Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna Kulikovskaya

Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna Kulikovskaya (born Romanova) (1882-1960)

and

Nikolai Alexandrovich Kulikovsky (1881-1958)

Birth, childhood, 1882-1901

On 14 June, 1882, in the Peterhof Palace in Saint Petersburg, in the Russian Empire of the “Romanov dynasty”, the Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna Romanova was “born in the purple” (born during her father’s reign). She was the youngest child of the Emperor Alexander III (Romanov) of Russia, and the Empress Marie Feodorovna (who was born Princess Dagmar of Denmark). Her older brother would become Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. The royal “house” of the family was that of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov. Her birth was announced by a traditional 101-gun salute from the ramparts of the Peter and Paul Fortress, and there were similar salutes throughout the Russian Empire.

Her mother, advised by her sister, Alexandra, Princess of Wales, placed Olga in the care of an English nanny, Elizabeth Franklin.

Olga Alexandrovna with Miss Elizabeth Franklin

The Russian imperial family was a frequent target for assassins, so for safety reasons the Grand Duchess was raised at the Gatchina Palace in the country-side, about 80 km west of Saint Petersburg. Olga and her siblings, however, were not accustomed to a lavish early lifestyle. Conditions in the nursery were modest, even Spartan. They slept on hard camp-beds, rose at dawn, washed in cold water, and ate a simple porridge for breakfast.

Gatchina Palace near Saint Petersburg

Olga's relationship with her mother, Empress Marie (the daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark) was strained and distant from her childhood. However, Olga, her father, and the youngest of her brothers, Michael, had a close relationship. Together, the 3 frequently went on hikes within the Gatchina forests, where the Tsar taught Olga and Michael woodsmanship.

Olga left Gatchina for the first time in the early autumn of 1888 when the imperial family visited the Caucasus. On 29 October, their return train approached the small town of Borki at high speed. Olga’s parents and their 4 older children were eating lunch in the dining-car when the train lurched violently and came off the rails. The carriage was torn open ; the heavy iron roof caved in, and the wheels and floor of the car were sliced off. The Tsar crawled out from beneath the crushed roof, and held it up with “a Herculean effort” so that the others could escape. There were 21 fatalities. Empress Marie helped tend the wounded, and made makeshift bandages from her own clothes. An official investigation found that the crash was an accident, but it was widely assumed that 2 bombs had been planted on the line.

Child Olga Alexandrovna

Education

The Grand Duchess and her siblings were taught at home by private tutors. The subjects that were studied included history, geography, Russian, English and French, as well as drawing and dancing. Physical activities such as equestrianism were taught at an early age, and they became expert riders.

The family were deeply religious and faithful Orthodox Christians, who lived in accordance with the life-rhythm of the Russian Orthodox Church. Although the Feasts of the Nativity of Christ and of Pascha (Easter) were times of celebration and even extravagance, Great Lent was strictly observed — meat, dairy products (even sugar) and any form of entertainment were avoided. More than this, however, it may be seen that, as the rest of her family, Olga Alexandrovna lived what may be called “applied Orthodox Christianity” on a daily basis. This is demonstrated, for instance, by the manner in which she cared in every way for those near her ; by the manner in which she supported many charities ; by the manner in which she seriously undertook war-time nursing ; by the manner in which she took seriously her family heritage, and by the manner in which she exercised careful leadership in the manner of a Christian servant. There are ways in which others in her family, despite weaknesses, behaved in a manner rooted in the same foundation.

In the summer, family vacations were taken at Peterhof, and with Olga’s grandparents in Denmark. The Tsar was habitually with his family. Olga Alexandrovna said of her father :

 My father was everything to me.  Immersed in work as he was, he always spared that daily half-hour. [...] Once 
 my father showed me a very old album full of most exciting pen and ink sketches of an imaginary city called 
 Mopsopolis, inhabited by Mopses [pug dogs].  He showed it to me in secret, and I was thrilled to have him 
 share his own childhood secrets with me.

Tsar Alexander II Alexandrovich and his family, 1888

Left to right standing behind : Empress Maria Feodorovna ; Nicholas Alexandrovich ; Xenia Alexandrovna.

Let to right front : Michael Alexandrovich ; Tsar Alexander II Alexandrovich ; Olga Alexandrovna ; George Alexandrovich.

'Olga Alexandrovna

Bereavement, 1894

During 1894, Olga’s father became increasingly ill, and the annual trip to Denmark was cancelled.

On 13 November, 1894, he reposed in Christ at the age of 49.

The emotional impact on Olga, aged only 12, was traumatic, and her eldest brother, the new Tsar Nicholas II, was propelled into a role for which (in Olga’s later opinion) he was ill-prepared.

