by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2023

Prince Andrew Romanov, known as Andrew Romanoff after he came to the United States in 1949, a great-great-grandson of Nicholas I, Emperor of All Russia, was one of the disputed pretenders to the Headship of the Russian Imperial Family from 2016 – 2021. The Headship of the Russian Imperial Family and succession to the former Russian throne has been in dispute, mainly due to disagreements over whether marriages in the Romanov family were equal marriages – a marriage between a Romanov dynast and a member of a royal or sovereign house. Andrew inherited the claim after the death of Prince Dimitri Romanov who had no sons. With his death, the male line of Dmitri’s Nikolavevichi Branch of the Russian Imperial Family descended from Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaevich of Russia, a son of Nicholas I, Emperor of All Russia, became extinct, transferring the claim to the Mikhailovichi Branch, descended from Grand Duke Michael Nicolaevich of Russia, a son of Nicholas I, Emperor of All Russia. Andrew was also the great-grandson of Alexander III, Emperor of All Russia and Empress Maria Feodorovna, born Princess Dagmar of Denmark, through their elder daughter Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia.

Line of Andrew and his sons Alexis and Peter from Nicholas I: Nicholas I, Emperor of All Russia → Grand Duke Michael Nikolaevich of Russia → Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia → Prince Andrei Alexandrovich of Russia → Prince Andrew Andreievich Romanov  → Prince Alexis Andreievich Romanov and Prince Peter Andreievich Romanov

Prince Andrew Romanov was born in London, England on January 21, 1923. He was the youngest of the three children and the second of the two sons of Prince Andrei Alexandrovich of Russia and his first wife Duchess Elisabetta Sasso-Ruffo Di Sant Antimo from the Italian noble House of Ruffo di Calabria. Andrew’s paternal grandparents were Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia (grandson of Nicholas I, Emperor of All Russia) and Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia (daughter of Alexander III, Emperor of All Russia and sister of Nicholas II, Emperor of All Russia). His maternal grandparents were Fabrizio Ruffo, Duke of Sasso-Ruffo and Princess Natalia Alexandrovna Mescherskaya, a descendant of the wealthy, Russian noble House of Stroganov.

Andrew had two elder siblings. His elder brother had no children and predeceased both Prince Dmitri Romanov and Andrew and so Prince Dmitri’s claim came to Andrew.

• Princess Xenia Romanov (1919 – 2000), married (1) Calhoun Ancrum, divorced, no children (2) Geoffrey Tooth, no children
• Prince Michael Romanov (1920 – 2008), married (1) Jill Murphy, divorced, no children (2) Shirley Cramond, no children (3) Giulia Crespi, no children

Andrew’s half-sister Princess Olga Romanov

Andrew had one half-sister from his father’s 1942 second marriage to Nadine McDougall.

• Princess Olga Romanov (born 1950), married Thomas Mathew, had four children. Olga is the current President of the Romanov Family Association.

After the Russian Revolution, Andrew’s parents Andrei and Elisabetta spent their first several years in exile in France where Andrew’s siblings were born. In dire financial circumstances, Andrei, Elisabetta, and their family eventually settled permanently in England where Andrei’s mother Grand Duchess Xenia had a grace-and-favour residence provided to her by her first cousin King George V of the United Kingdom. Andrei, Elisabetta, and their family lived in a guest house on the grounds of Windsor Castle, granted to them by King George V.

When Andrew was born in 1923, the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, served as his godfather. Andrew and his siblings were brought up in the Russian tradition under the strict supervision of their paternal grandmother, the daughter of Alexander III, Emperor of All Russia and sister of Nicholas II, Emperor of All Russia, Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna, who lived until 1960 when Andrew was thirty-seven. Xenia was sure that the Romanovs would again rule in Russia and wanted to ensure that her grandchildren would take their rightful place in Russia. However, Andrew’s parents belonged to a different generation and no longer believed the Russian monarchy would be restored. They raised their children with a sense of duty to Russia but with the ability to cope with the realities of the modern world. At home, the family always spoke only Russian. Until he was twelve years old, Andrew received a private traditional education at home, characteristic of the House of Romanov. He then attended Haileybury and Imperial Service College, an English independent boarding and day school for 11- to 18-year-olds near Hertford, England. In 1940, during World War II, when Andrew was sixteen years old and away at school, his mother was killed when a Nazi bomb exploded near the family’s home. Already ill with cancer, she was crushed when a ceiling beam fell on her.

