The Romanov The Bolsheviks Forgot To Kill: How Russia's Last Royal Lived A Quiet Canadian Exile

OLGA'S MOTHER






Maria Fedorovna Romanov , Russian Empress

Born Princess Marie Sophie Frederikke Dagmar of Denmark, she was the second daughter of King Christian IX.

In 1866 she married the Russian heir to the throne, later Alexander III.

Upon her marriage she converted to the Russian Orthodox faith and changed her name to Maria Fedorovna.

She had 6 children, one of them Tsar Nicholas II.

Throughout her life she took part in charity and contributed to improve the Russian education system.

During the First World War she made a great effort as chairman of the Russian Red Cross.

She spent more than 50 years in Russia, surviving the revolution,
which caused the deaths of two of her sons and five grandchildren.

In 1919 she left Russia on board a British warship "Marlborough" and, for a while,
stayed with her sister, Queen Dowager Alexandra, in England.

She later moved to Denmark.

When she died, the funeral service was held in the Church of Alexander Nevsky in Copenhagen.

Afterwards the sarcophagus of Empress Maria Fedorovna was placed in Roskilde Cathedral.

In 2005, the governments of Denmark and Russia agreed to fulfill her will to be buried next to her husband.

Her remains were interred in Saint Peter and Paul Cathedral 78 years after her death.

---

Family Members
Parents

• 
  Christian IX of Denmark
  
  1818–1906
• 
  Louise von Hessen-Kassel
  
  1817–1898

Spouse

• 
  Alexander Alexandrovich Romanov
  
  1845–1894 (m. 1866)

Siblings

• 
  Frederik VIII of Denmark
  
  1843–1912
• 
  Alexandra of Denmark
  
  1844–1925
• 
  George Christian William Ferdinand Adolphus Oldenburg
  
  1845–1913
• 
  Maria Feodorovna
  
  1847–1928
• 
  Thyra Amalia Caroline Charlotte Anna of Denmark
  
  1853–1933
• 
  Valdemar of Denmark
  
  1858–1939

Children

• 
  Nicholas Alexandrovich Romanov
  
  1868–1918
• 
  Alexander Alexandrovich Romanov
  
  1869–1870
• 
  George Alexandrovich Romanov
  
  1871–1899
• 
  Xenia Alexandrovna Romanova
  
  1875–1960
• 
  Michael Alexandrovich Romanov
  
  1878–1918
• 
  Olga Alexandrovna Romanov
  
  1882–1960

 

Alexander Alexandrovich Romanov III

BIRTH	10 Mar 1845 Saint Petersburg, Saint Petersburg Federal City, Russia
DEATH	20 Oct 1894 (aged 49) Yalta, Republic of Crimea, Ukraine
BURIAL	Saint Peter and Paul Fortress Saint Petersburg, Saint Petersburg Federal City, Russia
MEMORIAL ID	7033272 ·

Russian Monarch. Imperial House of Romanov.

Grand Duke Alexander became Emperor of All the Russia's upon the death of His Majesty's father,
Czar-Liberator Alexander II.

In 1866, Grand Duke Alexander married Princess Dagmar of Denmark, known as Czarina Marie.

Alexander III was Czar from 1881-1894 and reversed some of the reforms of the Czar-Liberator.

Emperor Alexander III refused to grant the constitution which the Czar-Liberator was on the verge of signing
before His Majesty's murder. Czar Alexander III tightened police oppression and incresed censorship.

The authority of the town councils & the judiciary were reduced. Industrial development increased
& the construction of the Trans Siberian Railway began. Czar Alexander III died at the Summer Palace
in Livadia in the Crimea.

Alexander III is buried in the Fortress of St Peter & St Paul in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

The Czar's son, Grand Duke Nicholas became Czar Nicholas II.

---

Family Members
Parents

• 
  Alexander Nicholaevich Romanov
  
  1818–1881
• 
  Maria Alexandrovna Romanova
  
  1824–1880

Spouses

• 
  Maria Fedorovna Romanov
  
  1847–1928 (m. 1866)
• 
  Maria Feodorovna
  
  1847–1928 (m. 1866)