'Olga Alexandrovna at 14 years of ages

Bereavement, 1899

Olga was due to "make her debut in society" in the summer of 1899. However, after the sudden death of her brother George on 10 July, 1899 at Abastumani, Georgia (in a motorcycle accident, at the age of 27), a period of mourning began instead.

Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna ; her brother, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich

Her first official public appearance was delayed by a year until 1900. She detested the experience, and she later told her official biographer Ian Vorres : “I felt as though I were an animal in a cage — exhibited to the public for the first time”.

From 1901, Olga was appointed honourary Commander-in-Chief of the 12th Akhtyrsky Hussar Regiment of the Imperial Russian Army. The Akhtyrsky Hussars were originally a Cossack regiment in the city of Okhtyrka, near Sumy). This regiment was famous for their victory over Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Kulm in 1813, and they wore a distinctive brown dolman.

Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna in uniform ; Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna with officers of the Akhtyrsky Regiment, 1914

By 1900, Olga (aged 18), was being escorted to the theatre and the opera by a distant cousin, Duke Peter Alexandrovich of Oldenburg, a member of the Russian branch of the House of Oldenburg. He was 14 years her senior, and he was known for his passion for literature and gambling. Peter asked for Olga’s hand in marriage the following year, a proposal that took the Grand Duchess completely by surprise. “I was so taken aback that all I could say was ‘thank you’”, she later explained. Their engagement, announced in May, 1901, was likewise unexpected by family and friends, since Duke Peter had shown no prior interest in women.

1901-1914

Marriage, 1901

At the age of 19, on 9 August, 1901, Olga was married to the 33-year-old Peter. After the celebration, the newlyweds left for the Oldenburg Palace in the Vorontezh Governorate, where the couple initially lived with her in-laws, Alexander Petrovich and Eugénie Maximilianovna of Oldenburg. Olga spent her wedding night alone and in tears, while her husband left for a gambling club, from which he returned the next morning. Their marriage remained unconsummated, and Olga suspected that Peter had been pushed into proposing by his ambitious mother. Biographer Patricia Phenix thought that Olga may have accepted his proposal to gain independence from her own mother, the Dowager Empress, or perhaps to avoid marriage into a foreign court.

Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, marriage, 1901

It was not an harmonious arrangement, since Peter’s parents (both well known for their philanthropic work) berated their only son for his laziness. Eugénie, a close friend of the Dowager Empress, showered her daughter-in-law with gifts including a ruby tiara that had been a present to Joséphine de Beauharnais from Napoleon, but Olga took a dislike towards her mother-in-law. A few weeks after the wedding, Olga and her husband travelled to Biarritz, France, from where they sailed to Sorrento, Italy, on a yacht loaned to them by King Edward VII of Great Britain.

Grand Duchess Olga and Duke Peter

On their return to Russia, they settled into a 200-room palace (the former Baryatinsky mansion) at 46 Sergievskaya Street (today Tchaikovsky Street), Saint Petersburg. The palace, a gift from Tsar Nicholas II to his sister, now houses the Saint Petersburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Olga and Peter had separate bedrooms at opposite ends of the building, and the Grand Duchess had her own art studio. Unhappy in her marriage, Olga fell into bouts of depression that caused her to lose her hair, which forced her to wear a wig. It took 2 years for her hair to regrow.

Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna before World War I

Philanthropic work begins

Near the Oldenburg Estate, "Ramon" (in the Voronezh Governorate), Olga had her own villa, called “Olgino” after the local town. She subsidised the village school out of her own pocket, and established a hospital. Her daughter-in-law later wrote : “She tried to help every needy person as far as her strength and means would permit”. At the hospital, she learned basic medical treatment and proper care from the local doctor. She exemplified her strong Orthodox Faith by creating icons, which she distributed to the charitable endeavours she supported. At Ramon, Olga and Peter enjoyed walking through the nearby woods and they hunted wolves together. He was kind and considerate towards her, but she longed for love, a normal marriage and children.

Portrait of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna

Introduction to Nikolai Kulikovsky, 1903

In April, 1903, the Grand Duchess Olga was introduced by her brother Michael to a Blue Cuirassier Guards officer, Nikolai Alexandrovich Kulikovsky, during a royal military review at Pavlovsk Palace.

