Story Highlights
- Historical event:
- 30 August 1917
- After the Germans had conquered France in World War II, Vladimir Kirillovich was placed in a concentration camp because he did not want to invite the Russian emigrants to fight for Nazi Germany against Soviet Russia.
The Russian Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich was born on this day in 1917.
From 1938 to 1992, he was considered the pretender to the Russian imperial throne because he was the rightful heir of the Russian tsars.
In fact, all cousins of the last reigning Russian Tsar Nicholas II were killed by the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution. Therefore, the Grand Duke of Russia, Cyril Vladimirovich (the cousin of the murdered Tsar Nicholas II) became the head of the Romanov Dynasty.
After he had died in 1938, his son Vladimir Kirillovich inherited his position, and became a pretender to the imperial throne.
It is interesting to note that Vladimir Kirillovich was born only a few months before the beginning of the October Revolution in 1917 (during World War I).
His parents left the Russian Empire and came to Germany. They later moved to France, and established something akin to a court in exile in Saint-Briac, which is located on the north coast of Brittany, and attracts many tourists.
After the Germans had conquered France in World War II, Vladimir Kirillovich was placed in a concentration camp because he did not want to invite the Russian emigrants to fight for Nazi Germany against Soviet Russia.
After the war, he moved to Sanlucar de Barrameda, and later to Madrid, Spain. He visited Russia in 1991.
He died in 1992, and had one daughter, Maria Vladimirovna. Some members of the Romanov dynasty didn’t want Maria to inherit the throne. There has been a continued dispute over the successor to the Russian imperial throne.
