Who Shall be the Emperor of Russia by ["Union of Russian Legitimist Monarchists;" H.I.H. the Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich]

Munich: R. Oldenbourg (Ol'denburg), [1924]. Octavo (22 × 15 cm). Original staple-stitched self-wrappers; 11 pp. With a frontispiece portrait of the Grand Duke on coated paper and one chart (The male descendants of Emperor the Nikolai I [sic!]). Oxidation from staples; light wear to wrappers and lower left corner of text lightly scuffed; else about very good. Scarce English translation of this defence of the claims to the throne of Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, which features a two-page preface signed "Kirill." From the preface: "The deliverance of Our perishing country emphatically demands the triumph of Right and Good and the reunion of all Russians--true to their Oath and loving their Country--around the same and only banner of legality, under whose protection there can be neither quarrels nor dissension." A harbinger of the tragic disunity of the Russian aristocracy in emigration, which would only intensify throughout the 1920s. Editions by the Union of Russian Legitimist Monarchists were published in French and English and were apparently aimed at a larger international audience. They are scarce, with only two other titles recorded: "The head of the Romanoff Dynasty the Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich" (and a French translation of the latter) and a French translation of the present pamphlet. KVK, OCLC show only two copies of the present title worldwide, at the Bavarian State Library, the International Labor Organization in Geneva, and at Cambridge University.