By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers
The Man Who
Chooses To Be Czar
While most Monachists in exile preferred
advocated either Grand Prince Nikolai Nikolaevich Romanov,
grandson of Tsar Nicholas I, or Grand Duke Dmitry Konstantinovich,
the son of Michael Alexandrovich, without
consultation Grand Duke however Kirill (Cyril) Vladimirovich on 31 August 1924
assumed the title Emperor of all the Russias. A move
that split the Romanov family, as it still divides them today. Of the sixteen
Grand Dukes who had been alive at the start of the war, only six lived long
enough to get out of Russia. Of these, Kirill’s two brothers, Boris and Andrew
unsurprisingly recognized him as Tsar. Others, like the 68-year-old former army
supreme commander Nikolasha, his younger brother
Peter, and Dimitri, did not. It also divided the huge numbers of monarchists
then living in exile, in France, Britain, Germany, the Balkans and the United States,
after the Red Army finally crushed the Whites in 1922 to become masters of all
Russia. The Dowager Empress was scathing in her condemnation. She protested to Nikolasha from her home in Denmark:
I was most terribly pained when I read Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich’s
manifesto proclaiming himself EMPEROR OF ALL THE RUSSIAS. To date there has
been no precise information concerning the fate of My beloved Sons or My
Grandson and, for this reason, I consider the proclamation of a new EMPEROR to
be premature. There is still no one who could ever extinguish in me the last
ray of hope. I fear that this manifesto will create division. This will not
improve the situation but, quite the opposite, will worsen it, while Russia is
tormented enough without such a thing. If it has pleased THE LORD GOD, as he
acts in HIS mysterious ways, to summon My beloved sons and grandson to HIMSELF,
then, without wishing to look ahead, and with firm hope in the mercy of GOD, I
believe that HIS MAJESTY THE EMPEROR will be elected in accordance with Our
Basic Laws by the Orthodox Church in concert with the Russian People… I am sure
that, as the senior member of the HOUSE OF THE ROMANOVS, You are of the same
opinion as Myself. MARIA.
Kirill had expected bitter opposition. The attacks on him were, however,
founded on more than malice and charges of self-aggrandizement. The greatest
practical objection to Kirill’s action was that the “White Russians” were
united only in their opposition to the Bolsheviks and in their belief that
their enemy would not rule for long, and come that day they would all return
home.
Even among those
who favored a return to the crown, many wanted that to be a decision settled by
a constituent assembly — the same terms as those set out in Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich ’s manifesto of March 1917 when Emperor
Nicholas II abdicated in favor of Michael as Regent.
Kirill's Extreme Right-Wing
Turn And Aufbau
As a result
pretender to the Russian
throne, Grand Duke Kirill (Cyril) Vladimirovich of
Russia moved from the French Riviera to Bavaria in Germany.
Grand Duke Kirill and
his wife Viktoria channeled approximately 500,000 gold marks to support
nationalist German–Russian undertakings. Also, the right-wing, anti-Semitic
American industrialist and politician Henry Ford gave considerable sums of
money to Kirill’s representative in America, the Aufbau member and Knight
of St. John Boris Brazil. Brazol then
transferred funds to Kirill and Viktoria to finance far-right
organizations in Germany, notably the National Socialist Party, and Aufbau.
Aufbau linked important volkisch Germans,
most notably Hitler and General Ludendorff, whom Scheubner-Richter
introduced to each other in the framework of Aufbau, with prominent White
émigrés. Important White émigré members of Aufbau included First
Secretary Scheubner Richter himself, Vice
President Biskupskii, Deputy Director Schickedanz, Ukrainian faction
leader Poltavets-Ostranitsa, Vinberg, Shabelskii-Bork, Taboritskii,
Rosenberg, and Rosenberg’s collaborator in Eckart’s newspaper In Plain
German, Kursell. In addition to serving in
Aufbau, Schneubner Richter, Schickedanz,
Kursell, and Rosenberg, they played active roles in
the National Socialist Party. Aufbau’s second secretary, the German Max Amann,
was also the National Socialist Party secretary.
After it
consolidated itself into a powerful conspiratorial force in the first half of
1921 under Scheubner-Richter’s de facto
leadership, Aufbau tried and failed to unite all White émigrés behind Grand
Prince émigrés Romanov in league with National Socialists. Aufbau hoped to lead
all White émigrés in Europe in an anti-Bolshevik crusade that would replace
Soviet rule with nationalist Russian, Ukrainian, and Baltic states. Instead of
unifying all White émigrés, Aufbau engaged in a bitter internecine struggle
with the Supreme Monarchical Council under the former Union of the Russian
People faction leader Nikolai Markov II.
A constitutional monarchy might follow the downfall of the Bolshevik
regime, and monarchists naturally hoped that it would, but the critical need
was to overthrow the Bolsheviks, not divide the opposition Grand Duke Nikolay
Nikolayevich, still widely respected as the former Supreme Commander, gave
voice to that view when he issued his own manifesto in the wake of Kirill’s.
The aim, he said, was to re-establish the rule of law in Russia without
stipulating the form of government, in effect, another restatement of Michael’s
manifesto. Kirill had jumped the gun. In any case, why Kirill as Emperor?
The so-called Supreme Monarchist Council, which claimed to represent
majority monarchist opinion, before he died, favored Grand Duke Dmitry Konstantinovich the son of Michael Alexandrovich
(who had been appointed by Nicholas II), and as it happened, so did the British
government.
Clinging to the small print of imperial laws, the high-minded Council
held that Kirill, and his two younger brothers, were excluded from the
succession because their German-born mother had not converted to Orthodoxy at
the time of her marriage, as required by law.
It did not help that Kirill had married not only a divorcée but,
contrary to the law of the Russian Orthodox Church, his first cousin. Moreover
there was also the abiding memory for many monarchists of the red flag on the
tower of his palace in Petrograd in March 1917 and his arrival at the Tauride Palace wearing a red bow as he marched his marines
to pledge their support to the Duma, in breach of his oath of allegiance.(1)
Kirill would never admit fault then, nor fault now as he named himself
Emperor, and wife “Ducky” as the Empress. He also promoted his son Vladimir
from prince to ‘Grand Duke’ and “Tsarevich”, a move which would further cement
the divisions in the Romanov family. To be a Grand Duke under the imperial law
meant that you were the son or grandson of a Tsar; Vladimir was a
great-grandson of Alexander II and as such was entitled to be styled only as a
prince. As for making him the Tsarevich and next-in-line to the throne, for
many the door was then not only shut but slammed in his face. It has never been
opened since. The division among the Romanovs which followed Kirill’s grasp for
the crown persists to this day, with his grand-daughter Marie’s claim to be
“Head of the House of Romanov” mocked by most. Kirill attempted to buy his
place in the sun by handing out titles to those who did support him.
1) Kirill, like every other Grand Duke, had sworn an oath of loyalty to
“serve His Imperial Majesty, not sparing my life and limb, until the very last
drop of my blood” yet on Wednesday, March 1, 1917 he joined the revolution,
whilst Nicholas was still Tsar, and raised a red flag flying on its roof. Later
in Germany, he would mingle with the Nazi’s. Anticipating his arrival in
Germany, Walther Nicolai agreed to establish an anti-Bolshevik intelligence
agency so that General Ludendorff, Kirill, and Hitler, would have a reliable
source of information on events in the Soviet Union. The money for the
intelligence service, code-named Project S, came from
Kirill.
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