Felix Felixovich Yusupov

About museum

Felix Felixovich Yusupov – a Russian aristocrat and memoirist, the last of the Yusupov princes. He is known for his participation in the assassination of Grigori Rasputin. Husband of Princess Irina Alexandrovna, a niece of Tsar Nicholas II. He was born to Count Felix Felixovich Sumarokov-Elston and Princess Zinaida Nikolaevna Yusupova. He became the sole heir to the Yusupov family fortune after the death of his elder brother Nikolai in a duel in 1908. From 1909 to 1912 he studied at the University of Oxford, where he founded the Russian Society of the University of Oxford. In the 1910s he headed the First Russian Automobile Club.  

On 22 February 1914 he married Princess of imperial blood Irina Alexandrovna, the daughter of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich and Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna, sister of Nicholas II. During the First World War Prince Felix Yusupov Jr. was exempted from conscription into the army because he was the only son in the family. He is known for having taken part in the murder of Grigori Rasputin.  

After the October Revolution the Yusupovs left for Crimea, from where aboard the battleship “Marlborough” they departed for Malta and later moved to London. With the funds obtained from the sale of the family jewels and two Rembrandt paintings, the Yusupovs bought a house in the Bois de Boulogne. The Yusupovs continued to engage in charity, helping Russian émigrés. In 1928 Yusupov published his memoirs, which recounted the killing of Rasputin. The last of the Yusupov princes died on 27 September 1967 in Paris.