In 1942, during World War II, Andrew joined the Royal Navy. He refused to accept an offer to become an officer, preferring to be a simple British sailor. He served on the light cruiser HMS Sheffield, taking part in Arctic convoys, sailing to the port city of Murmansk, then in the Soviet Union, now in Russia, where he often acted as an interpreter. Andrew also participated in the Battle of the Atlantic, the North African Campaign, the Allied landings at Normandy, and campaigns in the Pacific Ocean.

After World War II, Andrew worked as an intern on a farm in Kent, England, studying to become an agronomist, a professional in the science, practice, and management of agriculture and agribusiness. After working in a tree nursery near London, Andrew, his uncle Prince Vasily Alexandrovich, and his first cousin Prince Nikita Romanov decided to emigrate to the United States. In 1949, with only $800 in his pocket, Andrew, his uncle, and his cousin traveled to the United States on a cargo ship.

Andrew dropped his royal style and title when he came to the United States, calling himself Andrew Romanoff. He settled in California, where he first worked in a store, and then at the California Packing Company where he grew tomatoes using hydroponics and worked on the introduction of new varieties of vegetables. He studied sociology and criminology at the University of California at Berkeley. Andrew later worked as a broker in a shipping company, a real estate agent, and a furniture designer. In 1954, he became a naturalized American citizen.

Andrew married three times:

• On March 21, 1951, in San Francisco, California, Andrew married Elena Konstantinovna Durnova (1927 – 1992). Andrew and Elena had one son before divorcing in 1959.
  • Prince Alexis Romanoff (born 1953), married Zoetta “Zoe” Leisy, no children – Alexis is the current claimant to the Headship of the Russian Imperial Family
• On March 21, 1961, in San Francisco, California, Andrew married Kathleen Norris (1935 – 1967). Andrew and Kathleen had two sons. Kathleen died from pneumonia.
  • Prince Peter Romanoff (born 1961), married Barbara Anne Jurgens, no children, Peter is the heir to his half-brother’s claim to the Headship of the Russian Imperial Family
  • Prince Andrew Romanoff (born 1963), married Elizabeth Flores, had one daughter, Andrew is second in the line of succession to the claim to the Headship of the Russian Imperial Family
• On December 17, 1987, in Reno, Nevada, Andrew married the American artist Inez Storer (born 1933)

After the death of his second wife, Andrew moved to Inverness, Marin County, California, where he worked as a carpenter, building houses with a Russian cousin, and started a company, Brass Menagerie, that made jewelry and other items. Without any formal art education, Andrew began drawing in the primitive art style, creating pictures by intuition and relying on imagination. His work depicted personal memories, impressions of American news, culture, and scenes of domestic life. It was through art that Andrew met his third wife artist Inez Storer in 1973. The couple lived in a 1906 former Inverness hotel with fourteen rooms, big enough to accommodate their blended families, and married in 1987. In 2007, Andrew released an autobiography called The Boy Who Would Be Tsar, illustrated with his small narrative paintings and his personal family photos. Some of Andrew’s work can be seen at the link below from the website of Gallery Route One, an art gallery that Andrew helped found.

• Gallery Route One: In Memory of Andrew Romanoff

Andrew was an original member of the Romanov Family Association, formed in 1979 to strengthen the links between the family and protect it from impostors. Today, the Romanov Family Association unites the majority of descendants of Nicholas I, Emperor of All Russia. From 1989 – 2016, Andrew served as an advisor to Prince Nicholas Romanov and Prince Dmitri Romanov during their terms as President of the Romanov Family Association. As of the writing of this article in August 2023, Andrew’s half-sister Princess Olga Romanov is the President of the Romanov Family Association, and his three sons are members.

On July 17, 1998, together with other members of the Romanov family, Andrew attended the reburial of the remains of Nicholas II, Emperor of All Russia, his wife and three daughters, and their servants at the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg, Russia. He was one of the initiators of the transfer of the remains of his great-grandmother Empress Maria Feodorovna, born Princess Dagmar of Denmark, from Denmark to the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg, Russia so she could be buried next to her husband Alexander III, Emperor of All Russia. In September 2006, Andrew attended all the events related to the transfer of the remains of his great-grandmother from Roskilde Cathedral in Denmark to Peter and Paul Cathedral in Russia. After the discovery in July 2007 of the remains of Nicholas II’s children Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich and Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, Andrew provided his DNA to establish the authenticity of the remains.

