Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna: Current Claimant to the Throne 1: 2003 - Oct 2006

[BeatrixFan]

I agree with you Toledo. She says quite clearly that she has no time for the other claimants because they do nothing for Russia at all. Maria does and she gives dignity to the name of Romanov.

[Benjamin]

This website has a list (towards the bottom of the page) of the dynastic orders of which either Maria or Leonida is Grand Master.

[BeatrixFan]

Wow. Thanks for that link Benjamin. Also, it was interesting to see Leonida being referred to as the Dowager Empress but when I think about it, of course she is.

[Benjamin]

Decree of the Head of the Russian Imperial House, H.I.H. Grand Duke Wladimir Kirillovich, on the Recognition of the Royal Rank of the House of Bagration, 22 November/5 December 1946

Source: http://www.imperialhouse.ru/

Decree of the Head of the Russian Imperial House, H.I.H. Grand Duke Wladimir Kirillovich, concerning His Marriage to H.R.H. Princess Leonida Georgievna, the Daughter of the Head of the Georgian Royal House, H.R.H. Prince George Alexandrovich Bagration of Moukhrani, and Concerning the Granting to Her, the Pious Grand Duchess, the Title Imperial Highness, 31 July/13 August 1948

Source: http://www.imperialhouse.ru/

Decree of the Head of the Russian Imperial House, H.I.H. Grand Duke Wladimir Kirillovich, on the Birth of His Most August Daughter, H.I.H. Grand Duchess Maria Wladimirovna, 10/23 December 1953

Source: http://www.imperialhouse.ru/

Decree concerning the Curatorship of the Imperial Throne of All the Russias in the Event of the Death of the Head of the Russian Imperial House, H.I.H. Grand Duke Wladimir Kirillovich, 10/23 December 1969

Source: http://www.imperialhouse.ru/

Decree of the Head of the Russian Imperial House, H.I.H. Grand Duke Wladimir Kirillovich, to the Head of the His Imperial Highness’s Chancellery Concerning the Entry of the Name of the Newborn Grand Duchess Maria Wladimirovna into the Genealogical Book of the Russian Imperial House, 10/23 December 1953

Source: http://www.imperialhouse.ru/

[Toledo]

Thanks Benjamin.
I wonder if any of the other clans have their own website to 'force' their claims over Maria's. I've seen the official (?) Romanov site where Maria is considred a blue blood pariah but these other Romanovs spent more time attacking her than pressing public interest in the restoration.

[BeatrixFan]

And thats why Maria is the best gal for the job IMO. She isn't interested in family politics - she just wants to do something for Russia and bring back a little dignity and respect for the Imperial House and thats something that the rest of them wont do and don't seem to like doing, mainly because Nicholas Romanov is a republican. But even though he's a republican, he still goes all out to tear Maria to shreds and to assert his claim as Head of the Romanov Family.

[Toledo]

Speaking of Maria, anyone has any news if her son is getting married pronto?

[BeatrixFan]

I did hear a rumour that he was linked to a German Princess but I didnt hear anymore.

[Benjamin]

You're welcome, Toledo:) .

Yes, I believe that the site you are referring to (The Romanoff Family Association) is the official site of Nikolai and his brother Dimitri and probably many of the other morganatic Romanovs who don't bear titles. Nikolai, of course, says that he is the President of the RFA and Head of the Romanoff Family (note that he doesn't claim to be the Head of the Imperial Dynasty, he, knowing that he has no dynastic rights anyways, convienently claims that the dynasty died with Wladimir). We must also remember that Nikolai is a republican, as BeatrixFan has already said, which makes me wonder why he even claims that (nonexistent) princely title .

By the way, Nikolai also has this website as well (promotes some book of his or something like that): http://www.nikolairomanov.com/index.html.

[Toledo]

That's the site! Thanks, Benjamin.

[BeatrixFan]

I wonder if Maria will ever move to Russia permanently? Or at least take a residence there as well as having her houses in France and Spain.

[lord_rankin]

Originally Posted by BeatrixFan

I wonder if Maria will ever move to Russia permanently? Or at least take a residence there as well as having her houses in France and Spain.

She should it would help her cause so much if she became as visible as possible to the people of Russia. Residing in another country looks bad especially to Russians who are historically fanatic about there homeland.