Siblings

• 
  Alexandra Alexandrovna Romanova
  
  1842–1849
• 
  Nicholas Alexandrovich Romanov
  
  1843–1865
• 
  Vladimir Alexandrovich Romanov
  
  1847–1909
• 
  Alexei Alexandrovich Romanov
  
  1850–1908
• 
  Maria Alexandrovna Romanova
  
  1853–1920
• 
  Sergei Alexandrovich Romanov
  
  1857–1905
• 
  Paul Alexandrovich Romanov
  
  1860–1919

Half Siblings

• 
  George Alexandrovich Yurievsky
  
  1872–1913
• 
  Olga Alexandrovna Yourievsky von Merenberg
  
  1873–1925
• 
  Boris Alexandrovich Yurievsky
  
  1876–1876
• 
  Ekaterina Alexandrovna Yourievsky
  
  1878–1959

Children

• 
  Nicholas Alexandrovich Romanov
  
  1868–1918
• 
  Alexander Alexandrovich Romanov
  
  1869–1870
• 
  George Alexandrovich Romanov
  
  1871–1899
• 
  Xenia Alexandrovna Romanova
  
  1875–1960
• 
  Michael Alexandrovich Romanov
  
  1878–1918
• 
  Olga Alexandrovna Romanov
  
  1882–1960

 

Martin van Creveld

Alexandra - Martin van Creveld (martin-van-creveld.com)
http://www.martin-van-creveld.com/alexandra/

NOT SURE how much he has written, i'll copy in a little
but, suggest readers go to the link above to read
here: http://www.martin-van-creveld.com/alexandra/

• Alexandra

POSTED ON OCTOBER 21, 2021 BY MARTIN VAN CREVELD

History has not been kind to Alexandra Feodorovna.

Born in 1872 to a fairly minor (as belle epoque grand dukes go), German grand duke, married (in 1894) to Tsar Nicholas II of Russia,
she is often presented as a melancholy, not too bright, woman.

One whose chief interests—how dare she—was neither feminism nor any public role she might have played, but religion, her children, embroidery, and singing hymns. One who, it having been discovered that her only son, heir to the throne Alexei,
was a hemophiliac, went almost out of her mind trying to look after him and worrying about him.

With good reason, for more than once he was on the point of death and more than once he begged
his parents to put him out of his misery by killing him.

Things were made even worse when she turned to Rasputin, an uncouth, semiliterate,
but highly charismatic self-proclaimed holy man from Siberia, for the kind of spiritual aid
she so desperately needed but apparently could not find either at court or with her husband.

Partly because of her German origins, partly because many members of the Tsar’s family and court officials
considered that he had betrayed them by marrying below his station, Alexandra was never popular at court.

Nor, later on, did her closeness to Rasputin improve matters. But that was only part of it. Not only was Alexandra
not the type that happily waves to crowds, but she never attained a complete mastery of Russian
(she and her husband used to communicate in English). As a result, she was not terribly well received
by the rest of the population either.

The outbreak of World War I did nothing to improve the lot of this unhappy woman.

First she did her best to prevent her two countries from going to war against each other,
storming into her husband’s presence and proclaiming, prophetically as it turned out,
that “this is the end of everything.”

Starting in 1915 she found herself accused of being in favor of Germany, even a German spy,
a claim for which no evidence has ever been found.

After the March 1917 Revolution she and her family were arrested, first by the Kerensky Government
and then again by Lenin and his Bolsheviks.

Held first in Tobolsk (in Siberia) and then in Yekaterinburg (ditto) under conditions that grew steadily worse.

In the spring of 1918 there was some talk of sending the royal family to England in quest of asylum;
but these hopes were dashed when the Emperor’s cousin, King George V, fearing for his own throne, refused to let them in.

The end came in July of the same year when, probably on Lenin’s personal order, the Tsar, his wife,
and their five children (four daughters, one son) were taken to a cellar and died in a hail of submachine gun bullets.

So far the traditional view. It so happened, however, that I came across a work by one Anna Viroubova.

Born in 1884, the daughter of a high Russian official, for twelve years (1905-12) she was the Empress’ closest companion
and confidante.

In 1917 she too was arrested, first by Kerensky and then by Lenin.

Held under rather unpleasant conditions in the infamous Petrograd (as it then was) Fortress of Peter and Paul,
later she was released and went to live with her mother in the same city.

From that apartment she was able to keep up an illicit, but fairly regular, correspondence with her imprisoned former mistress
, the latter’s husband the former emperor, and their offspring.

In 1920 she escaped to newly independent Finland where she spent the rest of her life, finally dying in 1964.

Nothing like prison to clear the mind, they say. Perhaps that is why the Empress’ letters to Viroubova,
as printed in the latter’s 1923 book, showed her in a light I had never known existed.

Here was a courageous woman.

One who, amidst all her tribulations, knew how to give and receive love.

