by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2023

Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna of Russia has been one of the disputed pretenders to the Headship of the Russian Imperial Family and the throne of Russia since 1992. The Headship of the Russian Imperial Family and succession to the former Russian throne has been in dispute, mainly due to disagreements about whether marriages in the Romanov family were equal marriages – a marriage between a Romanov dynast and a member of a royal or sovereign house.

In 1924, after Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich (son of Alexander III, Emperor of All Russia and brother of Nicholas II, Emperor of All Russia) was declared legally dead, Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, a male-line grandson of Alexander II, Emperor of All Russia and Maria Vladimirovna’s grandfather, declared himself Guardian of the Throne and later assumed the title Emperor of All Russia. Upon the death of his father Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich in 1938, his son (and Maria Vladimirovna’s father) Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich was recognized as the Head of the Russian Imperial House by the Grand Dukes and Princes of Imperial Blood behind him in order of dynastic seniority and by the majority of the reigning houses of Europe. Unlike his father, Vladimir Kirillovich did not proclaim himself Emperor of All Russia. Instead, he used the style and title His Imperial Highness The Sovereign Grand Duke for the rest of his life.

Maria Vladimirovna’s parents visiting Russia in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union

Born on December 23, 1953, in Madrid, Spain, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna of Russia is the only child of Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich of Russia and Princess Leonida Bagration-Mukhrani. Her paternal grandparents are Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich of Russia (a grandson of Alexander II, Emperor of All Russia) and Princess Victoria Melita of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (a granddaughter of both Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Alexander, Emperor II of All Russia). Maria Vladimirovna’s maternal grandparents are Prince George Alexandrovich Bagration-Mukhrani, a Georgian nobleman, and Elena Sigismundovna Zlotnitskaya, the daughter of a Russian nobleman of Polish origin.

Maria Vladinmrovna has a half-sister from her mother’s first marriage to Sumner Moore Kirby, an heir to the F. W. Woolworth Company fortune. The marriage ended in divorce.

• Helen Louise Kirby (born 1935), unmarried

Maria Vladimirovna with her dog in 1971

Maria Vladimirovna attended Runnymede College in Madrid, Spain, a co-ed private school for children from the age of two to eighteen. The school follows the National Curriculum for England. She is fluent in Russian, English, French, and Spanish, and speaks some German, Italian, and Arabic.

On December 23, 1969, upon reaching her dynastic majority, Maria Vladimirovna swore an oath of loyalty to her father, to Russia, and to uphold the Fundamental Laws of Russia which governed succession to the defunct throne. At the same time, her father issued a controversial decree declaring that Maria Vladimirovna was born from an equal marriage and was his heiress presumptive.

On September 22, 1976, at the Russian Orthodox Church of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called and the Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessalonica in Madrid, Spain, Maria Vladimirovna married third cousin once removed Prince Franz Wilhelm of Prussia. Franz Wilhelm is the son of Prince Karl Franz of Prussia (the son of Prince Joachim of Prussia who was the son of Wilhelm II, German Emperor and King of Prussia) and Princess Henriette of Schönaich-Carolath. Franz Wilhelm converted to the Russian Orthodox faith and was created a Grand Duke of Russia with the name Mikhail Pavlovich by his father-in-law Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich of Russia. A year after their son was born, Maria Vladimirovna and her husband separated and were divorced in 1985. After the divorce, Franz Wilhelm reverted to his birth name.

Maria Vladimirovna and Franz Wilhelm had one son, also known as Prince George of Prussia through his father:

• Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia (born 1981), married Rebecca Virginia Bettarini, has one son

On April 21, 1992, Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich died from a heart attack at the age of 74 while addressing a gathering of Spanish-speaking bankers and investors at Northern Trust Bank in Miami, Florida. Vladimir was buried in the Grand Ducal Mausoleum at the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg, Russia, the first Romanov to be buried in Russia since the Russian Revolution. At that time, it was noted in the Russian press, that the funeral “was regarded by civic and Russian authorities as an obligation to the Romanov family rather than a step toward restoration of the monarchy.”

