page_title: Princess Helen of Serbia
section_title: Engagement and marriage
hierarchical_section_title: Princess Helen of Serbia / Engagement and marriage
caption_attribution_description: Prince Ioann Konstantinovich and his wife Princess Elena Petrovna (daughter of King Peter I of Serbia)
context_page_description: Princess Helen of Serbia and Yugoslavia was a Serbian princess, the daughter of King Peter I of Yugoslavia and his wife Princess Zorka of Montenegro. She was the elder sister of George, Crown Prince of Serbia and King Alexander I of Yugoslavia. Helen was also a niece of Anastasia of Montenegro, wife of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich of Russia, and of Milica of Montenegro, wife of Grand Duke Peter Nicolaievich of Russia, the women who introduced Grigori Rasputin to Tsarina Alexandra.
context_section_description: A fourth aunt, Elena of Montenegro, Queen of Italy, invited her for a visit and introduced her to Prince John Constantinovich of Russia. He proposed marriage soon after. It was a love match, a surprise to the family because the gentle, introverted John had thought of becoming a Russian Orthodox monk. "Perhaps you know that Ioanchik is engaged to Helene of Serbia, it is so touching," wrote his distant cousin, 14-year-old Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia, to her aunt, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia, on  14 July 1911. "How funny if they might have children, can they be kissing him? What foul, fie!" The couple married on  21 August 1911, in St. Petersburg, Russia.
  Helen studied medicine at the University of St. Petersburg following their marriage, a career pursuit she had to give up when she gave birth to her first child. The couple had two children, Prince Vsevelod Ivanovich of Russia (20 January 1914 – 18 June 1973), and Princess Catherine Ivanovna of Russia ( Pavlovsk 12 July 1915 - Montevideo, Uruguay 14 July 2007). The three children and seven grandchildren of her daughter Princess Catherine, who married and later separated from Marchese Farace di Villaforesta, are the only great-grandchildren of Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich of Russia and his wife Grand Duchess Elizabeth Mavrikievna.
caption: Princess Elena Petrovna and Prince Ioann Konstantinovich. Engagement photograph
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