I quote. From Anna Viroubova, Memories of the Russian Court Normandy Press. Kindle Edition, 2016, p. 167.

March 1918.

“We are endlessly touched by all your love and thoughtfulness.

Thank everybody for us, please, but really it is too bad to spoil us so, for you are among so many difficulties
and we have not many privations, I assure you.

We have enough to eat, and in many respects are rich compared with you.

The children put on yesterday your lovely blouses.

The hats also are very useful, as we have none of this sort.

The pink jacket is far too pretty for an old woman like me, but the hat is all right for my gray hair.

What a lot of things!

The books I have already begun to read, and for all the rest such tender thanks.

He [the Emperor] was so pleased by the military suit, vest, and trousers you sent him,
and all the lovely things.

From whom came the ancient image? I love it.

Our last gifts to you, including the Easter eggs, will get off today.

I can’t get much here except a little flour.

Just now we are completely shut off from the south, but we did get, a short time ago, letters from Odessa.

What they have gone through there is quite terrible…”

Ibid, p. 167.

“Well, all is God’s will. The deeper you look the more you understand that this is so.

All sorrows are sent us to free us from our sins or as a test of our faith, an example to others.

It requires good food to make plants grow strong and beautiful, and the gardener walking through his garden

wants to be pleased with his flowers.

If they do not grow properly he takes his pruning knife and cuts, waiting for the sunshine to coax them into growth again.

I should like to be a painter, and make a picture of this beautiful garden and all that grows in it.

I remember English gardens, and at Livadia [in the Crimea]

Just now eleven men have passed on horseback, good faces, mere boys

—this I have not seen the like of for a long time.

They are the guard of the new Kommissar. Sometimes we see men with the most awful faces.

I would not include them in my garden picture.

The only place for them would be outside where the merciful sunshine could reach them
and make them clean from all the dirt and evil with which they are covered.

God bless you, darling child.

Our prayers and blessings surround you.

I was so pleased with the little mauve Easter egg, and all the rest.

But I wish I could send you back the money I know you need for yourself.

May the Holy Virgin guard you from all danger.

Kiss your dear mother for me. Greetings to your old servant, the doctors, and Fathers John and Dosifei. Viroubova, Alexandra.”

Ibid, p. 168, 21 March.

“Darling child, we thank you for all your gifts, the little eggs, the cards, and the chocolate for the little one.

Thank your mother for the books. Father was delighted with the cigarettes,

which he found so good, and also with the sweets. Snow has fallen again,

although the sunshine is bright.

The little one’s leg is gradually getting better, he suffers less, and had a really good sleep last night.

Today we are expecting to be searched—very agreeable! I don’t know how it will be later about sending letters.

I only hope it will be possible, and I pray for help.

The atmosphere around us is fairly electrified. We feel that a storm is approaching, but we know that God is merciful,
and will care for us.

Things are growing very anguishing.

Today we shall have a small service at home, for which we are thankful, but it is hard, nevertheless,
not to be allowed to go to Church.

You understand how that is, my little martyr. I shall not send this, as ordinarily, through ———,
as she too is going to be searched.

It was so nice of you to send her a dress.

I add my thanks to hers.

Today is the twenty-fourth anniversary of our engagement.

How sad it is to remember that we had to burn all our letters, yours too, and others as dear.

But what was to be done?

One must not attach one’s soul to earthly things, but words written by beloved hands penetrate the very heart,
become a part of life itself.

I wish I had something sweet to send you, but I haven’t anything.

Why did you not keep that chocolate for yourself? You need it more than the children do.

We are allowed one and a half pounds of sugar every month, but more is always given us by kind-hearted people here.

I never touch sugar during Lent, but that does not seem to be a deprivation now.

I was so sorry to hear that my poor lancer Ossorgine had been killed, and so many others besides.

What a lot of misery and useless sacrifice!

But they are all happier now in the other world. Though we know that the storm is coming nearer and nearer, our souls are at peace.

Whatever happens will be through God’s will. Thank God, at least, the little one is better.

May I send the money back to you? I am sure you will need it if you have to move again.

God guard you.

I bless and kiss you, and carry you always in my heart.

Keep well and brave.

Greetings to all from your ever loving, Alexandra.”

 

Exile in Ontario:

How the Russian royal family came to an end in Toronto

Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna went from living in a palace to dying above a barbershop

By Chris Bateman - Published on Oct 16, 2017

At the age of 79, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna died at her friends’ apartment on Gerrard Street East,
in Toronto. (Paul Gilbert/angelfire.com)

---

On November 24, 1960, after three centuries in power, the Romanov line came to an end above a barber shop
in the east end of Toronto.

