Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich of Russia (Russian: Кирилл Владимирович Романов; Kirill Vladimirovich Romanov; 12 October [O.S. 30 September] 1876 – 12 October 1938) was a son of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia, a grandson of Emperor Alexander II and a first cousin of Nicholas II, Russia's last emperor. He was also the uncle of Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent.
Grand Duke Kirill followed a career in the Imperial Russian Navy serving for 20 years in the Naval Guards. He took part in the Russo-Japanese War, barely surviving the sinking of the battleship Petropavlovsk at Port Arthur in April 1904. In 1905, he married his paternal first cousin, Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, defying Nicholas II by not obtaining his consent. They had two daughters and settled in Paris before they were allowed to visit Russia in 1909. In 1910 they moved to Russia. In World War I, Grand Duke Kirill was appointed Commander of the Naval Depot of the Guards in 1915. He achieved the rank of rear admiral in the Imperial Navy in 1916. During the February Revolution of 1917, Kirill marched to the Tauride Palace at the head of the Naval Guards and swore allegiance to the Russian Provisional Government. During the rule of the Provisional Governmental in the summer of 1917, Kirill escaped to Finland, where his wife gave birth to the couple's only son. In exile, they lived for some years among his wife's relatives in Germany and, from the late 1920s, on an estate they bought in Saint-Briac, France.
With the death of his cousins Nicholas II and Grand Duke Michael, Kirill proclaimed himself to be the head of the House of Romanov and, as next in line to the throne, as the Guardian of the Throne in 1924. Kirill proclaimed himself emperor-in-exile in 1926. He worked for the restoration of the monarchy from exile for the rest of his life, but his claims were contested by some factions of the monarchists in a division that continues today. He wrote a book of memoirs, My Life in Russia's Service, which was published after his death. His granddaughter, Maria Vladimirovna, is one of two claimants to the headship of the House of Romanov.
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