Early life of Nikolai Alexandrovich Kulikovsky

On 5 November, 1881, Nikolai Alexandrovich Kulikovsky was born to Alexander Nikanorvich Kulikovsky and Evdoxia Nikolaevna Kharina in Evstratovka, in the Voronezh Governorate of Imperial Russia. The Kulikovsky family was a military family of this region. His father was a major-general in the Russian Imperial Army, and his grandfather was a major-general in the Russian Imperial Army during the Napoleonic Wars. The family owned two large estates in Ukraine, one of them a horse-farm. Nikolai Alexandrovich rode horses from an early age, and he became an expert horseman. After his primary education, he enrolled in the Gymnasium and Real School of Gurevich in Saint Petersburg. Then, from 1900-1902, he attended the Nikolaev Cavalry School, the top military school in the Russian Empire, which was established to train young noblemen who entered the Life Guards regiments from universities or private boarding schools and did not have military training. He graduated with a degree.

After this, he joined the Blue Cuirassier Regiment of the Imperial Russian Cavalry.

Olga Alexandrovna and Nikolai Kulikovsky began to see each other socially, and they exchanged letters regularly. That same year (at the age of 22) she confronted her husband and asked for a divorce, which he refused with the qualification that he might reconsider after seven years. Nevertheless, Duke Peter Oldenburg appointed Captain Kulikovsky as an aide-de-camp, and the duke allowed Nikolai to live in the residence on Sergievskaya Street with him and the Grand Duchess. The relationship between Nikolai Kulikovsky and the Grand Duchess was not at all public, but gossip about their romance spread through society.

Tsar Nicholas II, 1896, in Cuirasseir Guards uniform

From 1904 to 1906, Duke Peter was appointed to a military post in Tsarskoye Selo, a complex of palaces just south of Saint Petersburg. In Tsarskoye Selo, the Grand Duchess grew close to her brother Nicholas and his family, who lived at the Alexander Palace near her own residence. Olga prized her connexion to the Tsar’s 4 daughters. From 1906 to 1914, Olga took her nieces to parties and engagements in Saint Petersburg, without their parents, every weekend throughout the winter. She especially took a liking to the youngest of Tsar Nicholas’s daughters, her god-daughter Anastasia, whom she called "Shvipsik" (“little one”). Through her brother and sister-in-law, Olga met Gregory Rasputin, a self-styled holy man who purported to have healing powers. Although she made no public criticisms of Rasputin's association with the imperial family, she was unconvinced of his supposed powers and privately disliked him. As Olga grew closer to her brother’s family, her relationship with her other surviving brother, Michael, deteriorated. To her and Nicholas’s horror, Michael eloped with his mistress, a twice-divorced commoner, and communication between Michael and the rest of the family was essentially cut off.

1905 uprisings

Public unrest over the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, and demands for political reform increased in the early years of the 20th century. At the Feast of Theophany, 1905, a band of revolutionaries fired live rounds at the Winter Palace from the Peter and Paul Fortress. Olga and the Dowager Empress were showered with glass splinters from a smashed window, but they were unharmed. Three weeks later, on “Bloody Sunday”, at least 92 people were killed by Cossack troops during a demonstration, and a month later Olga’s uncle, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia, was assassinated. Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich was the husband of the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna (later the Martyr Saint Elizabeth).

Uprisings occurred throughout the country, and parts of the navy mutinied. Olga Alexandrovna supported the appointment of the liberal Pyotr Stolypin as prime minister, and he embarked on a programme of gradual reform ; but in 1911, he was assassinated. The public unrest, Duke Michael’s elopement, and Olga’s sham marriage placed her under strain ; and in 1912, while visiting England with her mother, she suffered a nervous breakdown. Tsarina Alexandra was also unwell with fatigue, concerned as she was by the poor health of her son, Alexei, who suffered from haemophilia. Olga stood in for the tsarina at public events, and she accompanied her brother, Tsar Nicholas, on a tour of the interior, while the tsarina remained at home.

Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna (court dress), 1908

Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna et al at the Imperial Court

Olga Alexandrovna continued as always with her philanthropic works. In the following photo, she is seen in the Ramon Palace. In the background are some of her works at a charitable exhibition in her own palace.

Grand Duchess Olga, 1914, with a charitable exhibition of her works

1914-1919 ; marriage to Nikolai Kulikovsky

World War I

On 1 August, 1914, just before the start of World War I, Olga's regiment, the Akhtyrsky Hussars, appeared at an Imperial Review before Olga Alexandrovna and the Tsar at Krasnoe Selo.

With the Grand Duchess’s prior medical knowledge from the village of Olgino, she started work as a nurse at an under-staffed Red Cross hospital in Rovno, near to where her own regiment was stationed.

