Prince Dmitri Alexandrovich of Russia

Prince Dmitri Alexandrovich
Born (1901-08-15)15 August 1901
Gatchina Palace, Gatchina, Russian Empire
Died 7 July 1980(1980-07-07) (aged 78)
London, England
Spouse Countess Marina Sergeievna Golenistcheva-Koutouzova
Sheila MacKellar Chisholm
Issue Princess Nadejda Dimitrievna
House Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov
Father Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia
Mother Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia

Prince Dmitri Alexandrovich of Russia (15 August 1901 – 7 July 1980) was the fourth son and fifth child of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia and Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia. He was a nephew of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia.

Early life

Prince Dmitri Alexandrovich Romanov was born at the Gatchina Palace, near Saint Petersburg, Russia on 15 August 1901. He was the fourth son and fifth child among seven siblings. His parents : Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich (1866–1933) and Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna (1875–1960) were first cousins once removed. Consequently, Prince Dmitri was the great-grandson of Tsar Nicholas I (from his father's side), also the great-great-grandson of the same Tsar Nicholas I (from his mother's one), the grandson of Tsar Alexander III and the nephew of Tsar Nicholas II.

During the Russian Revolution Prince Dmitri was imprisoned along with his parents and grandmother the Dowager Empress at Dulber, in the Crimea.[1] He escaped the fate of a number of his Romanov cousins who were murdered by the Bolsheviks when he was freed by German troops in 1918. He left Russia on 11 April 1919, at the age of seventeen, aboard the Royal Navy ship HMS Marlborough to attend to Malta where they spent nine months before settling to England.[1][2]

Exile

In exile, Prince Dmitri lived between England and France. He had a varied career. In the late 1920s he emigrated to the United States where he worked as a stockbroker in Manhattan. He returned to Europe in the early 1930s. For a brief period in the 1930s, he managed Coco Chanel's shop at Biarritz.

It was through Chanel that he met a Russian aristocrat who worked as model for her fashion house: Countess Marina Sergeievna Golenistcheva-Koutouzova (20 November 1912 – 7 January 1969). She was the second daughter of Count Sergei Alexandrovich Golenishchev - Kutuzov (1885 - 1950) and his wife Maria Alexandrovna, born Chernysheva - Bezobrazova (1890 - 1960). After the revolution, Marina and her family moved to Kislovodsk and later to Crimea, where her father served as head of the Yalta County. In August 1920 the family was evacuated to Istanbul and then to Paris. In the French capital, Marina began to work for Chanel.

Prince Dmitri fell in love with her and they married in Paris on 25 October 1931. The wedding attracted a lot of attention and the bride wore a Chanel wedding dress.[3]

The couple had one daughter :

During World War II, Prince Dmitri served as a lieutenant Commander in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, accompanying convoys from England to Murmansk.[4] He also participated in the evacuation of British troops from Dunkirk.[4] After the war, he became secretary of the travelers club in Paris.[4]

In 1947 he divorced Princes Marina who moved with their daughter to the United States. In 1949 she remarried Otto de Nefvillya (1898 - 1971), a descendant of a German aristocratic family. Marina Sergeievna Golenistcheva-Koutouzova died on January 7, 1969 in Sharon, Connecticut.

During the 1950s, Prince Dmitri studied wine-making and worked as the European sales representative for a whisky firm in London. As his ex-wife did, Prince Dmitri also remarried. His second wife was the Dowager Lady Milbanke, née Margaret Sheila MacKellar Chisholm (9 September 1898 – 13 October 1969). Born in Sydney, Australia, she was married, firstly, to Francis St Clair-Erskine, Lord Loughborough (heir to the 5th Earl of Rosslyn), and secondly, to Sir John Milbanke, 11th baronet. She married Prince Dmitri on 20 October 1954. No children were born of this marriage. The couple lived modestly in Belgravia, in central London. Princess Dmitri died October 13, 1969 and was buried in a chapel, near Edinburgh, next to her youngest son, Peter St. Clair-Erskine, who had died, at the age of twenty, in 1939.

Following the creation of the Romanov Family Association in 1979, Prince Dmitri was chosen as its first president serving until his death a year later in England.

Title and style

N.B. After the Russian revolution members of the Imperial family tended to drop the territorial designation “of Russia” and use the princely title with the surname Romanov.[5]

Ancestry

Notes

  1. 1 2 "Princess Xenia of Russia". The Daily Telegraph. 2001-08-23. Retrieved 2008-02-05.
  2. ↑ Royal Russia - The fate of the Romanovs: The Survivors
  3. ↑ "Chic Vintage Bride – Countess Marina". Chic Vintage Brides.
  4. 1 2 3 Beéche & Hall, Apapa: Christian IX of Denmark and his Descendants, p. 211
  5. ↑ Almanach de Gotha (186th ed.). 2003. p. 314. ISBN 0-9532142-4-9.

References

Prince Dmitri Alexandrovich of Russia
Cadet branch of the House of Oldenburg
Born: 15 August 1901 Died: 7 July 1980
Non-profit organization positions
New institution President of the Romanov Family Association
1979 - 1980 		Succeeded by
Prince Vasili Alexandrovich of Russia
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