess Maria have appealed against a November ruling of the Tverskoy Court, which ordered prosecutors to revise Maria Romanov's request to rehabilitate the tsar and his family, killed in 1918, as victims of political repressions rather than murder victims...

[Kelly]

Very interesting! I just happen to visit this subforum just to see what was up and I find myself with this. I previously loved to research everything I could about the last Tsar and Tsarina. About this topic I would like to add that I know very little about this GD but it would be nice to see a tsarina in Russia. However it is very unlikely in my opinion. There are so many factors I would think that might impede this. From what branch does she come from? Her claims are highly valueable but I am doubtful about "suggesting" (if this is the correct word to use) to the court to make her the monarch of Russia. I mean you don't see the exiled king of greece making such a request.

[Warren]

Originally Posted by Kelly

From what branch does she come from?

Here's one way of showing it:

Alexander II > Alexander III > Nicholas II
Alexander II > Vladimir > Kirill > Vladimir > Maria > Georgi

[HRH Kerry]

From what I've read Maria has the most legit claim.

[vladimperial]

if you want many recent photos go to Russian Imperial Order Austraila

double click the images on the media page