During the war, she came under heavy Austrian fire while attending the regiment at the front. Nurses rarely worked so dangerously close to the front-lines. Consequently she was awarded the Order of Saint George for personal bravery by General (Baron) Gustav Mannerheim, who later became President of Finland. As the Russians lost ground to the Central Powers, Olga’s hospital was moved eastwards to Kiev, and her brother Michael returned to Russia from exile abroad.

Grand Duchess Olga, 1916

Annulled marriage ; philanthropic activities ; second marriage, 1916

Later in the year, in 1916, Tsar Nicholas II officially annulled the marriage (with ecclesiastical agreement) between Duke Peter Alexandrovich and the Grand Duchess. At first, Duke Peter had refused Olga’s request for a divorce. However, their marriage of 15 years was never consummated. Duke Peter Alexandrovich was a man who might be described as being of fragile disposition, perhaps a hypochondriac, certainly prone to gambling. Some seem to question his “sexual orientation”, but there is no proven or clear answer to such a question, and such speculation is most often gossip rather than fact. The two had, nevertheless, lived quite separate lives for most of the 15 years.

When the Tsar granted the divorce, he also allowed her to marry Colonel Nikolai A Kulikovsky. The service was performed on 16 November, 1916, in the Kievo-Vasilievskaya Church on Triokhsviatitelskaya (Three Saints Street) in Kiev. The only guests were the Dowager Empress, Olga’s brother-in-law Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich, 4 officers of the Akhtyrsky Regiment, and 2 of Olga’s fellow nurses from the hospital in Kiev.

The marriage of Olga and Nikolai Kulikovsky

Marriage dinner in Kiev with Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna

During the war

In this marriage, they received from the Lord 2 sons, Tikhon Nikolaevich (1917-1993), and Guriy Nikolaevich (1919-1984).

Despite all the good things that occurred, the Dowager Empress never truly accepted Nikolai Alexandrovich as belonging to the family because he was a commoner. He never complained, but Olga Alexandrovna was always aware of the fact that he was so poorly treated by her family.

First and second revolutions, 1917

During the war, internal tensions and economic deprivation in Russia continued to mount, and revolutionary sympathies grew. After Tsar Nicholas II abdicated in early 1917, many members of the Romanov dynasty, including Nicholas and his immediate family, were detained under house arrest. In search of safety, the Dowager Empress, Grand Duke Alexander, and Grand Duchess Olga travelled to Crimea by special train, where they were joined by Olga’s sister, the Grand Duchess Xenia. They lived at Duke Alexander’s estate, Ay-Todor, about 19 km (12 mi) from Yalta, where they were placed under house arrest by the local forces, and where they lived under the threat of assassination.

About the infamous Gregory Rasputin, she admitted that he was for some reason able to keep the Tsarevich Alexei alive. Although she was aware of his disreputable life, she did not speak of it ; however, she did say that she was afraid to be in the same room with him. He was also a member of at least one secret society.

On 12 August, 1917, her first child, Tikhon Nikolaevich was born during their virtual imprisonment. He was named after Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk, who was venerated near the Grand Duchess’s estate at Olgino. Although Tikhon was the grandson of an emperor and the nephew of another, neither he nor his younger brother Guri received any title, since their father was a commoner.

Abdication and death of the Tsar

In the context of the turmoil and discontent amongst the military and the populace about the war (much of which is purported to have been fomented by external influences), there were mutinies in early 1917. As a consequence of this, the leaders of the Duma and the generals of the army confronted Tsar Nicholas and they demanded his abdication. The abdication was signed on 15 March, 1917, in a railway carriage at Pskov. The tsar, who seems to have suffered a coronary occlusion 2 days previously, had no choice in the matter, and there are some who suggest that the decree of abdication was not actually signed by him personally.

The Romanovs, isolated in the Crimea, knew little of the situation of the Tsar and his family. Nicholas, Alexandra, and their children, were originally held at their official residence, the Alexander Palace, but the Provisional government under Alexander Kerensky relocated them to Tobolsk, Siberia. The family was moved in 1918 to Ekaterinburg. Olga's brother, the former Tsar Nicholas II and his family were shot and killed on 17 July, 1918, in Ekaterinburg by revolutionaries.

Flight, 1918

In February, 1918, most of the imperial family at Ay-Todor was moved to another estate at Djulber, where Grand Dukes Nicholas and Peter were already under house arrest. Olga Alexandrovna and her husband were left at Ay-Todor. The entire Romanov family in the Crimea was condemned to death by the Yalta revolutionary council, but the executions were delayed by political rivalry between the Yalta and Sevastopol Soviets. By March, 1918, the Central Power of Germany had advanced on Crimea, and the revolutionary guards were replaced by German ones. In November, 1918, the German forces were informed that their nation had lost the war, and they evacuated homewards. Allied (Entente) forces took over the Crimean ports, in support of the loyalist White Army, which temporarily allowed the surviving members of the Romanov family time to escape abroad. The Dowager Empress and, at her insistence, most of her family and friends, were evacuated by the British warship HMS Marlborough. Nicholas II, however, had already been shot dead ; and the family assumed, correctly, that his wife and children had also been killed.

