Felix Yusupov

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Felix Yusupov

Prince Felix Felixovich Yusupov, Count Sumarokov-Elston (Russian: Фéликс Фéликсович Юсýпов, граф Сумароков-Эльстон) (March 23, 1887, Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire – September 27, 1967, Paris, France), (variously transliterated from Cyrillic as Yussupov, Yusupov, Yossopov, Iusupov, Youssoupov, Youssoupoff, or as Feliks, Graf Sumarrokow-Elston), was best known for participating in the murder of Grigori Rasputin, the faith healer who was said to have influenced decisions of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna. Felix Yusupov was never appropriately punished for this murder, well-known at the time, and a significant part of widespread Rasputin imagery was created by his own publications demonizing his victim.

Biography

Felix Yusupov and his wife, Princess Irina Alexandrovna of Russia, 1913

Felix Yusupov was born in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire. His mother's family, the Yusupovs, were of Tatar origin and very wealthy (there was a time when Felix Yusupov was the richest man in Russia). The Yusupov family acquired their wealth generations earlier through extensive land grants in Siberia, and they owned a string of profitable mines and fur trading posts. In order that the Yusupov name might not die out, the prince's father, Count Felix Felixovich Sumarokov-Elston (October 5, 1856, Saint Petersburg - June 10, 1928, Rome, Italy), General Governor of Moscow (1914-1915) (son of Count Felix Nikolaievich Sumarokov-Elston), took the surname of his wife, Princess Zenaida Nikolaievna Yusupova (September 2, 1861, Saint Petersburg - November 24, 1939, Paris) upon their marriage, on April 4, 1882 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Felix became heir to the immense fortune after his older brother Nikolai Felixovich, Count Sumarokov-Elston (born 1883), was killed in a duel on June 22, 1908. Consulting with family members about how best to administer the money and property, he decided to devote time and money to charitable works to help the poor.

He also led a flamboyant life, and describes in his candid autobiography often spending time with Gypsy bands and adopting female clothing.^[1] From 1909-1912 he studied at University College, Oxford in England, where he established the Oxford University Russian Society. He married Princess Irina of Russia, the Tsar's niece, on February 22, 1914 in the Anichkov Palace in Saint Petersburg, and the marriage was extremely well-matched and very happy. They had a daughter, also called Irina born March 21, 1915.

Rasputin and after

It was in the Yusupov family's Moika Palace in Saint Petersburg that Felix and Grand Duke Dmitri and others murdered Rasputin, on the night of 16 /17 December 1916. Despite poisoning, shooting, and beating him with an iron bar, the conspirators still needed to tie up their victim and throw him under the icy surface of the river Neva in order to kill him. Yusupov published several accounts of the murder night and the events surrounding it. The assassination of Rasputin happened not long before the Russian Revolution. Yusupov was subject to a virtual house arrest in their estate outside Saint Petersburg.

World War I

Felix and Irina with their daughter, Bebé, in 1916.

The Yusupovs were on their honeymoon in Europe and the Middle East when World War I broke out. They were briefly detained in Berlin after the outbreak of hostilities. Irina asked her first cousin, Crown Princess Cecilie of Prussia to intervene with her father-in-law, the Kaiser. Kaiser Wilhelm II refused to permit them to leave, but offered them a choice of three country estates to live in for the duration of the war. Felix's father appealed to the Spanish ambassador to Germany, and won permission for them to return to Russia via neutral Denmark to Finland, and from there to St. Petersburg ^[2]

Felix converted a wing of his Moika Palace into a hospital for wounded soldiers, but avoided entering military service himself by taking advantage of a law exempting only-sons from serving in the war. He did enter the Cadet Corps and took an officer's training course, but had no intention of joining a regiment.^[3] Irina's first cousin, Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia, whom she had been close to when they were girls, was disdainful of Felix: "Felix is a 'downright civilian,' dressed all in brown, walked to and fro about the room, searching in some bookcases with magazines and virtually doing nothing; an utterly unpleasant impression he makes -- a man idling in such times," Olga wrote to her father, Tsar Nicholas II, on 5 March 1915 after paying a visit to the Yusupovs.^[4] Felix and Irina's only daughter, Princess Irina Felixovna Yusupova, nicknamed Bebé, was born on 21 March 1915.^[5] "I shall never forget my happiness when I heard the child's first cry," her father wrote.^[6] Irina liked her name and wanted to pass it on to her first child. Her mother Xenia was so worried over the delivery that Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna said it was almost like Xenia was giving birth instead of Irina.^[7]

