Knyaz Felix Felixovich Yusupov, Count Sumarokov-Elston (;Variously transliterated from Cyrillic as Yussupov, Yusupov, Yossopov, Iusupov, Youssoupov, Youssoupoff; also sometimes referred to as Feliks, Graf Sumarrokow-Elston. – 27 September 1967) was a Russian aristocrat from the House of Yusupov who is best known for participating in the assassination of Grigori Rasputin and for marrying Princess Irina Alexandrovna, a niece of Emperor Nicholas II.
Early life He was born in the Moika Palace in Saint Petersburg, the capital of the Russian Empire. His father was Count Felix Felixovich Sumarokov-Elston, the son of Count Felix Nikolaievich Sumarokov-Elston. Zinaida Yusupova, his mother, was the last of the Yusupov line, of Tatar origin, and very wealthy. For the Yusupov name not to die out, his father (1856, Saint Petersburg – 1928, Rome, Italy) was granted the title and the surname of his wife, Princess Zinaida Yusupova, on 11 June 1885, a year after their marriage, but effective after the death of his father-in-law in 1891.
The Yusupov family, one of the richest families in Imperial Russia, had acquired their wealth generations earlier. It included four palaces in Saint Petersburg, three palaces in Moscow, 37 estates in different parts of Russia, in the Crimea (at Koreiz, Kökköz and Balaklava), coal and iron-ore mines, plants and factories, flour mills and oil fields on the Caspian Sea. His father served between 1886 and 1904 as an adjutant to Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich the General-Governor of Moscow (with the support of Grand Duke Nikolas Nikolaevich).
Felix led a flamboyant life. As a young man, he cross-dressed habitually, beginning from birth to age five, and continuing on and off into adolescence. He later recalled crossdressing in his teen years to get into cabarets, which denied entrance to those in school uniforms. His brother's mistress Polya had helped him out by giving him her clothes which were a perfect fit. Dressed as a young woman, Yusupov gave six performances as a cabaret soprano, earning the acclaim of audiences, but on the seventh performance was discovered by friends who recognized him by means of his mother's jewelry, which he was wearing. Yusupov was upbraided by his family for this behavior, but the crossdressing did not stop. He continued dressing as a woman by night, while living as a student by day, even going so far on one occasion as to accept an invitation from a noted 'Don Juan' in the Guards, who, along with three other men, escorted Yusupov to a private dinner at the nightclub in St. Petersburg known as The Bear. There, the guardsmen made many advances on Yusupov habillé en femme, and the young prince was forced to smash a mirror with a bottle of champagne and shut off the lights in order to escape the men's attentions.Gretchen Haskin (2000) His Brother's Keeper. Atlantic Magazine; Lost Splendour, p. 111. From 1909 to 1913, he studied Forestry and later English at University College, Oxford, where he was a member of the Bullingdon Club,Prince Yusupoff Defended in Rasputin Case – Fellow-Collegian at Oxford Tells of Nobleman's Career There, and Says It Is Impossible to Associate Him with a Murder 14 January 1917 The New York Times and established the Oxford Russian Club. Yusupov was living on 14 King Edward Street, had a Russian cook, a French driver, an English valet, and a housekeeper, and spent much of his time partying. He owned three horses, a macaw, and a bulldog called Punch. He smoked hashish, danced the tango, and became friendly with Luigi Franchetti, a piano player, and Jacques de Beistegui, who both moved in. At some time, Yusupov became acquainted with Albert Stopford and Oswald Rayner, a classmate. He rented an apartment in Curzon Street, Mayfair, and met several times with the ballerina Anna Pavlova, who lived in Hampstead.
Marriage
In 1913, Yusupov became engaged to Princess Irina of Russia, the emperor's only biological niece, in the Yusupov Palace in Koreiz. They were married in the Anichkov Palace in St. Petersburg on 22 February 1914, and the bride wore a veil that had belonged to Marie Antoinette.J.T. Fuhrmann, p. 198. The Yusupovs went on honeymoon to the Crimea, Italy, Egypt, Jerusalem, London, and Bad Kissingen in Germany, where his parents were staying.
World War I When World War I broke out in August 1914, both he and his wife were briefly detained in Berlin. Irina asked her relative, Crown Princess Cecilie of Prussia, to intervene with Kaiser Wilhelm II. The Kaiser refused to permit the Yusupov family 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 in Germany and won permission for them to return to Russia via neutral Denmark to the Grand Duchy of Finland and from there to Saint Petersburg.G. King, pp. 114–115.
The Yusupovs' only daughter, Princess Irina Felixovna Yusupova, nicknamed Bébé, was born on 21 March 1915.King, p. 116 She was largely raised by her paternal grandparents until she was nine. Felix and Irina, raised mainly by nannies themselves, were ill-suited to take on the day-to-day burdens of child-rearing. Bébé adored her father but had a more distant relationship with her mother.King, pp. 257–258
After the death of his brother Nicholas in a duel in 1908, Felix was the heir to an immense fortune. Consulting with family members about how best to administer the money and property, he decided to devote time and money to charitable activities and converted a wing/floor of the Liteyny House into a hospital for wounded soldiers.