Unknown to her, Olga's childhood confidant and brother Michael, the supposed successor of Tsar Nicholas II, had been assassinated near Perm even earlier, on 13 June, 1918. He had previously been confined for a time, imprisoned for a time, and then finally killed in a subterfuge not unlike that which would precede the death of his older brother and his family in July.

Olga Alexandrovna and her husband Nikolai Alexandrovich refused to leave Russia, and decided to move to the Caucasus, which the White Army had cleared of revolutionary Bolsheviks. An imperial bodyguard, Timofei Yatchik, guided them to his hometown, the large Cossack village of Novominskaya, Krasnodar. In a rented 5-room farmhouse there, Olga gave birth to her second son, Guriy Nikolaevich, on 23 April, 1919. He was named after a friend of hers, Guriy Panayev, who was killed while serving in the Akhtyrsky Regiment during World War I. In November, 1919, the family set out on what would be their last journey through Russia.

Nikolai and Olga Kulikovsky

Exile ; Serbia

Just ahead of revolutionary troops, they escaped to Novorossiysk, and took refuge in the residence of the Danish consul, Thomas Schytte, who informed them of the Dowager Empress’s safe arrival in Denmark. After a brief stay with the consul, the family were shipped to a refugee camp on the island of Büyükada in the Dardanelles Strait near Istanbul, Turkey, where Olga, her husband and children shared 3 rooms with 11 other adults. After 2 weeks, they were evacuated to Belgrade in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, where she was visited by the Regent, the Crown Prince Alexander Karageorgevich, later King Alexander I of Yugoslavia. Alexander offered the Grand Duchess and her family a permanent home, but Olga was summoned to Denmark by her mother.

Olga Alexandrovna and her nanny, Miss Franklin

1920-1928

Denmark

On Great and Holy Friday, 1920, Olga and her family arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark. They lived with the Dowager Empress, at first at the Amalienborg Palace and then at the royal estate of Hvidøre, where Olga Alexandrovna served as her mother’s secretary and companion. It was a difficult arrangement at times. The Dowager Empress insisted on having Olga at her beck and call, and she found Olga’s young sons to be too boisterous. Having never reconciled with the idea of her daughter’s marriage to a commoner, she was cold towards Nikolai Kulikovsky, and she rarely allowed him into her presence. At formal functions, Olga was expected to accompany her mother alone.

Olga Alexandrovna Kulikovskaya was often sought out by Romanov impostors who claimed to be her dead relatives. Olga met Anna Anderson, the best-known of the impostors of this family, in Berlin in 1925. Olga was instantly aware that this person was not her niece, although she felt compassion for her. She commented about this imposter :

 My nieces knew no German at all.  Mrs. Anderson did not seem to understand a word of Russian or English, 
 the two languages all the four sisters had spoken since babyhood.

Grand Duchess Olga wrote in a letter to Tatiana Melnik, 30 October, 1926, (Botkin Archive, quoted in Kurth, p. 144 ; and a letter dated 13 September, 1926, quoted in "I, Anastasia : an Autobiography" by Roland von Nidda, pp. 197–198) :

 However hard we tried to recognise this patient as my niece Tatiana or Anastasia, we all came away quite 
 convinced of the reverse.  In a letter from Olga to Princess Irene, 22 December 1926, quoted in von Nidda, 
 p. 168, she wrote : 'I had to go to Berlin last autumn to see the poor girl said to be our dear little niece. 
 Well, there is no resemblance at all, and it is obviously not Anastasia. [...] It was pitiful to watch this poor 
 creature trying to prove she was Anastasia.  She showed her feet, a finger with a scar and other marks which 
 she said were bound to be recognised at once.  But it was Maria who had a crushed finger, and someone must 
 have told her this.  For four years this poor creature’s head was stuffed with all these stories. [...] It has 
 been claimed, however, that we all recognised her and were then given instructions by Mama to deny that she 
 was Anastasia.  That is a complete lie.  I believe this whole story is an attempt at blackmail'.

