Prince Vsevolod Ivanovich of Russia ( – 18 June 1973) was a male line great-great-grandson of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia and a nephew of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia. He was the last male member of the Romanov family born in Imperial Russia. He was a distant cousin and godson of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, as well as second cousin of both Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent.
During the revolution his father and two uncles were imprisoned and later murdered along with other Romanov relatives in July 1918. In October 1918 his grandmother fled with the four-year-old Prince Vsevolod to Sweden where he was able be reunited with his mother, Princess Helen of Serbia. After a time in France and Belgrade they eventually settled in England. Prince Vsevolod was educated at Eton and Oxford. He spent the rest of his life in exile in Great Britain. In 1939 he married Lady Mary Lygon of Madresfield Court. They were divorced in 1956. Prince Vsevolod married twice more, but had no children from any of his marriages.
Early life
Prince Vsevolod Ivanovich was the eldest child of Prince John Constantinovich of Russia and Princess Helen of Serbia. He was born on 20 January 1914 at the Marble Palace in St Petersburg. In a manifesto issued the next day, Tsar Nicholas II decreed Vsevelod to be a Highness and a Prince of the Imperial Blood. On 25 January the Emperor, along with his wife Alexandra and his mother, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, attended the Prince's christening in service conducted in the chapel of the Marble Palace by the personal confessor of the imperial couple. Along with the boy's grandmother grand duchess Elizabeth Mavriekievna, Nicholas II was appointed one of his godparents. He spent his early years living with his parents in a suite of rooms in the northern wing of Pavlovsk During the First World War, Vsevelod's father, Prince Ivan fought in the army and was decorated as a war hero, he was at the front when the Russian Revolution of 1917 started. Vsevelod's mother served as a nurse during the war, while Vsevelod and his sister Catherine were left in St. Petersburg under the care of their paternal grandmother.
Revolution
During the chaotic rule of the Provisional Government, and after the October Revolution, Prince Vsevolod lived with his grandmother and some relatives, at Pavlovsk. When the Serbian diplomatic mission left Russia in 1918, they offered to take the family to Finland under Serbian protection. They refused. After the Bolsheviks took power, Vsevolod's father and two of his uncles Constantine and Igor were sent to internal exile in the Urals. They were killed at Alapaevsk, along with other Romanov relatives, in July 1918. Vsevolod's mother, who had followed her husband, spent many months imprisoned narrowly escaping being killed herself. Prince Vsevolod and his sister were safe under the care of their grandmother in the Marble Palace. As time went on, their circumstances became increasingly difficult as the palace and its contents were requisitioned. Their grandmother was forced to secretly sell family heirlooms to provide for the family.
They were finally able to escape revolutionary Russia with the help of Swedish diplomats, at the invitation of Queen Victoria of Sweden. In October 1918, the small family group consisting of four-year-old Vsevolod, his sister Catherine, their paternal grandmother, his uncle George, his aunt Vera, Miss Irwin (the children's Irish nanny) and three attendants were permitted by the Bolsheviks to leave Russia. They traveled first to Tallinn in Estonia, from there they crossed the Baltic to Finland. In Helsinki they boarded the Swedish vessel Ångermanland and traveled via Mariehamn to Stockholm. At Stockholm harbor, they met Prince Gustaf Adolf, who took them to the royal palace.
Exile
After spending sometime recuperating in Stockholm royal palace, they moved to a small spa town in Sweden. There, in 1919, Vsevolod was reunited with his mother. They moved to Paris and eventually went to live in Belgrade with his maternal grandfather King Peter I of Serbia. After his death in 1921, Vsevolod's uncle King Alexander bought a Villa at Cap Ferrat in the south of France for Vsevolod, his mother and his sister. They eventually settled in England.