Maria Vladimirovna’s claim to the Headship of the Russian Imperial Family is based on a claim that all male lines of the Romanov family are either extinct, illegitimate, or morganatic, triggering semi-salic succession, in which the throne could only pass to a female and through  the female line upon the extinction of all legitimately-born, male dynasts. The claim of Maria Vladimirovna as Head of the Russian Imperial Family is disputed by the Romanov Family Association made up of the majority of the male-line descendants of Nicholas I, Emperor of All Russia. Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna and father Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich, male-line descendants of Nicholas I, never joined. Maria Vladimirovna claims the status of de jure Empress of All Russia, styles herself as Grand Duchess and her son George Mikhailovich as Grand Duke and Tsesarevich, the title for the heir apparent, and actively distributes Russian imperial orders, all of which have been condemned by the Romanov Family Association.

Upon the death of the last undisputed male dynast Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich of Russia, competing claims over the headship of the House of Romanov emerged between Prince Nicholas Romanov and Grand Duke Vladimir’s daughter Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna. Prince Nicholas’ claim was based on a 1911 Ukase issued by Nicholas II, Emperor of All Russia that the equal marriage rule applied only to Grand Dukes (the sons and grandsons of an emperor) and that princes (the great-grandsons onward of an emperor) could marry women of “good standing” for their marriage to be dynastic and therefore transmit succession and dynastic rights to their children, and that women, namely Maria Vladimirovna, could succeed only on the total extinction of the male line. The Romanov Family Association recognized Prince Nicholas Romanov as the senior male dynastic representative and head of the family on December 31, 1992, in Paris, France and this was symbolically re-confirmed on Russian soil after the state burial of Emperor Nicholas II and his family in 1998. The Romanov Family Association further stated that they consider the marriage of Maria Vladimirovna’s parents to be unequal.

Pre-revolutionary Romanov house law allowed only those born of an equal marriage between a Romanov dynast and a member of a royal or sovereign house to be in the line of succession to the Russian throne. The throne could only pass to a female and through the female line upon the extinction of all legitimately-born, male dynasts. Maria Vladimiovna’s mother Princess Leonida of Bagration belonged to a family that had been kings in Georgia from medieval times until the early 19th century. However, no male line ancestor of Leonida has reigned as a king in Georgia since 1505 and her branch of the Bagrations, the House of Mukhrani, had been naturalized as non-ruling nobility of Russia after Georgia was annexed to the Russian empire in 1801.

Prince Karl Emich of Leiningen, another pretender, and his supporters, the Monarchist Party of Russia, argue that there is a precedent for a marriage with the House of Bagration-Mukhrani being an unequal marriage. They argue that the House of Bragation-Mukhrani, the house of Leonida Bagration-Mukhrani, Maria Vladimirovna’s mother, did not possess sovereign status and was not recognized as an equal marriage by Nicholas II, Emperor of All Russia for the purpose of dynastic marriages at the time of the marriage of Princess Tatiana Konstantinovna of Russia and Prince Konstantine Bragation-Mukhrani in 1911, thirty-seven years before the marriage of Princess Leonida of Bragation-Mukhrani and Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich. The couple married but Princess Tatiana Konstantinovna was required to renounce her rights to the Russian throne and she was no longer a member of the House of Romanov.

After the discovery and identification of the remains of Nicholas II, Emperor of All Russia, his family, and the servants who were killed with the family, Maria Vladimirovna proposed the remains be divided into three groups – Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra Feodorovna be interred at the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg, Russia, the traditional Romanov burial site, the three daughters who were identified be interred at the Grand Ducal Mausoleum located on the left side of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, and the servants be interred in Ekaterinburg, Russia where the murders occurred. (Note: The remains of Tsesarevich Alexei and his sister Grand Duchess Maria were discovered in 2007, and were positively identified in 2009. However, the remains of Alexei and Maria have not yet been buried. The Russian Orthodox Church has questioned whether the remains are authentic and blocked the burial.)

