I’ve long been interested in pre-revolutionary Russia, and was wondering–are there any surviving members of the Romanov family (the Russian royal family) and if so, who would be czar in the unlikely event the monarchy were restored today?
Rachel Newstead
Our resident expert on the Romanovs is guinastasia but she hasn’t posted for a few days now. I hope she returns soon as she should know.
Believe it or not, the Romanov heirs vigorously dispute who holds the nonexistent imperial title. See http://www.times.spb.ru/special/tsar/romanovs.htm for a brief introduction.
When Nicholas II, his son, and his brother were executed in 1918, the succession passed to his cousin Cyril, and upon his death in 1938, to his son Vladimir. After that it gets murky. Vladimir had only a daughter, so he changed the law of succession to allow a woman to become czar. Can someone not in power change the rules? Also, I believe there are disputes about the “legitimacy” (for purposes of succession) of children born to commoner and non-Orthodox spouses.
Guin is on a self-imposed sabbatical from the board to try to get some more order into her real life. Perhaps somebody who knows her in real life could ask her to slip in and post the answer here.
It’s always been Russian law that the incumbent Autocrat is entitled to define the law of succession. Whether Vladimir as the legitimate incumbent (if it were not for those Bolshies) could make that change is the question at point. I believe his daughter’s name is Marina; I do recall that she has enough haughty attitude to equip about a dozen absolute monarchs. And she would be the heir(ess) to the Russian throne is Vladimir did have the power to make that change.
For one point of view giving details of the laws of succession and their interpretation:
An opposing point of view:
http://members.surfeu.fi/thaapanen/st01.html
Supported by the Romanoc Family Association: http://www.regalis.com/romanov.htm
Wasn’t Catherine the Great officially a czar, or at least ruler of Russia? When did the law change to dis-allow females from the title? Or was Catherine never a legitimate ruler?
According to Russiam Imperial Succession:
“Emperor Paul I (Summer Palace 1 Oct 1754-murdered at Summer Palace 24 Mar 1801) in 1797 promulgated succession laws which were very Germanic in their insistence upon equal marriages but “un-Germanic” in their modification of Salic law. The laws state that the succession will pass solely to male dynasts until the death of the last male dynast, in which event it will pass to the female dynast most closely related to the last emperor.”
(Italics are dates added by myself.)
However, Catherine was 2 generatations earlier, the wife of Peter I, and I have not been able to find references to the laws which were current during Peter’s time.
A fairly complete genealogy can be found here: http://pages.prodigy.net/ptheroff/gotha/russia.html
(Sorry for the typos above - I tend to type too quickly.)
From this source (sorry, Tripod site, expect pop-ups), it seems that Catherine usurped the throne and proclaimed herself empress.
>> Wasn’t Catherine the Great officially a czar, or at least ruler of Russia?
I believe the correct title for a female czar is czarina?
Nope, a czaritza.
The controversy over the legitimate heir to the (nonexistent) Russian empire is quite involved, but I tend to go with the supporters of Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna Romanova and her son Grand Duke Gyorgy Romanov-Hohenzollern. They seem to have the clearest claim, though there is some question over whether the marriage of Maria’s parents was equal (her mother being a Bagration princess of Georgia).
.:Nichol:.
“THE DUKE OF DUBUQUE”
I’m known near and far
as the cousin to the Czar
I’m the Duke, Duke of Dubuque
It’s well understood
that my credit is no good, no good, no good
I’m the Duke of Dubuque
And if you don’t believe me, and tell me it ain’t true,
I’ve only got one answer,
that answer’s “;mush”; to you!
Now, au revoir, I must write the dear old Czar
I’m the Duke, Duke of Dubuque
I’m descended from the Romanovs in Russia
In the books my father was Czar in Russia
But he sailed away one day
to the state of Ioway
And that’s how you’ll find me in the USA
I’m the crackers, I’m the cheese
Yeah, call them Wolfhounds, if you please
Yes, I’m the Duke, I’m the Duke of Dubuque
No pork chops, no gravy for me
some legbones and black-eyed peas
Yes, I’m the Duke, I’m the Duke of Dubuque
And if you don’t believe me, and tell me it ain’t true,
I’ve only got one answer,
That answer’s “;nuts”; to you!
Now, fun to do, can you spare a buck or two?
I’m the Duke, Duke of Dubuque
He’s the Duke, Duke of Dubuque
He’s the Duke, Duke of Dubuque
Yes, I’m the Duke, the Duke of Dubuque
Doo dat doo dat doo dat Dubuque
Copyrighted by the Manhattan Transfer. think.
------I believe the correct title for a female czar is czarina?--------
Actually, it’s czaricza… This word means both “the wife of a czar” and “female czar”. Czar’s wife usually does not rule the country, it is just a wife. She can become a ruler if the czar dies and there are no children or children are too small to rule…
------However, Catherine was 2 generatations earlier, the wife of Peter I, and I have not been able to find references to the laws which were current during Peter’s time.-----
There were two Catherines. Catherine the First was a wife of Peter the First. I don’t believe she ever succeeded the throne after his death.
Catherine the Second became Catherine the Great after killing her husband and proclaiming herself an empress…She was the last female ruler of Russia…
Well, if you want to be all technical with “czaricza/czaritza/czarevna/etc” (they are usually called Empress, in any case), you chould be just as technical with how you spell “Catherine” as “Ekaterina” (or “Ekaterina Alexevna”) - if you’re gonna maul one Russian word converting it to English, you may as well maul all of them.
And to be fair, she wasn’t the only empress. Anna Ivanovna and Elizaveta Petrovna, namely - the years after Peter the Great’s reign were markedly unstable. Anna was elected ruler-with-restrictions (constitutional monarchy for ya - “You don’t vote for kings!”), then decided she would rather just declare herself empress. Some people are such traditionalists.