Moreover, she strongly averred :

 I can swear to God that I did not receive before or during my visit to Berlin, either a telegram or a letter 
 from my sister Xenia advising that I should not acknowledge the stranger. 
 (Sworn testimony of Grand Duchess Olga, Staatsarchiv Hamburg, File 1991, 74 0 297/57 volume 7, pp. 1297-1315, 
 quoted in 'Olga Romanov : Russia's Last Grand Duchess' by Patricia Phenix, p. 238.)

The Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna reposed in the Lord on 13 October, 1928, at Hvidøre, Denmark. Her estate was sold and Olga purchased Knudsminde, a farm in Ballerup, about 15 miles (24 km) from Copenhagen, with her portion of the proceeds.

Knudsminde

They kept horses, in which Colonel Kulikovsky was especially interested, along with Jersey cows, pigs, chickens, geese, dogs and cats. For transport they had a small car and a sledge. Tikhon and Guriy (aged 13 and 11 years, respectively, when they moved to Knudsminde) grew up on the farm. Olga ran the household with the help of her elderly, faithful former Lady-in-waiting, Emilia Tenso (“Mimka”), who had come along with her from Russia. The Grand Duchess lived in simplicity, working in the fields, doing household chores, and painting.

Olga Alexandrovna painting

During her lifetime, Olga Alexandrovna painted over 2,000 works of art, which provided extra income both for her family and for the charitable causes that she supported.

Kulikovsky family

Paschal food

Rural women by a Temple Village autumn

1928-1948

Farming ; war, 1940

The farm became a centre for the Russian monarchist community in Denmark, and many Russian emigrants visited there. Olga maintained a high level of correspondence with the Russian émigré community and former members of the imperial army. In the 1930s, the family took annual holidays at the Sofiero Castle in Sweden, with Crown Prince Gustaf of Sweden and his wife, Louise.

Olga began to sell her own paintings (of Russian and Danish scenes) through exhibition auctions in Copenhagen, London, Paris, and Berlin. Some of the proceeds were donated to the charities she supported.

Olga Alexandrovna shopping in Denmark

Neutral Denmark was invaded by Nazi Germany on 9 April, 1940, and it was occupied for the remainder of World War II. Food shortages, communication restrictions, and transportation closures followed. Since Olga’s sons Tikhon and Guri served as officers in the Danish Army, they were interned as prisoners of war. However, their imprisonment in a Copenhagen hotel lasted less than 2 months. Tikhon was imprisoned for a further month in 1943, after having been arrested on charges of espionage. Other Russian émigrés, keen to fight against the Soviet forces, enlisted in the German forces. Despite her sons’ internment and her mother’s Danish origins, Olga Alexandrovna was implicated in her compatriots’ collusion with German forces, since she continued to meet and extend help to Russian émigrés fighting against communism. On 4 May, 1945, the German forces in Denmark surrendered to the British forces. When economic and social conditions for Russian exiles failed to improve, General Pyotr Krasnov wrote to the Grand Duchess. He detailed the wretched conditions affecting Russian immigrants in Denmark. She in turn asked Prince Aksel of Denmark to help them, but her request was refused.

Olga Alexandrovna with daughters-in-law Ruth and Agnete

With the end of World War II, Soviet troops came near to the Danish border. At that time, the Soviet Union wrote to the Danish government and accused Olga Alexandrovna and a Danish Catholic bishop of conspiracy against the Soviet government.

The surviving Romanovs in Denmark grew fearful of an attempted assassination or kidnapping, and Olga decided to move her family across the Atlantic Ocean, to the relative safety of rural Canada. This had become possible because Sir Edward Peacock, the Canadian-born director of the Bank of England and a friend of King George V, Olga’s first cousin, had arranged for their move to Canada.

1948-1954

Emigration to Canada via England, 1948

In 1948, therefore, Olga emigrated with her immediate family to Canada — not on the basis of her royal ancestry, but rather, simply as private citizens. In May, 1948, the Kulikovskys travelled first to London, England, by Danish troop-ship. They were housed in a grace-and-favour apartment at Hampton Court Palace while arrangements were made for their journey to Canada as agricultural immigrants.

On 2 June, 1948, Olga and Nikolai Kulikovsky, Tikhon and his Danish-born wife Agnete, Guriy and his Danish-born wife Ruth, Guriy and Ruth's 2 children, Xenia and Leonid, and Olga’s devoted companion and former Lady-in-Waiting, Emilia Tenso (“Mimka”), departed from Liverpool aboard the Empress of Canada. After a rough crossing, the ship docked at Halifax, Nova Scotia. The family proceeded via Montréal, Québec to Toronto, Ontario. On their way, when their ship stopped in Montréal, they were met at the dock by the Archimandrite John (Shahovskoy), Archpriest Oleg Boldireff, parishioners of Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral, and some dignitaries.

