Overview
Before her marriage on 22 February 1914, Irina, the eldest child and only daughter in a family of seven children, was considered one of the most eligible women in Imperial Russia. Her family had spent long periods living in the south of France beginning in about 1906 due to her father's political disagreements with the Tsar.
Her father was also carrying on an affair with a woman in the south of France and often asked Xenia for a divorce, which she refused to grant him. Xenia also enjoyed extramarital affairs. Irina's parents tried to hide their unhappy marriage from their seven children and Irina, a shy and tongue-tied girl with deep blue eyes and dark hair, had a happy childhood. Irina was often called Irène, the French version of her name, or Irene, the English version. Her mother sometimes nicknamed her "Baby Rina." The Romanovs, heavily influenced by the French and the English, spoke French better than Russian and often used the foreign versions of their first names when referring to one another.
Her husband-to-be, Felix Yussupov, was a man of many contradictions: a man from a family rich beyond the dreams of avarice who enjoyed dressing in women's clothing and had sexual relationships with both men and women, scandalizing society, yet also genuinely religious and willing to help others even when his own financial circumstances were reduced. At one point, in a fit of enthusiasm, he planned to give all his unimaginable riches to the poor in imitation of his mentor Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna. "Felix's ideas are absolutely revolutionary," a disapproving Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna once said. He was persuaded not to give away all his money by his mother, Zenaida, who said he had a duty to marry and continue the family line because he was her only surviving son. The future murderer of Rasputin also had a horror of the bloodshed and violence of war.
Felix, with his leanings toward homosexuality, was not certain if he was "fit for marriage." Still, he was drawn to Irina and her icon-like beauty when he first encountered her. "One day when I was out riding I met a very beautiful girl accompanied by an elderly lady. Our eyes met and she made such an impression on me that I reined in my horse to gaze at her as she walked on," he wrote in his memoirs. One day in 1910, he was paid a visit by Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich and Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna and was happy to discover the girl he had seen on the riding trail was their only daughter, Irina. "This time I had plenty of time to admire the wondrous beauty of the girl who was eventually to become my wife and lifelong companion. She had beautiful features, clear-cut as a cameo, and looked very like her father." He renewed his acquaintance with Irina in 1913 and was even more drawn to her. "She was very shy and reserved, which added a certain mystery to her charm ... Little by little, Irina became less timid. At first her eyes were more eloquent than her conversation but, as she became more expansive, I learned to admire the keenness of her intelligence and her sound judgment. I concealed nothing in my past life from her, and, far from being perturbed by what I told her, she showed great tolerance and comprehension." Yussupov wrote that Irina, perhaps because she had grown up with so many brothers, showed none of the artifice or lack of honesty that had put him off relations with other women.
Although Irina was understanding about Yussupov's wild past, her parents were not. When her parents and maternal grandmother Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna heard the rumors about Felix, they wanted to call off the wedding. Most of the stories they heard had originated from Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia, Irina's first cousin once removed, who had been one of Felix's friends and, it has been speculated, might have been involved in a romantic relationship with Felix. Dmitri told Felix he was also interested in marrying Irina, but Irina said she preferred Felix. Felix was able to persuade Irina's reluctant family to relent and allow the ceremony to go forward. However, neither he nor Irina appear to have objected to the morganatic terms of the marriage, "All members of the dynasty who married someone not of royal blood were obliged to sign a document renouncing their rights to the throne. Although Irina was very distant in the line of succession, she had to comply with this regulation before marrying me; but it did not seem to worry her very much." It was the society wedding of the year and the last such occasion in Russian society before World War I. Irina wore a twentieth-century dress rather than the traditional Court dress that other Romanov brides had married in, as she was a Princess of the Imperial House (not a Grand Duchess). She wore a diamond and rock-crystal tiara that had been commissioned from Cartier and a lace veil that had belonged to Marie Antoinette. Guests at the wedding commented on what an attractive couple Felix and Irina made: "What an amazing couple -- they were so attractive. What bearing! What breeding!" said one guest. Irina was given away by her uncle, the Tsar, and his wedding present to her was a bag of twenty-nine uncut diamonds, ranging from three to seven carats. Irina and Felix also received a large assortment of precious gems from other wedding guests. They later managed to take many of these gems out of the country following the Russian Revolution of 1917 and used them to provide a living in exile.
Read more about this topic: Princess Irina Alexandrovna Of Russia