page_title: Princess Irina Alexandrovna of Russia
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Princess Irina Alexandrovna of Russia / Early life
caption_attribution_description: Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia
context_page_description: Princess Irina Alexandrovna of Russia was the only daughter and eldest child of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia and Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia. She was also the only niece of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, and the wife of the wealthiest man in Imperial Russia, Prince Felix Felixovich Yusupov, one of the men who murdered Grigori Rasputin, "holy healer" to her cousin, the hemophiliac Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich of Russia, in 1916.
context_section_description: Before her marriage on 22 February 1914, Irina, the eldest child and only daughter in a family of seven children, was considered one of the most eligible women in Imperial Russia. Her family had spent long periods living in the south of France beginning in about 1906 because of her father's political disagreements with the Tsar.
  Her father was also carrying on an affair with a woman in the south of France and often asked Xenia for a divorce, which she refused to grant him. Xenia enjoyed extramarital affairs as well. Irina's parents tried to hide their unhappy marriage from their seven children, and Irina, a shy and tongue-tied girl with deep blue eyes and dark hair, had a happy childhood. Irina was often called Irène, the French version of her name, or Irene, the English version. Her mother sometimes nicknamed her "Baby Rina." The Romanovs, heavily influenced by the French and English, spoke French better than Russian and often used the foreign versions of their first names to refer to each other.
caption: Princess Irina with her parents and brothers
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