Irina Mikhailovna Raievskya (Russian: Ирина Михайловна Раевская; 18 August 1892 – 22 January 1955), was a Russian and German noble. She was Duchess of Mecklenburg by her marriage to her second husband, George, Duke of Mecklenburg (German: Georg Herzog zu Mecklenburg), who was the head of the House of Mecklenburg-Strelitz from 1934 until his death in 1963. Irina was the great-grandmother of Sophie, Princess of Prussia, wife of Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia, current head of the House of Hohenzollern.
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Early life
Irina Mikhailovna Rayevskaya was born on 18 August 1892 in Tsarskoye Selo, the residence of the Russian Imperial family, into the prominent Rayevski aristocratic house. Her father, Mikhail Nikolaievich Rayevsky (1841–1893), was a high-ranking military officer and the President of the Russian Imperial Society of Horticulture. Through her mother, Princess Mariya Grigoryevna Gagarina (1851–1941), Irina was a granddaughter of the renowned diplomat and artist Prince Grigory Grigorievich Gagarin.
As a descendant of the Rayevski line, Irina was an heiress to the legacy of Grigori Potemkin, Prince of Tauria, through his sister Maria Alexandrovna Potemkina. Her upbringing within the highest ranks of the Russian nobility in Saint Petersburg was characterized by the traditional education of the period, encompassing languages and court etiquette, before the family's life was altered by the Russian Revolution.