This proposal shocked Prince Nicholas Romanov and the other members of the Romanov Family Association. Their original position was to bury all the remains together in Ekaterinburg, Russia where they had been murdered. Prince Nicholas stated the Romanov Family Association’s position: “We Romanovs want everybody, every victim of that massacre, to be buried together, in the same place, in the same cathedral, and, I’d say, in the same tomb. You want to bury the tsar in the Peter and Paul Fortress cathedral? Good! Then bury the doctor, the maid, and the cook with them, in the tsar’s mausoleum. They have been lying together for seventy-three years. They are the only ones who never betrayed the family. They deserve to be honored at the same time, in the same place.”

Because, at the time, the Russian Orthodox Church did not officially recognize the authenticity of the remains, Maria Vladimirovna did not attend the formal burial of Nicholas II, Emperor of All Russia, his wife Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, their daughters Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, and Anastasia, their physician Dr. Botkin and their three loyal servants on July 17, 1998, the 80th anniversary of their deaths, in St. Catherine Chapel at the Peter and Paul Cathedral in Saint Petersburg. However, the Russian government’s refusal to recognize her status as the official Head of the Romanov House is also given as a reason. Maria Vladimirovna was present on September 28, 2006, at a service for Empress Maria Feodorovna at Saint Isaac’s Cathedral and then at the Peter and Paul Cathedral, both in St. Petersburg, where she was interred next to her husband Alexander III, Emperor of All Russia.

Maria Vladimirovna seems to be more accepted by European royalty and she is sometimes invited to royal events. She attended the 2023 funeral of former King Constantine II of Greece, who was her third cousin and the godfather of her son.

Maria Vladimirovna (in the middle) attending the funeral of her third cousin King Constantine II of Greece

This article is the intellectual property of Unofficial Royalty and is NOT TO BE COPIED, EDITED, OR POSTED IN ANY FORM ON ANOTHER WEBSITE under any circumstances. It is permissible to use a link that directs to Unofficial Royalty.

Works Cited

• Flantzer, Susan. (2023) Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich of Russia, Unofficial Royalty. Available at: https://www.unofficialroyalty.com/grand-duke-vladimir-kirillovich-of-russia/ (Accessed: 21 July 2023).
• Flantzer, Susan. (2012) Romanovs Who Survived the Russian Revolution, Unofficial Royalty. Available at: https://www.unofficialroyalty.com/former-monarchies/the-romanovs/romanov-survivors/ (Accessed: 21 July 2023).
• Gilbert, Paul. (2022) Maria Vladimirovna takes the ‘which ever way the wind blows’ approach to the Ekaterinburg remains, Nicholas II. Available at: https://tsarnicholas.org/2022/01/26/maria-vladimirovna-takes-the-which-ever-way-the-wind-blows-approach-to-the-ekaterinburg-remains/ (Accessed: 28 July 2023).
• Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna of Russia (2023) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchess_Maria_Vladimirovna_of_Russia (Accessed: 21 July 2023).
• Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich of Russia (2023) Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duke_Vladimir_Kirillovich_of_Russia (Accessed: 21 July 2023).
• Leonard, Seth. (2019) In profile: The Swiss-born American Heiress (and Romanov step-daughter) who forged her own path, Eurohistory. Available at: https://eurohistoryjournal.blogspot.com/2019/09/in-profile-swiss-born-american-heiress.html (Accessed: 21 July 2023).
• Leonida Bagration of Mukhrani (2023) Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonida_Bagration_of_Mukhrani (Accessed: 21 July 2023).
• Mehl, Scott. (2015) Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich of Russia, Unofficial Royalty. Available at: https://www.unofficialroyalty.com/grand-duke-kirill-vladimirovich-of-russia/ (Accessed: 21 July 2023).
• Perry, John Curtis and Pleshakov, Constantine. (2001) The Flight of the Romanovs: A Family Saga. New York: Basic Books.