If we are speaking of dynastic weddings, then as regards the very recent marriage of another Romanov descendant, Prince Rostislav, of the line of Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolayevich, youngest son of Emperor Nicholas I…
The Nobility Assembly reports that it is troubled by invitations sent out in the names of the couple, in which Prince Rostislav Romanov is styled Son Altesse Impériale (His Imperial Highness). The nobles are sounding the alarm: the prince possesses no such title!
The letter of 6 September runs roughly as follows: an enormous account of the founding of the Association of Members of the Romanov Family, of which Rostislav Rostislavovich is vice-president, is prefaced by a remark that this is a private informal organisation whose members are in no way connected with the historic dynastic institution of the Russian Imperial House. The Russian Nobility Assembly, by contrast, was created with the support of the Imperial House of Russia (that is, of the mother and grandfather of our own Georgy Mikhailovich) under the leadership of Vladimir Kirillovich. And the Imperial House, meanwhile, though in essence just as private an organisation, is recognised by the Moscow Patriarchate and of All Rus', as well as by the institutions of the Russian Federation, by foreign governments and by other reigning and non-reigning royal families around the world.
The history of the perennial rivalry between the Kirillovichi, the Mikhailovichi and the dynastic offshoots of other lines always looks very sweet and naive, as if children from one yard had issued a note of protest over the uncontrolled emission of currency made of elm leaves by the children of the yard next door.
Nevertheless, the dispatch concludes by stating that “the members of the Russian Nobility Society warmly congratulate Rostislav Romanov on his approaching wedding, but must stress that, although Rostislav Romanov is a true descendant of the Romanov family, his marriage is a private event which carries no social or dynastic consequences. Let us wish the newlyweds and their 8-year-old son Many Years!”
Our nobles, in the recent past communist activists, Komsomol members, Pioneers and Octobrists, would certainly not be themselves if they failed to mention that Rosti already has an eight-year-old child by this woman, good heavens, born out of wedlock!
