Felix Yusupov
, Count Sumarokov-Elston () (
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 faith healer who was said to have influenced decisions of
Tsar Nicholas II and
Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna. Felix Yusupov was never appropriately punished for this murder, well-known at the time, and a significant part of widespread Rasputin imagery was created by his own publications demonizing his victim.
Biography
Felix Yusupov was born in
Saint Petersburg,
Russian Empire. His mother's family, the
Yusupovs, were of
Tatar origin and very wealthy (there was a time when Felix Yusupov was the richest man in Russia). 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. In 1909-1912 he studied at
University College, Oxford 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 born
March 21,
1915.
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 happened not long before the
Russian Revolution. Yusupov was subject to a virtual
house arrest in their estate outside
Saint Petersburg.
World War I
Felix and Irina with their daughter, Bebé, in 1916.
The Yusupovs were on their honeymoon in
Europe and the
Middle East when
World War I broke out. They were briefly detained in
Berlin after the outbreak of hostilities. Irina asked her first cousin,
Crown Princess Cecilie of Prussia to intervene with her father-in-law, the Kaiser.
Kaiser Wilhelm II refused to permit them to leave, but offered them a choice of three country estates to live in for the duration of the war. Felix's father appealed to the
Spanish ambassador of Germany and won permission for them to return to Russia via neutral
Denmark to
Finland and from there to St. Petersburg
Felix converted a wing of his
Moika Palace into a hospital for wounded soldiers, but avoided entering military service himself by taking advantage of a law exempting only-sons from serving in the war. He did enter the Cadet Corps and took an officer's training course, but had no intention of joining a regiment. Irina's first cousin,
Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia, whom she had been close to when they were girls, was disdainful of Felix: "Felix is a 'downright civilian,' dressed all in brown, walked to and fro about the room, searching in some bookcases with magazines and virtually doing nothing; an utterly unpleasant impression he makes -- a man idling in such times," Olga wrote to her father,
Tsar Nicholas II, on 5 March 1915 after paying a visit to the Yusupovs. Felix and Irina's only daughter, Princess
Irina Felixovna Yusupova, nicknamed Bebé, was born on 21 March 1915. "I shall never forget my happiness when I heard the child's first cry," her father wrote.
Irina liked her name and wanted to pass it on to her first child. Her mother Xenia was so worried over the delivery that
Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna said it was almost like Xenia was giving birth instead of Irina.
Exile
Irina and Felix in exile
Following the abdication of
Tsar Nicolas II, the Yusupovs returned to the
Moika Palace before travelling to the
Crimea. They 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. Yusupovs 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. Felix Yusupov enjoyed boasting about the murder of
Rasputin while on the ship. One of the
British officers noted that Irina "appeared shy and retiring at first, but it was only necessary to take a little notice of her pretty, small daughter to break through her reserve and discover that she was also very charming and spoke fluent
English".
In exile, Irina and Felix lived better than most emigrees following the Revolution. For a time they ran a fashion house called Irfe, named after the first two letters of their first names, Irina and Felix. Irina modeled some of the dresses the pair and other designers at the firm created. 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, the Tsar's only niece, called "Princess Natasha" in the film was portrayed as having been seduced by the lecherous Rasputin. In
1934, the Yusupovs 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.
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 City 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.).
Felix and Irina's daughter was largely raised by her paternal grandparents until she was nine and was badly spoiled by them. Her unstable upbringing caused her to become "capricious," according to Felix. Felix and Irina, raised mainly by nannies themselves, were ill-suited to take on the day to day burdens of child-rearing. Irina's only child adored her father, but had a more distant relationship with her mother. Irina and Felix, close to one another as they weren't to their daughter, enjoyed a happy and successful marriage for more than fifty years.
After Yusupov publishing his memoir detailing the death of
Grigory Rasputin. Rasputin's daughter
Maria sued Yusupov and
Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia in a
Paris court for damages of $800,000. She condemned both men as murderers and said any decent person would be disgusted by the ferocity of Rasputin's killing. Maria's claim was dismissed. The
French court ruled that it had no jurisdiction over a political killing that took place in Russia.
For the rest of his life Yusupov was haunted by Rasputin's murder, and suffered from nightmares. Ironically, he also had a reputation as a faith healer.
Death
Yusupov died in
Paris in
1967. He is buried in
Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery.
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:
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
