Second Marriage
According to her published memoirs, Leonida first met Vladimir Cyrilovich at a restaurant in France during World War II. But they did not see each other again for a few years, when both were making extended visits to Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Spain, where their hosts happened to be neighbors. Vladimir was staying with his aunt, the Infanta Beatrice de Orleans, first cousin of the murdered Tsarina Alexandra.
On 13 August 1948 Princess Leonida wed for the second time, marrying Vladimir Cyrillovich Romanov, who used the pre-revolutionary Russian title Grand Duke, the style Imperial Highness and claimed to be, from 1938 to his death, Head of the Russian Imperial House by virtue of being hereditary heir by primogeniture to the throne of the Romanovs according to the Fundamental Laws of the Russian Empire, as codified in 1906 and in force until overturned by the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.
In 1783, the Treaty of Georgievsk was signed through which the Kingdom of Georgia, while retaining its autonomy and its ancient monarchy was placed under the protection of the Russian Empire. In 1801 after the death of George XII, the last King of Georgia, Tsar Alexander I of Russia in violation of the treaty, annexed the kingdom of Georgia and the Bagration dynasty lost their throne. The Bagrations became a leading family of the Russian nobility, serving in the Tsar's army and at court in Saint Peterburg. The former ruling branch became extinct in the late nineteenth century, when it passed its succession rights to the branch to which Grand Duchess Leonida belonged, but this too is disputed. Joseph Stalin's mother had been a laundress in the house of the Bagrations.
As his consort she used the title Grand Duchess Leonida Georgievna. By him, she had another daughter, Maria Vladimirovna, who claims to have succeeded her father upon his death in 1992.
In 1946 Leonida's brother, Prince Irakly, married King Alfonso XIII's niece, Princess Doña María de las Mercedes de Baviera y Borbon (1911–1953), obtaining Vladimir's recommendation that the Spanish pretender, Don Juan, Count of Barcelona, accept the marriage as dynastic, which he did not. The Count of Barcelona, then Head of the Royal House of Spain, considered the issue of this marriage to be disqualified from the Spanish succession. The only son of this marriage was sponsored at his baptism by the Count of Barcelona but the latter's refusal to recognize his god-son as a Spanish dynast led to the Bagrations' alienation from the Spanish Royal Family according to Guy Stair Sainty. In 1948 Vladimir, relying on his earlier advice on the Bagrations' historically royal status, chose to wed Leonida dynastically in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Read more about this topic: Princess Leonida Bagration Of Mukhrani
Famous quotes containing the word marriage:
“We have seen that men are learning that work, productivity, and marriage may be very important parts of life, but they are not its whole cloth. The rest of the fabric is made of nurturing relationships, especially those with children—relationships which are intimate, trusting, humane, complex, and full of care.”
—Kyle D. Pruett (20th century)
“From infancy, almost, the average girl is told that marriage is her ultimate goal; therefore her training and education must be directed toward that end. Like the mute beast fattened for slaughter, she is prepared for that.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)