A Broadside, in Which Grand Duke Kiril Vladimirovich Proclaims Himself Guardian of the Sovereign’s Throne

Saint-Briac: By the author, 1922. Softcover. First edition; 18 ½†x 12 ¼†; newsprint, single sheet, recto only; folded, with intersecting crease lines; a few small nicks and cuts to edges; light, uniform age-toning; ruled with an intricate border and a stylized drawing of a crown; illustrated with two large photographs of Kirill and his wife Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha – Feodorovna; very good condition.An, apparently, unrecorded piece of the Russian Imperial Family’s history, the broadside was published by Kirill himself, in France, where he lived in exile after the October Revolution. Kirill Vladimirovich Romanov (1876 – 1938) was the son of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich Romanov and the grandson of Tsar Alexander II. His wife, whom he married in 1905 without Tsar Nicholas II’s consent, was his first cousin and the granddaughter of Queen Victoria. The marriage caused an uproarious scandal throughout the courts of the European nobility, for the union was in open defiance of the Russian Orthodox Church’s ruling that first cousins could not marry and, furthermore, for the fact that Victoria Feodorovna had just divorced her first husband, also a first cousin. During the February Revolution of 1917, Kirill swore allegiance to the Russian Provisional Government in hopes of ingratiating himself and, possibly, becoming a regent after Nicholas II’s impending abdication. Shortly after, in June of 1917, the family escaped to Finland, then Germany, and finally to the tiny village of Saint-Briac in France. In 1922, four years after Nicholas II’s execution and two years before a London court order declared Nicholas’ brother Mikhail II legally dead, Kirill published his current “declaration†to his compatriots, stating that he did not believe the news of Nicholas’ death and that he hoped his cousin would return to the throne but, in the meantime, the Russian people needed a “person in charge†to lead them. He continued on to state that, until a definitive proof of the whereabouts of Mikhail, Nicholas, and his son Aleksei was presented, or, a Zemskii Sobor (an assembly summoned by a tsar or a patriarch) chose a new ruler, he would appoint himself Guardian of the Sovereign’s Throne. His statement was endorced, at the bottom of the broadside, by his relative Prince Dmitrii Golitsyn-Muravlin. His aspirations were rivaled by Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich Romanov, grandson of Nicholas I, but with the former’s death in 1929, Kirill would, indeed, become the undisputed leader of the monarchists. After claiming the throne, he would become known as the “Soviet Tsar†for his sympathies for the regime and his biggest support would come from an émigré, monarchist organization styling itself “The Legitimists.†After his death, Kirill was succeeded by his son Vladimir Kirilovich, who proclaimed himself “Head of the Romanovs,†but this was never accepted by any other member of the Romanov family.