page_title: Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia
section_title: Exile in Paris
hierarchical_section_title: Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia / Exile / Exile in Paris
caption_attribution_description: see filename
context_page_description: Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich of Russia was a son of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia, a grandson of Tsar Alexander II of Russia and a first cousin of Tsar Nicholas II.
  His early life was marked by the death of his mother and his father's banishment from Russia after marrying a commoner in 1902. Grand Duke Dimitri and his elder sister Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, to whom he remained very close throughout his life, were raised in Moscow by their paternal uncle Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich and his wife Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia, a sister of Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna. His uncle was killed in 1905 and as his aunt entered religious life, Dimitri spent a great deal of his youth in the company of Tsar Nicholas II and his immediate family at the Alexander Palace as they viewed him almost like a foster son.
  Grand Duke Dimitri followed a military career, graduating from the Nikolaevskoe Cavalry School. He was commissioned as a cornet in the Horse Guards Regiment. An excellent equestrian, he competed in the Olympics games of 1912 in Stockholm.
context_section_description: In Paris, Dimitri took rooms at a hotel until he found a modest two-room apartment. The proceeds from the sale of his St Peterburg palace enabled him to live well but they depleted quickly. He had given generously to other emigres in need and to Russian charities. In the summer of 1921, Dimitri accompanied his sister to Denmark to a reunion with her son Prince Lennart. While in Denmark, Dimitri saw the Marling family again and with his sister visited the Dowager Empress, Maria Feodorovna, who had retired to her villa Hvidore. 
  With his economic resources depleting, Grand Duke Dimitri found employment serving on the board of a Champagne firm. An American journalist described him around this time as attractive: "He is, in his slender well-groomed person, all that a grand duke should be - especially if you like your grand duke young clean-shaven, and concave at the waistline.  He has a figure like Rudolph Valentino". Well known in the Paris scene of the 1920s, Dimitri was then having an affair with opera singer Marthe Davelli.  It was through her that Dimitri became close to Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel.  "You take him", the singer allegedly offered him to her old friend: "He is too expensive for me".  Chanel and Dimitri, who had actually met before in pre-World War I Paris, became lovers.  Their relationship lasted around a year. It began in spring 1921 with an off-season stay in Monte Carlo where they tried to live as discreetly as possible. Dimitri's sister, Maria Pavlovna, found a niche for herself in the rising Paris fashion industry by founding a business called "Kitmir" that specialized in bead and sequin embroidery and did much work for Chanel. It was Dimitri who introduced Chanel to Ernest Beaux, the perfumer who created Chanel No. 5, her most enduring product. Coco and Dimitri spent a happy summer at a villa near Arcachon.  Their romance fizzled out, but they remained friends. Chanel would later comment: " These grand dukes, they are all the same, an admirable face behind which there is nothing, green eyes, broad shoulders, fine hands... the most peaceful people, shyness itself. They drink just not to be afraid. Tall, handsome, superb these Russians are. And behind that is nothing: hollowness and vodka." 
  As the youngest Grand Duke to have survived the Russian Revolution, Dimitri was a prominent figure of the Russian community in exile. He had been proposed as a potential candidate for the throne by several monarchist groups. During the early 1920s, there was a bitter rivalry between the camps of the supporters of Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich and those of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich. While those who supported neither Nicholas nor Kirill advocate for Dimitri's candidacy for the Russian throne.
  On 8 August 1922, a makeshift Zemsky Sobor was convened at Priamurye, and Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich was “elected” Emperor. The Grand Duke neither accepted nor refused this empty gesture. Having waited for confirmation of the death of Tsar Nicholas II, his son, and his brother, in 1924 Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich announced (also on August 8) that he would assume “guardianship” of the throne of Russia. Shortly thereafter, on September 13, he issued his manifesto on the assumption of all imperial rights and the title of Emperor. On 25 September 1924, Grand Duke Alexander Michailovich issued an appeal to Russians to stand with Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich. It was at this time that Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich, who had no political ambitions for himself, supported instead the claim of his first cousin, Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich. Grand Duke Dimitri was also active politically. Together with his cousin, Prince Dimitri Alexandrovich, he was very involved in the monarchist youth organizations which sprang up in the years between the wars. By 1923, the largest of these was the “Union of Young Russia” which preached orthodoxy, nationalism, monarchism and peasant collectivism.
caption: Grand Duke Dimitri and Coco Chanel in the 1920s.
exif: {}