The connection to the other European aritstocracy in Russia is deep, French used to be the language of all the European aristocracy, and someone in a country other than France speaking French meant that they were royalty, most of the time.........

The House of Romanov (Russian: Рома́нов, IPA: [rɐˈmanəf]) was the second imperial dynasty, after the Rurik dynasty, to rule over Russia, which reigned from 1613 until the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II on March 15, 1917, as a result of the February Revolution.

The direct male line of the Romanovs had already ended with Peter II in 1730. After an era of dynastic crisis, the House of Holstein-Gottorp, a cadet branch of the House of Oldenburg, ascended the throne in 1762 with Peter III, a grandson of Peter I. All rulers from the middle of the 18th century to the revolution of 1917 were descended from that branch. Though officially known as the House of Romanov, these descendants of the Romanov and Oldenburg Houses are sometimes referred to as Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov.^[2]

Emperor Nicholas II and many members of his extended family were executed by Bolsheviks in 1918 and it is believed that no member survived, ending the main line definitively. In 1924, Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, the direct male-line patrilineal descendant of Alexander II of Russia, claimed the headship of the defunct Imperial House of Russia. His granddaughter, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna of Russia, is the current pretender, her only child George Mikhailovich is her heir apparent.

Contents

   [hide] 

• 1 Surname "Romanov"
• 2 Origins
• 3 Rise to power
• 4 The era of dynastic crisis
• 5 The Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov Dynasty
• 6 Downfall
• 7 Shooting of Tsar and family
  • 7.1 Remains of the Tsar
  • 7.2 Alexei
    • 7.2.1 DNA proof
• 8 Killing of extended family
• 9 Exiles
  • 9.1 Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna
  • 9.2 Other exiles
• 10 Romanov family jewelry
• 11 Contemporary Romanovs
• 12 Heraldry
• 13 Family tree
• 14 See also
• 15 References
• 16 External links

Surname "Romanov"[edit]

Legally, it is not clear if a ukase was issued that abolished the surname of Michael Romanov upon his accession to the Russian throne or of his subsequent male-line descendants, although by tradition members of reigning dynasties seldom use surnames. Rather, they are known by their dynastic titles ("Tsarevich Ivan Alexeevich", "Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich", etc.) In addition, since 1761 Russian rulers descend from the son of Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna of Russia and Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, and thus they were no longer Romanovs by patrilineage, but belonged to the Holstein-Gottorp cadet branch of the German House of Oldenburg. In such genealogical literature as the Almanach de Gotha, the name of Russia's ruling dynasty from the time of Peter III is "Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov".^[3]However, the name "Romanov" and "House of Romanov" were often used in official references to the Russian imperial house. The coat of arms of the Romanov boyarswas included in legislation on the imperial dynasty, and in 1913 there was an official jubilee celebrating the "300th Anniversary of the Romanovs rule".^[4]

After the February Revolution all members of the imperial family were given the surname "Romanov" by special decree of the Provisional Government of Russia.^{[citation needed]} The only exception were the morganatic descendants of the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich who, in exile, took the surname Il'insky^[3][5]

Origins[edit]

A 16th-century residence of the Yuryev-Zakharyin boyars in Zaryadye, near the Kremlin.

The Romanovs share their origin with two dozen other Russian noble families. Their earliest common ancestor is one Andrei Kobyla, attested around 1347 as a boyar in the service of Semyon I of Moscow.^[3] Later generations assigned to Kobyla the most illustrious pedigrees. An 18th-century genealogy claimed that he was the son of the Prussian prince Glanda Kambila, who came to Russia in the second half of the 13th century, fleeing the invading Germans. Indeed, one of the leaders of theOld Prussian rebellion of 1260-1274 against the Teutonic order was named Glande.

His actual origin may have been less spectacular. Not only is Kobyla Russian for "mare", some of his relatives also had as nicknames the terms for horses and other domestic animals, thus suggesting descent from one of the royal equerries.^{[citation needed]} One of Kobyla's sons, Feodor, a boyar in the boyar duma of Dmitri Donskoi, was nicknamed Koshka (cat). His descendants took the surname Koshkin, then changed it to Zakharin, which family later split into two branches: Zakharin-Yakovlev and Zakharin-Yuriev.^[3] During the reign of Ivan the Terrible, the former family became known as Yakovlev (Alexander Herzen among them), whereas grandchildren of Roman Zakharin-Yuriev changed their name to Romanov.^[3]