It was there, in a small apartment belonging to a friend, that Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna died,
a continent and an ocean away from her homeland.

She represented the last direct link to the Romanov family,
which had ruled Russia from 1613 until the revolution of 1917.

The fall of the Romanovs and the execution of much of the royal family forced her dramatic escape from Russia
— and put her on the long road to Ontario.

Grand Duchess Olga was born on June 14, 1882, to Tsar Alexander III, Emperor of All Russia, and Empress Maria Feodorovna, the sister of Queen Alexandra of England. The youngest of four, she was the last Russian “purple baby”
— a child born to a reigning monarch.

(Her eldest brother, Nicholas, the heir to the throne, and brothers Alexander, George, Michael, and sister, Xenia,
were born before their father became tsar.)

As a child, Olga lived surrounded by opulence.

She had hundreds of servants at her disposal in the sprawling Gatchina Palace, located near St. Petersburg.

“I used to climb 80 steps to kiss my parents goodnight, and then 80 more to go to my own room,
” she told her Canadian biographer, Ian Vorres, in the 1950s, during one of her few in-depth interviews.


When her father died in 1894, Olga’s eldest brother, Nicholas, became Emperor of All Russia
and the head of a monarchy that was increasingly unpopular. Nicholas II’s early reign was immediately marred by disaster
— during his coronation in 1896, more than 1,300 people died in a crush to receive commemorative mugs filled with candy.

When she was 19, Olga married Duke Peter of Oldenburg, a man 14 years her senior.

There were rumours that Peter was gay and that the marriage was one of convenience for him.

Although the union wasn’t a particularly happy one, she enjoyed life on Peter’s estate

— at least until she met Nikolai Kulikovsky at a military parade in 1903.

The blond-haired, blue-eyed cavalryman was a friend of her brother Michael.

“It was love at first sight,” she told Vorres.

The pair, who were the same age, began a love affair that caused a minor scandal in Russia.

Eventually, Nicholas II annulled Olga’s unconsummated marriage to Peter,
making it possible for the two to marry.

It was to be one of his last acts as Emperor.
In 1917, Nicholas was forced to abdicate, and communist revolutionaries later seized control of the country.

The royal family was placed under house arrest near Yekaterinburg, where they were executed and buried in unmarked graves in 1918.

Olga and Nikolai were lucky at first. Olga, who had been working as a Red Cross nurse since the outbreak of the First World War,
was stationed in Kiev. The two attempted to flee south by train, but were intercepted between Yalta and Sevastopol in Crimea.

“We were actually saved by a technicality,” Olga recalled. “Communist headquarters in Sevastopol and Communist headquarters
in Yalta could not decide whose responsibility it was to chop off our heads.”

While the couple was under house arrest, Olga gave birth to their first child, Tikhon;
she was pregnant with her second when she and Nikolai stole away one night,
headed for the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.

They avoided detection by moving from town to town under the cover of darkness,
sleeping in rented accommodation, spare rooms, an abandoned monastery
— anywhere that was safe, even if just for a few nights.

Guri was born on the road

. “When I looked at that pale bundle in my arms, I never thought he would survive,” she said.

Despite the constant threat of capture, the royals managed to escape Russia aboard a crowded refugee ship in 1919.

They travelled to Turkey, then to Denmark, the home of Olga’s mother, Dowager Empress Marie.

There, Olga and Nikolai lived in a small villa and for 25 years ran a dairy farm, safe from the Soviet authorities.

The couple might have remained in Denmark for the rest of their lives, but after the Second World War,
Soviet authorities pressured the Danish government to make them leave.

Sir Edward Peacock, the Canadian-born director of the Bank of England and a friend of King George V, Olga’s first cousin,
arranged for their move to Canada.

In 1948, Olga and Nikolai, both 66 years old, and the families of their two adult children sailed to Halifax
aboard the SS Empress of Canada.

“I immediately felt at home in Canada,” she said. “The vast open spaces remind me of Russia and gave me a feeling of comfort.”

Olga and Nikolai settled on a 200-acre cattle farm near Campbellville, Ontario, roughly halfway between Milton and Guelph,
and continued working as they had in Denmark.

The locals, it seems, were relaxed about their new royal neighbours.

“The prosperous farmers and their wives have tactfully ignored [the] titles of the past,”
reported the Globe and Mail in 1950.

