Grand Duchess Kira Kirillovna of Russia was the second daughter of Grand Duke
Kirill Vladimirovich of Russia and Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna. She married
Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia. Russian Revolution
Kira, named after her father, was born in Paris while her parents were in
exile. Her parents' marriage had not been approved by Tsar Nicholas II due to
the fact that her maternal grandmother and paternal grandfather were siblings,
and so they had been forced to leave Russia. In addition, her mother had
divorced her former husband, Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse, the brother
of the Empress Alexandra. Her parents were later restored to favor and
returned to Russia. Following the Russian Revolution of
1917, the family fled to Finland. Kira, eight at the time, recalled that her
family was permitted to leave by the Provisional Government of Russia. For
the first time they rode on a public train. "For the first time there were no
royal trappings ... i.e. red carpets, special comforts, etc.," she recalled.
In Finland, her 40-year-old mother gave birth to a son, Vladimir. The family
waited in Finland for more than a year, hoping that the White Russians would
defeat the Bolsheviks and they could return to Russia. "How I wish I could
see you," 9-year-old Kira wrote to her aunt, Queen Marie of Romania, in May
1918. "Here it is quite cold though it ought to be summer. Boy is so sweet.
When he is hungry and Nana is preparing his lunch, the tears simply stream down
his cheeks with hunger." Kira spoke of gathering mushrooms in the woods, going
to the movies on Fridays, and of lessons, but also mentioned that they
were running out of sugar. Her mother wrote to relatives in other countries
begging for baby food to give the baby Vladimir.
Later life The family eventually left Finland and
headed first to Coburg and then to Saint-Briac, France. Kira was born
Princess Kira Kirillovna of Russia, but her father later gave her the title
"Grand Duchess" when he declared himself Guardian of the Throne in 1924.
Blonde-haired, blue-eyed Kira, high-spirited and straightforward, also
had an even temper. She was intelligent, curious, and interested in the arts like
her mother, with whom she worked in the art studio at Saint-Briac. Kira also
frequently visited her cousins at various royal courts or attended house
parties in the United Kingdom. Kira had some difficulty finding a suitable
husband. She was interested in the hemophiliac Alfonso of Spain, Prince of
Asturias, son of Alfonso XIII of Spain, but was disappointed when the prince
showed more interest in one of the daughters of Prince Nicholas of Greece.
Later, she was fond of Prince Constantine "Teddy" Soutzo, a Romanian
aristocrat. Her cousin, Carol II of Romania, refused to permit the match for
political reasons. Finally, Kira married Louis Ferdinand of Prussia in 1938.
Louis Ferdinand worked with the underground against the Nazis, and, in
the later years of the war, the couple was arrested and imprisoned at Dachau
concentration camp, where they were rescued by American troops in 1945. They
raised a family of four sons and three daughters in a village near Bremen,
Germany. Her children were: Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia
Prince Michael of Prussia Princess Marie Cécile of Prussia
Princess Kira of Prussia Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia m.
Donata Countess of Castell-Rüdenhausen Prince Christian-Sigismund of Prussia
Princess Xenia of Prussia. After World War II, Kira was called upon
to testify in the case of Anna Anderson, the woman who claimed to be Grand
Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia. Kira had met Anderson briefly in 1952 at
the urging of her mother-in-law, Crown Princess Cecilie of Prussia, who
believed Anderson's claim. Kira was not convinced. She found the woman
"repellent" and "not a lady" and incapable of speaking the cultured
English used by her family. Kira had last seen Anastasia when she was a child
of seven. Kira's uncle, Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich of Russia had been
convinced Anderson was Anastasia, but her father and mother were unconvinced
by Anderson's claim. In later years, Kira was disappointed
when her eldest son, Friedrich Wilhelm, renounced his rights to the title and
married a commoner. She also paid little heed to her health, putting on weight
and suffering from high blood pressure in her fifties. She was in good spirits
on a visit to her brother Grand Duke Vladimir of Russia at Saint-Briac in
September 1967, where she ate well and dumped several spoonfuls of sugar into
her coffee, commenting, "God forbid I should eat anything healthy!" That
night, she suffered a heart attack and soon died.
Titles, styles and honours Titles
9 May 1909 - 8 August 1922: Her Highness Princess Kira Kirillovna of Russia
8 August 1922 - 21 October 1938: Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Kira
Kirillovna of Russia 21 October 1938 - 20 July 1951: Her
Imperial and Royal Highness Princess Louis Ferdinand of Prussia
20 July 1951 - 8 September 1967: Her Imperial and Royal Highness The Princess
of Prussia National dynastic honours
Russian Imperial Family: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Andrew
Russian Imperial Family: Dame of the Order of St Catherine
German/Prussian Imperial and Royal family: Knight Grand Cross of the Order
of the Black Eagle German/Prussian Imperial and Royal
family: Grand Mistress Dame of the Order of Louise
Ancestry Notes
References Peter Kurth, Anastasia: The Riddle of
Anna Anderson, Back Bay Books, 1983, ISBN 0-316-50717-2
Michael John Sullivan, A Fatal Passion: The Story of the Uncrowned Last Empress
of Russia, Random House, 1997, ISBN 0-679-42400-8
John Van der Kiste, Princess Victoria Melita, Sutton Publishing, 1991, ISBN
0-7509-3469-7