The headship of the House of Romanov has been contested since the death of the last undisputed male dynast Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich of Russia in 1992. Upon his death, competing claims over the headship of the House of Romanov emerged between Prince Nicholas Romanov and Grand Duke Vladimir’s daughter Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna. Prince Nicholas’ claim was based on a 1911 Ukase issued by Nicholas II, Emperor of All Russia that the equal marriage rule applied only to Grand Dukes (the sons and grandsons of an emperor) and that princes (the great-grandsons onward of an emperor) could marry women of “good standing” for their marriage to be dynastic and therefore transmit succession and dynastic rights to their children, and that women, namely Maria Vladimirovna, could succeed only on the total extinction of the male line. The Romanov Family Association recognized Prince Nicholas Romanov as the senior male dynastic representative and head of the family on December 31, 1992, in Paris, France and this was symbolically re-confirmed on Russian soil after the state burial of Emperor Nicholas II and his family in 1998. The Romanov Family Association further stated that they consider the marriage of Maria Vladimirovna’s parents to be unequal. (See Maria Vladimirovna’s article for more information.)

Andrew and his predecessors Prince Nicholas Romanov, and Prince Dmitri Romanov did not act for the restoration of the monarchy or engage in dynastic activities such as the distribution of Russian imperial titles and orders. Maria Vladimirovna claims the status of de jure Empress of All Russia, styles herself as Grand Duchess and her son George Mikhailovich as Grand Duke and Tsesarevich, the title for the heir apparent, and actively distributes Russian imperial orders, all of which have been condemned by the Romanov Family Association.

Prince Dmitri Romanov inherited the claim to the Headship of the Russian Imperial Family upon the death in 2014 of his elder brother Prince Nicholas Romanov who had two daughters but no sons. When Prince Dmitri Romanov died on December 31, 2016, Andrew inherited the claim because Dmitri had no sons. With Dmitri’s death, the male line of Dmitri’s Nikolavevichi Branch of the Russian Imperial Family descended from Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaevich of Russia, a son of Nicholas I, Emperor of All Russia, became extinct, transferring the claim to the Mikhailovichi Branch, descended from Grand Duke Michael Nicolaevich of Russia, a son of Nicholas I, Emperor of All Russia. All descendants of the Russian Imperial Family except for Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna and her son Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia recognized Andrew as the head of the House of Romanov.

Andrew Romanoff, born Prince Andrew Romanov, died surrounded by his family, on November 28, 2021, two months short of his 99th birthday at an assisted living center in San Anselmo, California after a long illness. A traditional Russian Orthodox funeral service was held at St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in San Anselmo, California followed by the burial at Olema Cemetery in Olema, California.

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Works Cited

• Liberatore, P. (2021) Andrew Romanoff, Marin’s Russian prince, dies at 98, Marin Independent Journal. Available at: https://www.marinij.com/2021/12/13/andrew-romanoff-marins-russian-prince-dies-at-98/ (Accessed: 12 August 2023).
• Mailonline. (2021) Eldest member of the Romanov family, Prince Andrew Andreievich, dies aged 98, Daily Mail Online. Available at: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-10258767/Eldest-member-Romanov-family-Prince-Andrew-Andreievich-dies-aged-98.html (Accessed: 12 August 2023).
• Massie, Robert K. (1995) The Romanovs: The Final Chapter. New York: Random House
• Orlov, Daniel. ‘The last real Romanov’ passed away (2021) Русская Культура. Available at: http://russculture.ru/2021/12/02/ushel-iz-gzizni-poslednii-nastojashii-romanov/ (Accessed: 12 August 2023).
• Prince Andrei Alexandrovich of Russia (2023) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Andrei_Alexandrovich_of_Russia (Accessed: 12 August 2023).
• Prince Andrew Romanoff (2023) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Andrew_Romanoff (Accessed: 12 August 2023).
• Романов, Андрей Андреевич (2023) Wikipedia (Russian). Available at: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B2,_%D0%90%D0%BD%D0%B4%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B9_%D0%90%D0%BD%D0%B4%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87 (Accessed: 12 August 2023).
• The Romanov Family Association. Available at: http://www.romanovfamily.org/index.html (Accessed: 12 August 2023)