Russia’s history is actually quite interesting, if only because it isn’t England or France’s history. Kinda sad that the Soviet Union pretty much erased all memory that Russia actually existed before 1905.
-------if you’re gonna maul one Russian word converting it to English, you may as well maul all of them.------
There is no English equivalent to Russian word “czaricza”, so she might as well be just “czar”.
It’s called transliteration. O_o What, you’ve never written a foreign word in English?
Transliteration makes sense when there is no equivalent available. That’s why czaricza might be used to describe “female czar”… 
on the other hand, Ekaterina has a perfect representation in English - Catherine. Why do we need to use Ekaterina?
By the way, czarevna is not an empress.
Oh boy. This is VERY complicated, so please bear with me here.
Tsaritsa.
Okay, Catherine II (the Great) was the wife of Peter III, who was a real imbecile. She overthrew him, later had him murdered, and proclaimed herself Empress. The majority approved, as they had hated Peter III. Their son, Paul I, did not like his mother, and changed the law so that females could not inherit the throne, unless there were no eligible males. Prior to that, the ruler could choose his or her successor.
All right, basically, there are several branches, and the ones everyone is talking about is known as the Vladimirovichi-the descendents of Kyril Vladimirovich. Kyril had an improper marriage himself-he married his first cousin, who divorced her first husband, the Tsaritsa’s brother (because he was bisexual), and was NOT Orthodox at the time of their marriage. Also, neither was Kyril’s mother until he was much older. That could have been a factor, but Nicholas wasn’t about to take the drastic step to strip Kyril of his rights to the throne. Kyril was the first to break allegiance to the Tsar at the Revolution, marching with a red flag, was pretty much a jerk in my opinion, but he was, after Nicholas’s son and brother Mikhail, next in line. (Other than some uncles, who I’ll get to later). Mikhail had a son, but his marriage was morganatic, to a twice-divorced commoner.
Kyril’s son Vladimir technically was the head of the family, but Kyril himself, in 1924, proclaimed himself Tsar in Exile, which everyone in the family thought was in extremely poor taste, because the Dowager Empress was still living (she would die in 1928), and still refused to believe her sons were dead. They thought it was an insult to her.
Vladimir could have been Tsar, but according to succession laws, his daughter could not. Whether or not his marriage was of equals, well, that’s complicated too. Maria Vladimirovna is a pretty pushy individual, her son’s supposed to be a little brat, and most say he has no right to the title of Tsarevich, that he is really a Prince of Prussia.
Next, we Grand Duke Dmitri, of the Pavlovichi branch-his father was the youngest child of Tsar Alexander II, and he was Nicholas’s first cousin. However, Dmitri was born in 1891, and called the Tsar “Uncle Nicky”, and was more like a son to the Imperial couple. (At least, until he participated in offing Rasputin!)
Dmitri married a commoner, and they later divorced. His son was Prince Paul Ilyinsky-who was, at one time, the Mayor of Palm Beach, Florida. (he became a US citizen, was at one time a colonel in the US. Marine Corps, and is NOT interested in the throne). He was dubbed the Tsar of Palm Beach.
Then there is the Mikhailovichi branch, which are the descendents of the Tsar’s sister, Grand Duchess Xenia and her husband, her first cousin once removed, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich. Their eldest, Princess Irina, was the wife of the notorious Felix Yussoupov, Rasputin’s assassin. They have some claim from their father, who was a grand son of Nicholas I. Also living I think is one son of Grand Duchess Olga, Nicky’s baby sister, but they were the son of commoner as well (her first marriage was anulled because her husband was homosexual-it was never consummated, poor Olga), and I don’t think they have a claim.
Then there are the Konstantinovichi, the descendents of Grand Duke Konstantin, poet under the name KR. And the Nicholaievichi, of which the most popular candidate is Prince Nikolai Romanov.
The best books on the subject would be The Romanovs: The Final Chapter by Robert K. Massie (famous for the book Nicholas and Alexandra) and Romanov Autumn by Charlotte Zeepvat.
Because that is her name?
I never said you HAD to use it. I said if you want to be technical nit-picky about one Russian word, you may as well be technical with all of them. I went on to say (well, imply) that most of the time we just use “Empress Catherine the Great” instead of “Tsaricza Ekaterina Alexeevna” because it is easier and makes more sense for us.
Yes indeed Catherine I DID succeed her husband-otherwise, she would NOT be called Catherine I.
It’s like in England, there have been many many queens named Elizabeth or Mary, but only two of each who were REIGNING, which is why the current Queen is Elizabeth II instead of Elizabeth V or whatever.
Okay, explanation of Terms:
Tsar-comes from the word Caesar and is the male ruler
Tsaritsa/Tsarina-would be the female ruler or the consort of the ruling Tsar
Tsarevich/Tsaesarevich (the latter was the correct term after Peter, but I rarely see it in English translations and such)-the male heir to the Throne,
Tsarevna-is the traditional title for the Tsar’s daughters, and thus, all of the last Tsar’s daughters COULD be called Tsarevna, but it was mostly used to refer to the wife of the Tsarevich after Peter. However, most of them went by Grand Duke and/or Grand Duchess, although the correct term was Grand Prince or Grand Princess.
But all this is a whole different kind of argument. Also, Russia was not the only one to have a Tsar-there was a Tsar of Serbia in the Middle Ages, (I forget the name right now, I know it, but for some reason it’s eluding me-Stevan) and the Bulgarian kings of the 19th-20 century called themselves Tsar as well.
Dammit, I KNOW the name of the Serbian Tsar, but I cannot think of it!
-oh, here it is-Stefan Dusan.