Prince Gabriel Constantinovich of Russia - Last Years

Last Years

Gabriel Constantinovich kept in touch with his Romanov relatives during his long years in exile. He supported the claims of the chief Romanov pretender, Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich of Russia. Cyril repaid the favour by ennobling Nesterovskaya as "Princess Romanovskaya-Strelninskaya". Gabriel himself was awarded the style of "Grand Duke" by Cyril's son Vladimir Cyrillovich on 15 May 1939. He was the only Romanov prince to be elevated to this style. The legality of these actions were controversial, since both Cyril and Vladimir's claims were contested. Other members of the Romanov family dismissed the new title turning Prince Gabriel’s elevation to Grand Duke into a source of amusement.

During the tumultuous years of World War II, Gabriel Constantinovich continued to live in Paris with his wife. The relationship between them never wavered, and they remained devoted to each other. Prince Gabriel's wife died on 7 March 1950 at the age of sixty. Gabriel Constantinovich not only survived his wife, but remarried the following year, on 11 May 1951. His second wife was Princess Irina Ivanovna Kurakina ( 22 September 1903 – 17 January 1993), a forty-eight-year-old exiled Russian noblewoman who was created HSH Princess Romanovskaya by Grand Duke Vladimir Cyrillovich. Prince Gabriel died four years later on 28 February 1955 in Paris. He had no children by either marriage and was buried in the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery outside Paris.