Prince Mikhail Cantacuzène

Prince Mikhail Mikhailovich Cantacuzène, Count Speransky (Russian: Михаи́л Миха́йлович Кантаку́зин, граф Сперанский; 29 April 1875 – 25 March 1955) was a Russian general. The title of Count Speransky has been alternatively spelled "Spiransky" and "Speranski".

Prince Michael (or Mikhail) was Prince Mikhail Mikhailovich Cantacuzène, eldest son of Prince Mikhail Rodionovich Cantacuzène and Elisabeth Sicard (French merchants in Odessa), was born on 29 April 1875 in Poltava, Ukraine, then part of Imperial Russia. He was born at his family's estate which was known as Bouromka, in Poltava, the eldest of four children. He had two younger brothers and a younger sister. Prince Mikhail was the second great-grandson of Count Mikhail Speransky, the Russian statesman under Alexander I of Russia; the Prince's father had inherited the Speransky title, unusually and on basis of special remainder, from his own maternal grandmother, who was a daughter of the first Count Speransky. The title of count was confirmed in 1872. The Russian princely titles of the Cantacuzène were inherited via the Romanian line of Cantacuzène, with the service of Michael's great-grandfather Radu, Rodion Matveevich, Cantacuzène, who came from Romania to serve under Catherine the Great. The princely titles were confirmed at that time (c. 1772) under the Russian tradition of military service granting transfer of foreign titles. In a matter of fact, they were not strictly princely in Romania, but were male line descendants from the Kantakouzenos emperors of Constantinople.

His mother's family were French Huguenots who also emigrated to the Russia of Catherine the Great; her family's wealth included the estate of Bouromka, several apartments in St. Petersburg, a villa in the Crimea, and an apartment in Paris.