Dimitri Obolensky

Dimitri Dimitrievich Obolensky (; –23 December 2001) was a Russian-British historian who was Professor of Russian and Balkan History at the University of Oxford and the author of various historical works. Biography Prince Dimitri Dimitrievich Obolensky was born in the Russian Soviet Republic on 1 April 1918 in Saint Petersburg, the son of Prince Dimitri Alexandrovich Obolensky (1882–1964) and Countess Maria (Shuvalova) (1894–1973). His family was descended from Rurik, Igor, Svyatoslav, St Vladimir of Kiev, St Michael of Chernigov, and Prince Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov: however, as one of his students has written, "he was a sober enough scholar to know that Rurik may not actually have existed." After the Russian Revolution, the Royal Navy helped the Obolensky family to escape from Russia in 1919, together with the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna and the Grand Duke Nicholas. He was educated in Britain at Lynchmere Preparatory School, Eastbourne, and in France at the Lycée Pasteur in Neuilly-sur-Seine, before going up to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he distinguished himself with a Blue for lawn tennis and graduated in 1940.