Monday, December 10, 2012

Princess Helen of Serbia - freed

December 10, 1918

Princess Helen of Russia, wife of Prince Ioann Constantovich, arrived in Stockholm today on a steamer from St. Petersburg, reports the New York Times.

The princess, a daughter of King Peter of Serbia, has been held by the Bolsheviks for several months.  Due to the efforts of the Norwegian Legation in St. Petersburg, the Princess was allowed to leave Russia. 

Prince Ioann was the eldest son of the late Grand Duke Konstantin of Russia.   He married Princess Helen on September 1, 1911.  The couple's first child, Prince Vsevolod, was born in January 1915.  A daughter, Princess Catherine, was born in July 1912.

Last July, a dispatch from Moscow to a Cologne newspaper reported that Prince Ioann and "three other Russian grand dukes" were carried off "by an unidentified band, which had broken into their residence."

More recently, New York Times correspondent Carl W. Ackerman reported from Ekaterinburg that 5 bodies believed to be Russian Grand Dukes were found  near Ekaterinburg "in a well into which the victims had been thrown alive."  They were killed the Bolsheviks with hand grenades thrown into the mine.

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