Biography
Felix Yusupov was born in Saint Petersburg, capital of the Russian Empire. His mother's family, the Yusupovs, were of Tatar origin and very wealthy (there was a time when Felix Yusupov was the richest man in Russia). The Yusupov family acquired their wealth generations earlier through extensive land grants in Siberia, and they owned a string of profitable mines and fur trading posts. In order that the Yusupov name might not die out, the prince's father, Count Felix Felixovich Sumarokov-Elston (October 5, 1856, Saint Petersburg – June 10, 1928, Rome, Italy), General Governor of Moscow (1914–1915) (son of Count Felix Nikolaievich Sumarokov-Elston), took the surname of his wife, Princess Zenaida Nikolaievna Yusupova (September 2, 1861, Saint Petersburg – November 24, 1939, Paris) upon their marriage, on April 4, 1882 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Felix became heir to the immense fortune after his older brother Nikolai Felixovich, Count Sumarokov-Elston (born 1883), was killed in a duel on June 22, 1908. Consulting with family members about how best to administer the money and property, he decided to devote time and money to charitable works to help the poor.
He also led a flamboyant life, and describes in his autobiography often spending time with Gypsy bands and adopting female clothing. From 1909 to 1912 he studied at University College, Oxford in England, where he was a member of the Bullingdon club and established the Oxford University Russian Society. He married Princess Irina of Russia, the Tsar's niece, on February 22, 1914 in the Anichkov Palace in Saint Petersburg. The marriage was said to be extremely well matched and very happy, despite Yusupov's bisexuality.
Read more about this topic: Felix Yusupov
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“The death of Irving, which at any other time would have attracted universal attention, having occurred while these things were transpiring, went almost unobserved. I shall have to read of it in the biography of authors.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
—André Maurois (1885–1967)
“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)