Prince Kirill Romanovsky-Iskander

Prince Kirill Alexandrovich Romanovsky-Iskander, or Cyril Iskander Romanov (Russian: князь, Кирилл Александрович Искандер, romanized: knyaz, Kirill Alexandrovich Iskander) (5 December 1914 – 1992), or simply Prince Iskander, was one of the last two members of the House of Romanov to remain alive in Russia following the Revolution.

Family

He was the son of Prince Romanovsky-Iskander (15 November 1887 N.S. – 26 January 1957), né Alexander Nikolaevich Romanov [ru], and his first wife, Olga Iosifovna Rogowska. He was a grandson of Grand Duke Nicholas Constantinovich, the disgraced grandson of Tsar Nicholas I; thus, Kirill was a patrilineal great-great-grandson of Nicholas I.

Grand Duke Constantine Nicholaevich's son, Grand Duke Nicholas Constantinovich, was exiled to Central Asia in disgrace for stealing his mother's diamonds. Grand Duke Nicholas established a palace in Tashkent and lived in grand style where he sired a son, whom Tsar Alexander III (his great-uncle) granted the title Prince Iskander (Iskander was the Arabic form of Alexander^[1]). This prince, in turn, fathered the Prince Iskander.

His second cousins are Prince Michael of Greece and Denmark^[2] and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

Early life

He was born in Tashkent, a member of the Constantinovichi branch of the Russian Imperial Family. He had a sister, Princess Natalia Romanovskaya-Iskander (1917 - 1999). Their parents, who had been married since 1912, separated, and in 1924 Kirill and his sister moved with their mother to Moscow (first moved to Plyushchikha Street, later to Arbat), where Olga remarried to Nicholas Androsov.

Kirill's stepfather adopted him and his sister, and Prince Iskander was renamed Kirill Nikolaievich Androsov (Russian: Кирилл Николаевич Андросов). His father also remarried, to Natalia Hanykova (30 December 1893 – 20 April 1982), in 1930 in Paris.

Adult life

After the Russian Revolution, Kirill and his sister Natalia were the only two Romanov descendants in the male line in the USSR; the rest either left or were killed. They lived their entire lives in the USSR.^[3] Upon Kirill's death, the male line of the Constantinovich branch of the Romanov family died out.

Ancestry

References

• Лунькова, Ольга (27 August 1996). Княжна на мотоцикле. Огонёк (Blog (журнал)) (in Russian). Archived from the original on 28 September 2011.
• Нагибин, Ю. М. (1996). Юрий Кувалдин: общая редакция, составление, послесловие, указатель имён. Изд-во "Книжный сад". pp. 624–625. ISBN 5-85676-043-3. Дневник. Archived from the original on 2013-03-23. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
• "Some of the books, about the family, for the Russian higher education associations" (in Russian).^{[dead link]}
• C. Arnold McNaughton, The Book of Kings: A Royal Genealogy, in 3 volumes (London, U.K.: Garnstone Press, 1973) ISBN 0-8129-0280-7, ISBN 978-0-8129-0280-8