Felix was able to avoid entering military service himself by taking advantage of a law exempting only sons from serving. Irina's first cousin, Grand Duchess Olga, to whom she had been close when they were children, 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 Nicholas on 5 March 1915 after paying a visit to the Yusupovs.Bokhanov, Alexander, Knodt, Dr. Manfred, Oustimenko, Vladimir, Peregudova, Zinaida, Tyutyunnik, Lyubov, editors, The Romanovs: Love, Power, and Tragedy, Leppi Publications, 1993, p. 240
"Yusupov's plan, as he described it in his book, was to seek closer acquaintance with the healer Grigori Rasputin, and win his confidence. He asked Rasputin to cure a slight malady from which he suffered."B. Pares (1939), p. 400. These sessions stopped early January 1915 when, according to Maurice Paléologue, the most absurd stories were spread about Alexandra Feodorovna being the Starets' lover, Rasputin was also accused of espionage for Imperial Germany, and the tsarina was called nothing but "the German woman" (her birth nationality). The men did not meet again for almost two years.D. Smith (2016) Rasputin, p. 576 In February 1916 Felix began studies at the elite Page Corps military academy and tried joining an Imperial Russian Army regiment in August.Ronald C. Moe (2011) Prelude to the Revolution: The Murder of Rasputin, p. 494-495.
The heavy losses by the Russian military gave rise to rumors that Yusupov’s family was involved in misprision of treason, according to Alexander Spiridovich:
On 19 June 1915, after anti-German pogroms in Moscow, he was dismissed from the post of chief of the Moscow Military District, and on 3 September 1915 from the post of commander-in-chief over Moscow.
Assassination of Grigori Rasputin Early November 1916, Felix Yusupov approached the lawyer Vasily Maklakov for advice.M. Nelipa, pp. 112–115. Yusupov then asked Sergei Mikhailovich Sukhotin, a Preobrazhensky Regiment officer recovering from war injuries, who was also a friend of his mother.M. Nelipa, pp. 130, 134. Grand Duke Dmitri welcomed Yusupov's suggestion as an indication that killing Rasputin would not be a demonstration against the [Romanov] dynasty.B. Pares (1939), p. 402. On 20 November, Felix visited Vladimir Purishkevich, who had delivered an angry anti-Rasputin speech in the Duma on the day before, and who quickly agreed to participate in the assassination.D. Smith (2016) Rasputin, pp. 569–572
On the night of 29/30 December (NS) 1916, Felix, Dmitri, Vladimir Purishkevich, assistant Stanislas de Lazovert, and Sukhotin killed Rasputin in the Moika Palace under the pretense of a housewarming party. A major reconstruction of the palace had almost been finished, with a small room in the basement carefully furnished. Perhaps some women were invited but Yusupov did not mention their names; Radzinsky suggested Dimitri's step-sister Marianne Pistohlkors and film star Vera Karalli.E. Radzinsky (2000) The Rasputin File. Doubleday, pp. 476–477 Smith came up with Princess Olga Paley and Anna von Drenteln. Somewhere in the building were a major-domo and a valet, waiting for orders.Maria Rasputin (1929), p. 129
According to both Yusupov and Purishkevich, a gramophone in the study played interminably the Yankee Doodle when Rasputin came in.Purishkevich, p. 97. Yusupov mentions in his unreliable memoirs, that he then offered Rasputin tea and petit fours laced with a large amount of potassium cyanide. According to the diplomat, Maurice Paléologue—who in later years rewrote his diary—they discussed spirituality and occultism;Maurice Paléologue (1925).Ch. V. "December 25, 1910 – January 8, 1917" in An Ambassador's Memoirs. Vol. III. George H. Doran Company, New York. the antique dealer Albert Stopford wrote that politics was the issue. After an hour or so, Rasputin was fairly drunk. Still waiting for Rasputin to collapse, Yusupov became anxious that Rasputin might live until the morning, leaving the conspirators no time to conceal his body. Yusupov went upstairs and came back with a revolver.
Rasputin was hit at close range by a bullet that entered his left chest and penetrated the stomach and the liver. The wounds were serious, and Rasputin should have died in 10–20 minutes, but he succeeded in escaping outside. A second bullet from a distance with a firearm lodged into his spine after penetrating the right kidney.M. Nelipa, pp. 378, 386 Rasputin fell into the snow-clad courtyard and his body was taken inside. It is not clear whether or not Yusupov beat Rasputin with a sort of dumbbell. It is also not clear if it was Purishkevich who shot him point-blank into the forehead.M. Nelipa, pp. 322–324 A curious policeman on duty on the other side of the Moika had heard the shots, rang at the door, and was sent away. Half an hour later, another policeman arrived, and Purishkevich invited him into the palace. Purishkevich told him that he had shot Rasputin and asked him to keep it quiet for the sake of the tsar. The conspirators finally threw the corpse from Bolshoy Petrovsky Bridge into an ice hole in the Little Nevka.
On the empress's orders, a police investigation commenced and traces of blood were discovered on the steps to the back door of the Yusupov Palace. Prince Felix attempted to explain the blood with a story that one of his favorite dogs was shot accidentally by Grand Duke Dmitri. Yusupov and Dmitri were placed under house arrest in the Sergei Palace. The upper levels of the palace were occupied by the British embassy and the Anglo-Russian Hospital.M. Nelipa, p. 108.
Empress Alexandra had refused to meet the two but said that they could explain what had happened in a letter to her. She wanted both shot immediately, but she was persuaded to back off from the idea. Without a trial,B. Almasov, p. 214; B. Pares, p. 146. the tsar ordered the Grand Duke Dmitri to active service on the Persian front; Purishkevich was already on his way to the Romanian Front. The last Tsar also sentenced Yusupov to house arrest upon his estate in Rakitnoye.