“[They] treated Col. Kulikovsky and his lady as they would have treated any other newcomers.”

While Nikolai worked the farm, Olga spent considerable time painting
— many of her countryside scenes and still lifes were featured in a well-received exhibition at Eaton’s College Street store in 1951.

She knew her famous name drove interest in her work, and she unashamedly exploited what she called the “snob appeal”
of her paintings.

She painted what art dealers told her would sell, and her signature was always prominently displayed.

In his 70s, after 10 years on the Campbellville farm, Nikolai grew increasingly frail,
so the couple moved to a small five-room cottage in Cooksville.

The house, which still stands, was “crammed with paintings, flower pots, an endless array of faded photographs
and other mementos of Imperial days,” her biographer reported.

A large painting of Olga’s father, Tsar Alexander III, dominated the living room.

Nikolai Kulikovsky died at home in 1958, at the age of 76.

“I was in a way relieved to see him go and escape from his suffering,” Olga said.

Now alone, the Grand Duchess filled her days painting and tending a small vegetable patch in the yard.

Her children and grandchildren visited often.

Tikhon worked for the Ontario Highways Department in the Mississauga area, and Guri lived in Ottawa.

A steady stream of letters — up to 30 a day — kept her busy.

“I insist on replying to all of them, be they from kings or crackpots,” she said.

Both were represented in her mailbox.

At the time, the bodies of the Romanovs remained undiscovered, and fraudsters played on the possibility
they might have survived the executioner.

In Denmark and in Canada, several people claimed to be members of her brother’s murdered family.

A British Columbia man insisted he was Alexei, Olga’s nephew, and another well-known imposter,
Anna Anderson, claimed to be Olga’s niece, Anastasia.

Olga found Anderson’s claims, which were seriously investigated, particularly upsetting.

“It is a tragic joke,” she said. “And what is most tragic of all is that the joke will continue because people like mystery.”

(None of the imposters were who they claimed to be.

The bodies of the Romanovs were discovered and forensically identified in the 1990s and 2000s.)

Although Olga lived modestly, she maintained contact with European royalty and aristocracy.

She dined with earls, countesses, duchesses, and princesses when they visited Canada,
and received gifts from Finland, Denmark, and Japan on her name day and at Easter and Christmas.

When Queen Elizabeth II
— her first cousin twice removed
— paid a royal visit to Canada in 1959,
she invited Olga aboard the HMY Britannia in Toronto.

Though she was prominent in social circles, Olga remained private and seldom gave interviews.

She never went back to Russia, either. “Even if I could return I wouldn’t.
You would never see me again,” she said.

In 1960, Olga became unwell and was admitted to the Toronto General Hospital.

After her condition stabilized, she was released into the care of Konstantin Martemianoff
and his wife, Sinaida, who lived on Gerrard Street East in Toronto.

Aptly, Konstant was a former officer of the Imperial Guard, the unit once responsible for protecting the Russian royal family.

Grand Duchess Olga died in the Martemianoff’s home on November 24, 1960, at the age of 79.

Her body lay in state in an open casket at the Russian Orthodox Cathedral on Glen Morris Avenue,
where her funeral was held November 30, 1960

Wreaths and condolences arrived from around the world, but few foreign dignitaries or consular officials attended the service
— the optics during the Cold War would have been too problematic.

“If I were invited as a private individual I would have attended the funeral with pleasure,” said Stathis Mitsopoulos,
the Greek consul in Canada. “However, I cannot attend as an official representative of my countr
y since my government has recognized the Communist regime.”

Before being lowered into the ground at York Cemetery,
her casket was draped in the flag of Imperial Russia and sprinkled with a handful of Russian soil.

Despite the bloody murder of her family and the forced estrangement from her country,
Olga never appeared dour or sullen.

She joked often, and in her old age, her face was furrowed with deep wrinkles and laughter lines.

“I always laugh,” she said, “for if I ever start crying I will never stop.”


Chris Bateman is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the National Post, Spacing, and Toronto Life.
Mondays at 10 p.m. on TVO, watch Empire of the Tsars, a series that traces the Romanovs,
the dynasty that ruled Russia for more than three centuries.

Author

Chris Bateman
Description
Chris Bateman is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the Globe and Mail, CityLab, and Spacing.

 

• 
• Olga's niece, Anastasia, was killed in 1918, but her remains were not discovered until many years after Olga's death.
• Many imusers claimed to be Anastasia. - https://pt.abcdef.wiki/wiki/Grand_Duchess_Olga_Alexandrovna_of_Russia