Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia

Russian grand duke and naval officer (1866–1933)

Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia (Александр Михайлович Aleksandr Mikhailovich; 13 April 1866 – 26 February 1933) was an Imperial Grand Duke and dynast of the House of Romanov of the Russian Empire, a naval officer, an author, explorer, the brother in law of Emperor Nicholas II and advisor to him.

In 1885 Alexander graduated from the Naval College with the rank of midshipman (lang ru ); he served in the Navy and participated in voyages. From 1891 he initiated and founded the first edition of the Russian annual directory of Military Fleets (lang ru ), which he edited until 1906. In 1895 he developed a program of strengthening the Russian Navy in the Pacific. Starting in 1896, he taught the Naval Game at the Naval Science Classes in the Naval Academy. Between 1901 and 1902 he acted as the commander of the Black Sea battleship Rostislav, and in 1903 he was appointed a junior flag officer of the Black Sea Fleet. In parallel, between 1901 and 1905 he acted as a chief superintendent and the chairman of several councils related to merchant shipping and ports. At these positions he contributed to the development of commercial shipping, construction and equipment of new ports, the training of merchant mariners, the founding of long distance shipping lines and the improvement of maritime trade legislation. During the Russian Japanese war of 1904–1905 he oversaw the auxiliary cruisers of the Volunteer Fleet. Alexander took part in the development of programs aimed at rebuilding the fleet, brought them to the attention of governments and the public, and avidly supported the construction of new battleships. In 1909 he was promoted to the rank of vice admiral. Nicholas, who had abdicated on 15 March 1917, was a prisoner at Yekaterinburg with his family. They would be executed by the Bolsheviks just over a month later. Alexander left the Crimea with his eldest son, Prince Andrei Alexandrovich, and his son's new bride, Elisabetta Ruffo di Sant'Antimo, who was pregnant, in December 1918. His wife and mother in law, Empress Dowager Maria Fyodorovna and his sons as well as other Romanovs, were rescued from the Crimea by the British battleship in 1919. Alexander lived in Paris and wrote his memoirs. Once a Grand Duke (Farrar & Rinehart 1933) is a source of dynastical and court life in Imperial Russia's last half century. He also spent a time as guest of future Emperor Ras Tafari. He talks about why he was invited to the Ethiopian Empire in his sequel, Always a Grand Duke. He died in Roquebrune Cap Martin, France. He was the last surviving legitimate grandchild of Nicholas I of Russia. He was buried there in Roquebrune. His wife, Xenia, died in Hampton Court Palace in 1960. While in exile after 1917, he became fascinated with archaeology and conducted a number of successful expeditions.

Alexander was a "mystical freemason" and spirit, called himself a rosicrucian and philalethes. Was in the masonic "Velikoknyiajeskaia Lodge" (St. Petersburg, after 1907 to 1917), the founder of the "Admiralty Lodge" (St. Petersburg, 1910), who worked on the ritual Philalethes. According to the Encyclopaedia by Serkov, Alexander was a master of the lodge "Karma", who worked in the years 1910–1919 Swedish Rite.