[Benjamin]

Hello lord rankin :)

Grand Duchess Maria was posed that question by an interviewer in 2005. Below is the exchange:

INTERVIEWER: The question many people are asking today is: why do members of the Russian Imperial House live outside Russia? Have the Romanovs not yet forgiven Russia for their exile? Or is it that life is more comfortable abroad?
MARIA: Let Me begin with the fact that it was not Russia that exiled us, but the political regime that came to power by means of a coup. To those who debate the comfort of our exile I could suggest that they try it themselves, but I would not wish such a fate on them. If I were a private person, guided only by my own wants and desires, I could have returned to the Motherland at any time. But as the head of the Russian Imperial House, I am duty-bound to preserve its dignity. If that dignity were to be lost, then what service could we ever hope to offer Russia? Therefore, before we return home permanently, it is necessary that the state determine its relationship to Our dynasty.

Source: Imperial House

[magnik]

I don't know if it was posted before:
The Russian Imperial Succession http://www.chivalricorders.org/royal...a/russuclw.htm

and
"The next member of the family in terms of primogeniture was Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich. However, some argue that because Kirill's mother had never converted to Orthodoxy all three of her sons were ineligible to succeed. Furthermore, some argue that even if Kirill was entitled to succeed as heir, his children were not, because Kirill was married to a first cousin and married her without permission of the Emperor, and furthermore swore loyalty to the Duma before Nicholas II had abdicated, and all these factors are seen by some as prohibiting the accession of Kirill's descendants. While many people eventually recognized Kirill as heir, others persisted in believing that Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich was the rightful heir.
Currently there are no surviving male members of the family born of equal marriages. It is said that unless a member of the family makes an equal marriage, with the permission of the Emperor, the issue of that marriage is not eligible to succeed. This raises the question: if it's unclear who is the Emperor, how can his permission be obtained? For instance, the late Prince Paul Dimitrievich Ilyinsky is considered to be the product of an unequal marriage; but, if Grand Duke Kirill was ineligible to succeed, then Grand Duke Dimitri himself was the head of the house when he married, and needed no one's permission to do so, and it can be argued that the head of the house can marry whomsoever he pleases.
Lastly, though few members of the Romanov family ever seem to care about this, they all appear to be dynasts of the old duchy of Holstein-Gottorp, through their ancestor Emperor Peter III, and thus entitled to call themselves Princes of Holstein-Gottorp."
From http://pages.prodigy.net/ptheroff/gotha/russia.html

[magnik]

"Wladimir died in 1992 leaving an only daughter, Maria, whom he had titled Grand Duchess of Russia and declared "Guardian of the Throne" in 1970. This decision might have been considered imprudent since at the time there were several living dynasts who, at least in theory, might have contracted alliances with Princesses of "corresponding rank" and fathered sons who would have enjoyed a prior right of succession. It was this action that led several dynasts, who had hitherto accepted the Grand Duke's authority as Head of the House without challenge, to join with the dissenting Prince Roman and protest at his action.
Following the death of Prince Vassili of Russia, the last male Russian dynast other than Wladimir himself, Maria was declared heiress to the throne by virtue of the succession law under which the Crown would pass to the nearest female dynast to the last male of the House. The position of the Grand Duchess Maria Wladimirovna as Head of the Imperial House is acknowledged by most serious Russian Monarchist organizations and by most of those Heads of Royal Houses which continue to maintain relations with the Imperial House.
At the same time, as is widely known, there is a dissenting position which denies that the Grand Duchess is a member of the Imperial House and that she cannot therefore be its Head. This view is taken by the "Romanoff Family Association" which is composed of most of the male line descendants of those Grand Dukes and Princes of Russia who enjoyed these titles at the time of the Russian Revolution but who made marriages which did not transmit dynastic rights to their issue. Although some of the members of the Romanoff Family Association bear titles which they had been given by the Grand Dukes Kyrill and Wladimir, none of them can be considered Russian dynasts. Nonetheless, they are each entitled to the titles of Prince or Princess of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, Heir of Norway, Duke or Duchess of Schleswig, Holstein, Stormarn and Ditmarschen, Count or Countess of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst
The present head of the Dynasty, Maria Wladimirovna, Grand Duchess of Russia, has one son by her marriage to Prince Franz Wilhelm of Prussia (which ended in divorce), the Grand Duke George. There is one other living Russian dynast, HSH Princess Vera Ivanovna of Russia, aged 92, sister of the late Prince Vsvevolode, who lives in New York. "
From: http://www.chivalricorders.org/royal...ha/russucc.htm

[Benjamin]

Originally Posted by magnik

There is one other living Russian dynast, HSH Princess Vera Ivanovna of Russia, aged 92, sister of the late Prince Vsvevolode, who lives in New York.

