Prince Paul Romanovsky-Ilyinsky was born 27 January 1928 at his parents’ home, 26 Manchester Square, London. His father Grand Duke Dmitri, as a direct result of his involvement in the murder of Grigori Rasputin in 1916, had been sent to the Persian front, which ultimately saved his life; many of his relatives, including his father and half-brother, were executed by the Bolsheviks. Dmitri, who was working as a champagne salesman, married Cincinnati heiress Audrey Emery in 1926. Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich of Russia, Dmitri's cousin and the self-proclaimed Emperor in exile, elevated Grand Duke Dmitri's wife and their descendants to Russian princely rank. Any children the couple would have would be known as Romanovsky-Ilyinsky, the latter half of the surname derived from Dmitri's former property in Russia, Ilinskoe. The marriage ended in divorce in 1937, and Ilyinsky was raised by his mother, who mostly lived in France. That same year, she married her second husband, Prince Dimitri Djordjadze, a member of a princely house ofGeorgia; they also later divorced. Dmitri Pavlovich's health had always been somewhat frail, and in the 1930s, his chronic tuberculosis became acute, leading to his death in 1942. Ilyinsky, who was a U.S. citizen, attended Woodberry Forest School in Virginia and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, England, before joining the U.S. Marine Corps. He served with distinction as a combat photographer in the Korean War and retired a lieutenant colonel. He graduated from the University of Virginia in 1953. Ilyinsky lived in Cincinnati for about 20 years, serving on the board of the company founded by his mother's family, Emery Industries, and working as an author and photographer. In 1980, he returned to Palm Beach, Florida, where he had lived before moving to Cincinnati. He served on the Palm Beach Council for 10 years and was mayor for three terms as Republican candidate. He resigned for health reasons in 1999. Ilyinsky died at his home in Palm Beach, Florida, in February 2004.
Titles and heritage
Paul is regarded by some to have become a "Prince and Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp" as his birthright. Where a dynasty's house law or customs were silent on the equality requirement, German princely law was deemed to apply, and by the 19th century, marriages to commoners were held to be non-dynastic for all formerly immediate German dynasties of the Holy Roman Empire., but the Dukes of Holstein-Gottorp were constantly married to commoners since the 17th century, and nothing happened to their dynastic status.
