Princess Xenia Georgievna of Russia
| Princess Xenia Georgievna | |
|---|---|
Portrait by Philip de László, c. 1920.
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| Born |
22 August 1903 Mikhailovskoe, St. Petersburg, Russian Empire |
| Died | 17 September 1965 (aged 62) Glen Cove, New York, U.S. |
| Spouse |
William Bateman Leeds, Jr. Herman Jud |
| Issue | Nancy Leeds Wynkoop |
| House | Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov |
| Father | Grand Duke George Mikhailovich |
| Mother | Princess Maria of Greece and Denmark |
Princess Xenia Georgievna of Russia (22 August 1903, Mikhailovskoe, Russia – 17 September 1965, Glen Cove, New York) was the daughter of Grand Duke George Mihailovich of Russia and Princess Maria Georgievna of Greece and Denmark.
Her older sister was Princess Nina Georgievna, born in 1901. She and her sister left Russia in 1914 to spend the war years in England with their mother. In 1919, her father, his brother, Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich, and their cousin, Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich, were executed by a Bolshevik firing squad in St. Petersburg.
In the summer of 1927, Xenia involved herself in the Anna Anderson/Anastasia Tchaikovsky affair by telephoning Gleb Botkin (son of imperial physician Eugene Botkin, who had been murdered along with the former tsar and his family in 1918) with an invitation for Anna to live as a guest at Kenwood. Xenia explains her hospitality: "I had heard that Botkin was arranging to bring 'the invalid' to the United States through a newspaper organization. This bothered me because I had heard so many conflicting stories. It then occurred to me that I should take her myself and avoid all this proposed publicity. For if she were indeed an impostor it would save much unpleasantness for my family, and if she were the real Anastasia it was ghastly to think that nothing was being done for her.... This solution would be simple, so it seemed to me."
As children, Xenia and her sister Nina had played frequently with the two youngest daughters of Tsar Nicholas II, Grand Duchesses Maria Nikolaevna and Anastasia Nikolaevna, as well as the youngest child and only boy, Tsarevitch Alexei. Through her father, Xenia was Anastasia's second cousin, once removed and through her mother they were second cousins. Both sisters possessed vivid memories of Anastasia, whom they described as "frightfully temperamental" and "wild and rough". According to Xenia, Anastasia "cheated at games, kicked, scratched, pulled hair, and generally knew how to make herself obnoxious."
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