Princess Helen of Serbia
| Helen of Serbia | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Princess Elena Petrovna of Russia | |||||
| Spouse |
Prince John Constantinovich of Russia (m. 1911; died 1918) | ||||
| Issue | |||||
| |||||
Ljubica of Montenegro | |||||
Princess Helen of Serbia (4 November [
Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich of Russia and of Princess Milica of Montenegro, wife of Grand Duke Peter Nikolaevich of Russia, the women who introduced Grigori Rasputin to Tsarina Alexandra.[1]
Early life
The strong-minded, purposeful Helen, whose mother died when she was a small child, was born in
Tsar Nicholas II. Eagar wrote that Helen, then about seventeen, often came to tea with another of her aunts, Princess Vjera of Montenegro, and cousins. Young Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia was very fond of her.[2]
Engagement and marriage
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A fourth aunt,
His Highness status, due to being male-line great-grandson of an Emperor.[5]
Helen studied
Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich of Russia and his wife Grand Duchess Elizabeth Mavrikievna.[citation needed
]
Revolution
Helen voluntarily followed her husband into exile when he was arrested following the
Varvara Yakovleva
, a sister from the Grand Duchess Elizabeth's convent. They were herded into the forest by the local Bolsheviks, pushed into an abandoned mineshaft and grenades were then hurled into the mineshaft.
Imprisonment
John had persuaded Helen to leave
Alapaevsk and go back to their two young children, whom she had left with John's mother, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Mavrikievna of Russia. In June 1918, Helen visited the Ipatiev House and demanded to see the tsar, secretly hoping to pass on letters to the imperial family from their relatives. After being refused entry by the guards (who had their rifles aimed at her), she went to the Amerikanskaya Hotel half a mile away, making repeated enquiries to the Cheka. She was herself arrested by the secret police and imprisoned in Perm.[6]
The following month, in July 1918, her husband John and several other captive members of the imperial family were killed by the Bolsheviks.
During her imprisonment, the Bolsheviks brought a girl who called herself Anastasia Romanova to her cell and asked Helen if the girl was
Petrograd.[6]
Exile
Swedish diplomats obtained permission for Helen's mother-in-law
Nice, France
. She never remarried.
Ancestry
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Notes
- ^ Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra, 1967, p. 198
- ^ Eagar, Margaret (1906). "Six Years at the Russian Court". alexanderpalace.org. Archived from the original on 20 October 2019. Retrieved 3 January 2007.
- ^ a b Zeepvat, p. 56.
- ^ Alexander Bokhanov, Dr. Manfred Knodt, Vladimir Oustimenko, Zinaida Peregudova, and Lyubov Tyutyunnik, translator Lyudmila Xenofontova, The Romanovs: Love, Power and Tragedy, 1993, p. 127.
- ^ "Црвени макови за кнегињу - Галина Игоревна Шевцова -".
- ^ a b Helen Rappaport, p. 34
- ^ Peter Kurth, Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Anderson, 1983, p. 43.
- ^ Charlotte Zeepvat, The Camera and the Tsars: A Romanov Family Album, 2004, p. 213.
References
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Princess Helen of Serbia.
- Margaret Eagar, Six Years at the Russian Court,, alexanderpalace.org
- Peter Kurth, Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Anderson, 1983.
- Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra, 1967
- ISBN 978-0-099-52009-2.
- ISBN 0750944188.
- Zeepvat, Charlotte (2004) The Camera and the Tsars: A Romanov Family Album, Sutton Publishing: Stroud, UK. ISBN 075094210X.