Prince Vladimir Paley, first cousin of the last Tsar, was a poet among the Romanovs, but not a Romanov. The rules of the Imperial family prevented him from being considered a member of the dynasty, due to the “unequal” marriage of his parents. This circumstance could have saved his life; however, when he was requested by the Bolshevik regime to deny his beloved father, Grand Duke Paul of Russia, he remained loyal to the ties of affection and honor, and chose captivity and death instead.

Brutally murdered in 1918, when he already seemed called to become one of the great characters of Russian literature, - his poetry, full of passionate feeling, young freshness and sometimes mystic depth, was forgotten for political reasons, while his beloved country lived under a regime of terror of which he was one of the first victims. His only “crime” was to be related to a dynasty of which he had not even been an official member.

“Volodya was an extraordinary being, a living instrument of rare sensitiveness, which could of itself produce sounds of startling melody and purity, and create a world of bright images and harmonies. In years and experience he was still a child, but his spirit had penetrated into regions reached only by a few. He had genius…”

This was the way Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, daughter of Grand Duke Paul of Russia and his first wife, Alexandra of Greece, spoke of her younger brother in her autobiography Education of a princess, and she was quite right: Prince Vladimir Pavlovich Paley was indeed an extraordinarily gifted character and a most remarkable poet.
Prince Vladimir was born in St. Petersburg on December 28, 1896. He was the son of the Grand Duke Paul, youngest son of Emperor Alexander II, and of Olga Valerianovna Karnovich, the daughter of a chamberlain in the Imperial Court. Since his parents’ marriage was considered to be morganatic, Vladimir could not use his father’s surname of Romanov, but was later granted the title of Prince Paley by a special decree of Tsar Nicholas II.

Prince Vladimir spent his childhood in Paris, where his parents at first lived in exile after their unauthorized marriage (according to Russian Imperial family law), in an atmosphere of great love and tenderness. Since his early years, it was clear that he was an extraordinarily gifted child. He learned quickly to play the piano and other instruments, and revealed most remarkable skills for drawing and painting. He learned to read and write with similar ability in French, English and German, and later in Russian as well. At a very early age he astounded people by his extensive reading and his extraordinary memory. His elder half-sister Maria wrote:

“When he was still a baby, there was something indefinable about him that set him apart from the others… His parents saw how different he was from the others and wisely did not try to shape him according to pattern, as had been done with us. They allowed him comparative freedom to develop his unusual abilities.”

After lengthy negotiations with the Imperial Court, in 1907 the Grand Duke Paul finally succeeded in obtaining Tsar Nicholas II’s pardon for his unauthorized marriage, as well as permission for the whole family to return to Russia. The Grand Duke wanted his son to follow the dynastic tradition of an army career, and in 1908 Prince Vladimir became a student in the Corps-des-Pages, the Saint Petersburg military school for aristocratic youngsters.
Throughout his stay in the Corps-des-Pages, Vladimir continued privately to school himself in painting and music. And it was around 1910 that the young prince started to write poetry, a vocation that he would never abandon. His mother wrote:

“Ever since the age of thirteen Vladimir had been writing delightful verses… Each time he returned home, his poetic talent displayed itself more decidedly… He availed himself of every free moment to devote his mind to his cherished poetry. By temperament a dreamer, he observed everything, and nothing escaped his subtle, watchful attention… He loved Nature ardently. He went into ecstasy over everything God had created. A moonbeam inspired him, the scent of a flower gave him an idea for a poem. He had a prodigious memory. What he knew, what he had time to read in his short life, was truly marvelous. ”