ROMANOV FUNERAL OVERSHADOVED BY FAMILY FEUDS
July 18, 1998
By Michael Binyon, The Times, World News
Scores of descendants of the Romanov dynasty assembled yesterday at the graveside of the last Russian royal family in a gathering marred by the absence of key figures of the former ruling clan.
More than 50 members of the scattered family flew in from Western Europe, America and Australia in the largest assembly since 1913, when the Romanov dynasty celebrated 300 years of absolute power.
Two of its members who are most closely related to the last Tsar were conspicuously absent, however. Maria Vladimirovna, 45, who claims that her son is the heir to the throne, boycotted the ceremony, saying that it was not sufficiently dignified. Her son, Prince Georgi, 16, also stayed away; they attended a ceremony of remembrance conducted by the Russian Orthodox Patriarch at a monastery outside Moscow.
"It is a great pity that they are not here," said Prince Nikolai Romanov, 75, the stately French-born prince widely accepted as head of the family. He said the decision by the daughter and grandson of the late Vladimir Kirillovich was in bad taste. He acknowledged that there were deep splits in the family over rival claims, but added: "At least let us come together today without quarrels."
Prince Nikolai, who lives in Switzerland, was a key adviser to the Russian officials preparing yesterday's ceremonies. He makes no claim to the throne and says that any return to monarchy in Russia is unlikely and would be disastrous in the present situation. He is a great-great-grandson of Tsar Nicholas I and only a distant cousin of Nicholas II.
When Maria Vladimirovna's parents failed to have a son, her father declared her "Curatrix" of the Russian throne so that the claim could pass through her to her son. Under Romanov tradition the throne passed along only male bloodlines.
Prince Georgi is attending the British school in Madrid and his family want to enroll him in the military academy in Russia, the traditional training for a tsarist heir. Most other members of the family do not accept his claim, however, because his father, now divorced, was a member of the Hohenzollern Prussian royal family. Many Russians blame Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Germans for the catastrophe that overtook Russia and the Romanovs in 1917.
Other prominent family members who attended yesterday's ceremony include Prince Rostislav, a London banker and Yale graduate who is the grandson of Grand Duchess Xenia, sister of Nicholas II. Paul Ilyinsky, a more distant relative, is the great grandson of Tsar Alexander II, Nicholas's grandfather. He is Mayor of Palm Beach and is "absolutely not" interested in the throne.
Prince Michael of Kent was the only senior member of a European Royal Family to attend yesterday's ceremonies. He is a grandson of King George V, the Tsar's first cousin. He attended in a personal capacity, but said that the Queen had given her support and that his visit was funded by the Privy Purse.
The Prince said the ceremony was a milestone in Russian history. But he thought it sad and ironic that the Orthodox Church, for so long the bedrock of the people's faith, had found it difficult to give the ceremony the blessing the country had expected.
Prince Michael is a fluent Russian-speaker with extensive contacts and business interests in Russia, where he is a familiar and popular figure. His puzzlement at the stance of the Patriarch and the Church was echoed by most of the senior members of the Romanov family, although they were cautious about ascribing reasons for the Patriarch's failure to attend or to voice public blame.