Kulikovsky family on arrival in Québec, 1948

Front row, from left Mrs. Guri Kulikovsky ; Leonid Kulkovsky ; Ksenia Kulkovsky ; Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna Kulikovsky ; Colonel Nikolai Kulikovsky. Second row, from left Guri Kulikovsky, Mrs. Tikhon Kulikovsky. Back row Tikhon Kulikovsky.

The family continued on to Toronto, and they lived there until they purchased a 200-acre (0.81 sq. km or 80.9 hectares) farm in Halton County, Ontario, near Campbellville.

Olga Alexandrovna and Nikolai Alexandrovich Kulikovsky

By 1952, the farm had become a burden to Olga and her husband. They were by now both elderly ; their sons had moved away to work ; labour was hard to come by ; Colonel Nikolai suffered from increasing ill-health, and some of Olga’s remaining jewellery was stolen.

The farm was sold, and Olga, her husband, and her former maid, Mimka, moved to a smaller 5-room house at 2130, Camilla Road, Cooksville, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto (now amalgamated into the City of Mississauga). Mimka suffered a stroke that left her an invalid, and Olga nursed her until Mimka’s death on 24 January, 1954.

1954-1960

The Cooksville home

Visitors

Neighbours and visitors to the region (including foreign and royal dignitaries) took an interest in the Grand Duchess, and visited her small home, which was also a magnet for Romanov impostors whom Olga Alexandrovna and her family considered to be a menace. However, there were welcome visitors, amongst whom was Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, who visited in 1954.

Later, in June, 1959, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip visited Toronto, and they invited the Grand Duchess for lunch on board the Royal Yacht, Britannia. Louis Mountbatten and his wife Edwina Ashley visited in August, 1959.

Faithful Orthodox Christians

During all the years that the Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna and Colonel Nikolai Alexandrovich lived in Ontario, they and their family became devoted parishioners at Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Toronto. The Grand Duchess Olga and her husband, Nikolai Alexandrovich Kulikovsky were always present at services, and they showed great care about the Temple’s decoration, and about the well-being of the parish.

Therefore, the Grand Duchess herself created icons for the second level of the iconostas. The Grand Duchess also donated a “shrine” for the Icon of the Mother of God which the parish had recently received.

Shrine and Icon of the Protection of the Theotokos at Christ the Saviour Cathedral

At that time, the rector was the Mitred Archpriest John Diachena, and Archbishop Nikon (de Grève) was for a time resident as the Bishop of Toronto. Such was the relationship of the Grand Duchess with the parish that, when the new building on Manning Avenue was purchased after her repose, the parish hall was named for her, and also the Russian School. Whether “high-born” or “born in the purple”, such persons have given a clear Christian witness in Canada.

The Grand Duchess was born to considerable privilege, but her daily disposition was that of a servant of others, in the manner of Christ Himself. Although she was born in the midst of great wealth, she lived very simply and without ostentation. She loved the people of the country her family governed, and she cared for people according to their needs. Her example is that of humility (self-forgetfulness because of love for the Lord and love for others). Her example is seen in others of high rank who came to live in Canada. The presence of this couple in Christ the Saviour Cathedral for 12 or so years left a significant memory amongst the parishioners, since even 40 years after her repose, she has been spoken of by them with great respect.

1957, repose of Miss Franklin

In 1957, Miss Franklin, who had had a stroke, suddenly reposed in the Lord. Olga had been caring for her as a nurse throughout her weakness.

When they bought the grave-place for Miss Franklin, they bought graves for the rest of the family at the same time.

Repose of Nikolai Alexandrovich, 1958

By 1958, Olga’s husband was virtually paralysed (he suffered from the after-effects of war-wounds), and Olga sold some of her remaining jewellery in an attempt to raise funds. She also personally cared for him in this fragility. Nevertheless, Olga Alexandrovna was not lacking in joy as an Orthodox Christian believer who knew hope.

Olga Alexandrovna, 24 July, 1958, on her name-day of Saint Olga

Then, on 11 August, 1958, Colonel Nikolai Alexandrovich Kulikovsky reposed in the Lord at home.

The Funeral Services for the Burial of a Lay-person were offered at Christ the Saviour Cathedral, and his body was interred in the York Cemetery just north of Toronto.

1959 Royal visit

In 1959, the Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna was invited to a luncheon with Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip on the Royal Yacht Britannia in Toronto Harbour. This stop was on the 1959 Royal Visit to Canada. Olga Alexandrovna was a cousin of the Queen's grandfather, King George V. Although there were 50 persons invited, she was personally and warmly welcomed by the Queen, who personally escorted her to the head table.

