Felix Yusupov

Prince Felix Felixovich Yusupov, Count Sumarokov-Elston ( _ru. Фéликс Фéликсович Юсýпов, граф Сумароков-Эльстон) (March 23, 1887, Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire – September 27, 1967, Paris, France), (variously transliterated from Cyrillic as "Yussupov", "Yusupov", "Yossopov", "Iusupov", "Youssoupov", "Youssoupoff", or as "Feliks, Graf Sumarrokow-Elston"), was best known for participating in the murder of Grigori Rasputin, the mystic peasant faith healer whom Yusupov and other Russian nobles believed held undue sway over Tsar Nicholas II and especially over the Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna.

Biography

Felix Yusupov was born in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire. His mother's family, the Yusupovs, were of Tatar origin and fabulously wealthy. The Yusupov family acquired their wealth generations earlier through extensive land grants in Siberia, and they owned a string of profitable mines and fur trading posts. In order that the Yusupov name might not die out, the prince's father, Count Felix Felixovich Sumarokov-Elston (October 5 1856, Saint Petersburg - June 10 1928, Rome, Italy), General Governor of Moscow (1914-1915) (son of Count Felix Nikolaievich Sumarokov-Elston), took the surname of his wife, Princess Zenaida Nikolaievna Yusupova (September 2 1861, Saint Petersburg - November 24 1939, Paris) upon their marriage, on April 4 1882 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Felix became heir to the immense fortune after his older brother Nikolai Felixovich, Count Sumarokov-Elston (born 1883), was killed in a duel on June 22 1908. Consulting with family members about how best to administer the money and property, he decided to devote time and money to charitable works to help the poor.

He also led a flamboyant life, and describes in his candid autobiography often spending time with Gypsy bands and adopting female clothing. [King, Greg, "The Man Who Killed Rasputin," Carol Publishing Group, 1995, p. 97. ] In 1909-1912 he studied at Oxford University in England, where he established the Oxford University Russian Society. He married Princess Irina of Russia, the Tsar's niece, on February 22 1914 in the Anichkov Palace in Saint Petersburg, and the marriage was extremely well-matched and very happy. They had a daughter, also called Irina.

Rasputin and after

It was in the Yusupov family's Moika Palace in Saint Petersburg that Felix and Grand Duke Dmitri and others murdered Rasputin on the night of 16/17 December 1916. Despite poisoning, shooting, and beating him with an iron bar, the conspirators still needed to tie up their victim and throw him under the icy surface of the river Neva in order to kill him. Yusupov published several accounts of the murder night and the events surrounding it. The assassination of Rasputin did not prevent the Russian Revolution. Yusupov was subject to a virtual house arrest in their estate outside Saint Petersburg.

Following the abdication of Nicolas II, Yusupov returned to the Moika Palace before travelling to the Crimea with his wife and child. He later returned to the Palace to retrieve jewellery and two paintings by Rembrandt, the sale proceeds of which helped sustain his family in exile. In the Crimea the family boarded a British warship, HMS Marlborough, which took them from Yalta to Malta. From there, they travelled to Italy, then by train to Paris. In Italy, lacking a visa, he bribed the officials with diamonds. In Paris, they stayed a few days in Hotel Vendôme before going on to London. In 1920, they returned to Paris and bought a house on the Rue Gutenberg in Boulogne-sur-Seine, where they lived most of their lives. Yusupov founded a short-lived couture house Irfé, and became renowned in the Russian émigré community for his financial generosity. This philanthropy, plus continued high living and poor financial management extinguished of what remained of the family fortune.

Yusupov and his wife successfully sued MGM through the English courts for invasion of privacy and libel in connection with the 1932 film "Rasputin and the Empress". The alleged libel was not that the character based on Felix had committed murder, but that the character based on Irina was portrayed as having been raped by Rasputin. They were awarded £25,000 damages, an enormous sum at the time, which was attributed to the successful arguments of their counsel Sir Patrick Hastings. The disclaimer which now screens at the end of every American film, "The preceding was a work of fiction, etc.," first appeared as a result of the legal precedent set by the Yusupov case.Fact|date=June 2008

Yusupov also sued the Columbia Broadcasting System in a New York court in 1965 for televising a play based upon the Rasputin assassination . The claim was that some events were fictionalized, and that under a New York statute Felix's commercial rights in his story had been misappropriated. The last reported judicial opinion in the case was a ruling by New York's second highest court that the case could not be resolved upon briefs and affidavits but must go to trial. Youssoupoff v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc., 19 A.D.2d 865 (1963). According to an obituary of CBS's lawyer, CBS eventually won the case. New York Times, Sept. 6, 1983 (death of Carleton G. Eldridge Jr.).

For the rest of his life Yusupov was haunted by Rasputin's murder, and suffered from nightmares. However, he also had a reputation as a faith healer. Yusupov died in Paris in 1967. He is buried in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery.

The Moika Palace is now open to the public, with a montage in the murder room illustrating Yusupov offering Rasputin poisoned cakes while his co-conspirators wait outside.

Yusupov's private papers, and a number of family artifacts and paintings are now owned by Victor Contreras, a Mexican sculptor who, as a young art student in the 1960s met Yusupov, and lived with the family for five years. He plans to turn his home, south of Mexico City into a museum where they will feature. ["Secrets of an Exiled Prince", Moscow Times, April 11-17, 2008]

Descendants

Descendants of Felix and Irina are:
*Princess Irina Felixovna Yussupova, (March 21, 1915, Saint Petersburg, Russia- August 30, 1983, Cormeilles, France), married Count Nikolai Dmitrievich Sheremetev (October 28 1904, Moscow, Russia - February 5 1979, Paris, France), son of Count Dmitri Sergeievich Sheremetev and wife Countess Irina Ilarionovna Vorontzova-Dachkova and a descendant of Boris Petrovich Sheremetev; had issue:
**Countess Xenia Dmitrievna Sheremeteva (born March 1 1942, Rome, Italy), married on June 20 1965 in Athens, Greece, to Ilias Sfiris (born August 20 1932, Athens, Greece); had issue:
***Tatiana Sfiris (born August 28 1968, Athens, Greece), married on May 1996 in Athens, Greece, to Alexis Giannakoupoulos (born 1963), divorced, no issue; married Anthony Vamvakidis and has issue:
****Marilia Vamvakidis (July 17 2004)
****Yasmine Xenia Vamvakidis (May 7 2006) [cite web | author= Paul Theroff| year=2007 | title= "Russia" | work=An Online Gotha| url=http://pages.prodigy.net/ptheroff/gotha/russia.html | accessdate= January 3| accessyear=2007]

Bibliography

*Youssoupoff, Prince Felix: "Rasputin", Dial Press, 1927
*Youssoupoff, Prince Felix: "Rasputin: His Malignant Influence and His Assassination", 1934
*Youssoupoff, Prince Felix: "Avant L'Exil", Plon, Paris 1952
*Youssoupoff, Prince Felix: "Lost Splendour", Jonathan Cape, London 1953
*Ferrand, Jacques (Ed.): "Les princes Youssoupoff & les comtes Soumarokoff-Elston", Ferrand, Paris 1991

References

External links

* [http://www.alexanderpalace.org/lostsplendor/intro.html "Lost Splendour" - Yusupov's self-biography until 1919] (online). Printed in 1952, ISBN 1-885586-58-2.