The article is for the most part correct, but on this it isn't.
The late Prince Vsevolod (1914-1973) didn't have a sister named Vera. His sister is Princess Ekaterina Ivanovna (b. 1915) who lives in Uruguay.

The late Princess Vera Constantinovna (1906-d. New York 2001) was Vsevolod's aunt.

Sources:
Theroff Gotha-Russia
Genealogy of the Imperial House of Russia

[branchg]

In my opinion, we can certainly accept Grand Duke Vladimir's right as the de-facto Tsar and Head of the Imperial House to elevate his daughter and wife to the rank and title of HIH Grand Duchesses of Russia.

But the fact remains that Leonida was not from a reigning, sovereign royal house, as defined by the Pauline Law, and the Bagrations were inscribed in the Fifth Book of Nobility in Imperial Russia. Unless Vladimir had formally changed the Pauline Law, there is no way the Russian throne would have passed to Maria after Vladimir's death.

The throne would have passed through the female line through his late sister, Grand Duchess Kira, to the German royal houses. Either HH Duke Paul Vladimir of Oldenburg or HR&IH Georg-Friedrich von Hohenzollern, Prince of Prussia, would have been the new Tsar, provided they were willing to convert to Orthodoxy and had married equally.

[BeatrixFan]

Vladimir was titular Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias. If he appointed his successor as Maria and made the way clear for her to become titular Empress when he died, then we have to accept that as his decision as Head of the Imperial House and as the Tsar-in-exile.

[branchg]

And Nicholas Romanov has even less standing than Maria could claim to be the de-jure Tsar. Not only is he unquestionably morganatic, but he has no title since his father never sought one from Grand Duke Cyril or Grand Duke Vladimir.

He has no standing to be a Prince of Russia with the rank of Highness.

[Benjamin]

There wasn't any need for Wladimir to elevate anyone. When he married Leonida she automatically become H.I.H. the Pious Lady Grand Duchess Leonida Georgievna of Russia, and when their daughter was born she was inscribed into the Genealogical Book of the Russian Imperial House (with a Grand Duke as a godfather and the Queen of Bulgaria as godmother). It wouldn't make any sense for Wladimir to have elevated a morganatic wife and daughter to Imperial rank, that just isn't how things are done.

You are correct that Leonida isn't from a reigning, sovereign house. She is from a formerly reigning, sovereign house that had been a reigning, sovereign house for over one thousand years (quite longer than the Romanovs). Formerly reigning houses are fine "equal" marriage material, Alexander III had wanted for his eldest son to marry Hélène d'Orléans at one time. And you're correct that her family was inscribed into Book of Nobility. However, the Bagrations were illegally (under the treaty with Ekaterina II) deprived (by the much loved Pavel ) of their sovereign status, which means that the events that transpired afterwards had no legal bearing.

For example, when Princess Tatiana Constantinovna married Prince Constantin Alexandrovitch Bagration-Moukhransky, Nicholas II asked Constantin to sign the marriage register as Prince of Georgia. It is true that Tatiana renounced her rights, however, she did so because she was marrying a foreign prince not because the marriage was morganatic. Tatiana's father, Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich, also made references in his diary that Nicholas II didn't consider Tatiana's marriage as unequal because the groom was descended from a formerly ruling house (see Greg King).

Wladimir also had to deal with the question of the equality of the Bagrations in the early 40s (before his own marriage) when he was asked by Ferdinand, Infant of Spain and Prince of Bavaria, concerning whether his Maria de las Mercedes, Infanta of Spain and Princess of Bavaria, would be contracting an equal marriage if she married a Prince Bagration-Moukhransky. Wladimir concluded that the marriage would indeed be equal (for the reasons I already gave). Therefore in 1946 Infanta Maria de las Mercedes contracted an equal marriage with Prince Irakli Bagration-Moukhransky, the only brother of Wladimir's soon-to-be wife.