Exile

Irina and Felix in exile

Following the abdication of Tsar Nicolas II, the Yusupovs returned to the Moika Palace before travelling to the Crimea. They later returned to the Palace to retrieve jewellery and two paintings by Rembrandt, the sale proceeds of which helped sustain his family in exile. In the Crimea the family boarded a British warship, HMS Marlborough, which took them from Yalta to Malta. From there, they travelled to Italy, then by train to Paris. In Italy, lacking a visa, he bribed the officials with diamonds. In Paris, they stayed a few days in Hotel Vendôme before going on to London. In 1920, they returned to Paris and bought a house on the Rue Gutenberg in Boulogne-sur-Seine, where they lived most of the rest of their lives. Yusupovs founded a short-lived couture house Irfé, and became renowned in the Russian émigré community for his financial generosity. This philanthropy, plus continued high living and poor financial management extinguished of what remained of the family fortune. Felix Yusupov enjoyed boasting about the murder of Rasputin while on the ship. One of the British officers noted that Irina "appeared shy and retiring at first, but it was only necessary to take a little notice of her pretty, small daughter to break through her reserve and discover that she was also very charming and spoke fluent English".^[8]

In exile, Irina and Felix lived better than most emigrees following the Revolution. For a time they ran a fashion house called Irfe, named after the first two letters of their first names, Irina and Felix. Irina modeled some of the dresses the pair and other designers at the firm created. Yusupov and his wife successfully sued MGM through the English courts for invasion of privacy and libel in connection with the 1932 film Rasputin and the Empress. The alleged libel was not that the character based on Felix had committed murder, but that the character based on Irina, the Tsar's only niece, called "Princess Natasha" in the film was portrayed as having been seduced by the lecherous Rasputin.^[9] In 1934, the Yusupovs were awarded £25,000 damages, an enormous sum at the time, which was attributed to the successful arguments of their counsel Sir Patrick Hastings. The disclaimer which now screens at the end of every American film, "The preceding was a work of fiction, etc.," first appeared as a result of the legal precedent set by the Yusupov case.^{[citation needed]}

Yusupov also sued the Columbia Broadcasting System in a New York court in 1965 for televising a play based upon the Rasputin assassination. The claim was that some events were fictionalized, and that under a New York City statute Felix's commercial rights in his story had been misappropriated. The last reported judicial opinion in the case was a ruling by New York's second highest court that the case could not be resolved upon briefs and affidavits but must go to trial. Youssoupoff v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc., 19 A.D.2d 865 (1963). According to an obituary of CBS's lawyer, CBS eventually won the case. New York Times, Sept. 6, 1983 (death of Carleton G. Eldridge Jr.).

Felix and Irina's daughter was largely raised by her paternal grandparents until she was nine and was badly spoiled by them. Her unstable upbringing caused her to become "capricious," according to Felix. Felix and Irina, raised mainly by nannies themselves, were ill-suited to take on the day to day burdens of child-rearing. Irina's only child adored her father, but had a more distant relationship with her mother.^[10] Irina and Felix, close to one another as they weren't to their daughter, enjoyed a happy and successful marriage for more than fifty years.^[11][12]

After Yusupov publishing his memoir detailing the death of Grigory Rasputin. Rasputin's daughter Maria sued Yusupov and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia in a Paris court for damages of $800,000. She condemned both men as murderers and said any decent person would be disgusted by the ferocity of Rasputin's killing.^[13] Maria's claim was dismissed. The French court ruled that it had no jurisdiction over a political killing that took place in Russia.^[14]

For the rest of his life Yusupov was haunted by Rasputin's murder, and suffered from nightmares. Ironically, he also had a reputation as a faith healer.^{[citation needed]}

Death

Yusupov died in Paris in 1967. He is buried in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery. ^[15]

Descendants

Descendants of Felix and Irina are:

• Princess Irina Felixovna Yussupova, (March 21, 1915, Saint Petersburg, Russia- August 30, 1983, Cormeilles, France), married Count Nikolai Dmitrievich Sheremetev (October 28, 1904, Moscow, Russia - February 5, 1979, Paris, France), son of Count Dmitri Sergeievich Sheremetev and wife Countess Irina Ilarionovna Vorontzova-Dachkova and a descendant of Boris Petrovich Sheremetev; had issue:
  • Countess Xenia Dmitrievna Sheremeteva (born March 1, 1942, Rome, Italy), married on June 20, 1965 in Athens, Greece, to Ilias Sfiris (born August 20, 1932, Athens, Greece); had issue:
    • Tatiana Sfiris (born August 28, 1968, Athens, Greece), married on May 1996 in Athens, Greece, to Alexis Giannakoupoulos (born 1963), divorced, no issue; married Anthony Vamvakidis and has issue:
      • Marilia Vamvakidis (July 17, 2004)
      • Yasmine Xenia Vamvakidis (May 7, 2006) ^[16]

Bibliography

• Youssoupoff, Prince Felix: "Rasputin", Dial Press, 1927
• Youssoupoff, Prince Felix: "Rasputin: His Malignant Influence and His Assassination", 1934
• Youssoupoff, Prince Felix: "Avant L'Exil", Plon, Paris 1952
• Youssoupoff, Prince Felix: "Lost Splendour", Jonathan Cape, London 1953
• Ferrand, Jacques (Ed.): "Les princes Youssoupoff & les comtes Soumarokoff-Elston", Ferrand, Paris 1991

References

External links

• The Yusupovs' Palace on Moika, St.Petersburg - Family nest until 1919
• Lost Splendour - Yusupov's self-biography until 1919 (online). Printed in 1952, ISBN 1-885586-58-2.