Grand Duchess Olga, Toronto, Ontario, in June, 1959

(Just before going to a luncheon with Queen Elizabeth II on the Royal Yacht Britannia)

At about this time, the author Ian Vorres, a Greek Orthodox writer, interviewed Olga Alexandrovna for the purpose of producing a biography. The book was the result of both conversational interviews and reading memoirs. The book was entitled "The Last Grand Duchess: Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, 1 June 1882-24 November 1960".

Ian Vorres interviewing Olga Alexandrovna ; grandson Leonid Gurevich listens

After this, the Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna became increasingly infirm, and she became very thin. This decline was directly related to the repose of her husband.

Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna at home

Eventually, Olga was hospitalised in April, 1960 at the Toronto General Hospital. She was not informed (or she was not aware) that her elder sister, Xenia, had reposed in the Lord in London during that month. Unable to care for herself, Olga then went to stay with Russian émigré friends, Konstantin and Sinaida Martemianoff, in an apartment above a beauty salon in Gerrard Street East, Toronto. The main reason that she chose Konstantin and his wife was that Konstantin had been a member of the Akhtyrsky Hussar Regiment, of which she had been commander-in-chief in her youth.

Apartment where Grand Duchess Olga reposed (upper left)

Repose of the Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, 1960

In the Martemianoff apartment in Toronto, Olga Alexandrovna slipped into a coma on 21 November, 1960, and she reposed in the Lord on 24 November, 1960, at the age of 78, 7 months after her older sister, the Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna had reposed in England (at the Wilderness House near Hampton Court).

At the end of her life and afterwards, Olga was widely labelled as the Last Grand Duchess of Imperial Russia. Officers of the Akhtyrsky Hussars and the Blue Cuirassiers stood guard in the small Russian Temple, which overflowed with mourners.

The Funeral Services for the Burial of a Lay-person were offered at Christ the Saviour Cathedral on 30 November, 1960, by the Mitred Archpriest John Diachina.

After the completion of the funeral services, she was interred next to her husband in the York Cemetery, where her former Lady-in-Waiting, Emilia Tenso, had also been interred.

Funeral of Grand Duchess Olga

Christ the Saviour Cathedral, funeral of the Grand Duchess Olga

Leaving the Temple

Grave monuments

Reflections

Legacy in art

Olga Alexandrovna began drawing and painting at a young age. She told her official biographer Ian Vorres :

 Even during my geography and arithmetic lessons, I was allowed to sit with a pencil in my hand.  I could 
 listen much better when I was drawing corn or wild flowers.

Compassionate giving

Mallow by a house 1930

Danish farm-house 1930

Feast of the Nativity

Path with daffodils 1950

Miss Franklin, "Mimka"

Two religious paintings (not icons)

Olga Alexandrovna painted throughout her life, on paper, canvas and ceramic, and it is estimated that she composed over 2,000 pieces. Her usual subjects were scenery and landscape, but she also painted portraits and still-lifes, and sometimes icons. She used principally oils and water-colour for her work. Ian Vorres wrote :

 Her paintings, vivid and sensitive, are immersed in the subdued light of her beloved Russia.  Besides her 
 numerous landscapes and flower pictures that reveal her inherent love for nature, she often also dwells on 
 scenes from simple daily life [...] executed with a sensitive eye for composition, expression and detail.  Her 
 work exudes peace, serenity and a spirit of love that mirror her own character, in total contrast to the 
 suffering she experienced through most of her life.

Her daughter-in-law wrote :

 Being a deeply religious person, the Grand Duchess perceived the beauty of nature as being divinely-inspired 
 creation.  Prayer and attending church provided her with the strength not only to overcome the new 
 difficulties befallen her, but also to continue with her drawing.  These feelings of gratefulness to God 
 pervaded not only the icons created by the Grand Duchess, but also her portraits and still life paintings.

Olga Alexandrovna's paintings were a profitable source of income. However, according to her daughter-in-law, Olga preferred to exhibit in Denmark in order to avoid the commercialism of the North American market. The Russian Relief Programme, which was founded by Tikhon and his third wife Olga in honour of the Grand Duchess, exhibited a selection of her work at the residence of the Russian Ambassador in Washington in 2001, in Moscow in 2002, in Ekaterinburg in 2004, in Saint Petersburg and Moscow in 2005, in Tyumen and Surgut in 2006, at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and Saint Michael’s Castle in Saint Petersburg in 2007, and at the Vladimir Arsenyev Museum in Vladivostok in 2013. Pieces by Olga are included in the collections of Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, King Harald of Norway, and private collections in North America and Europe. The Ballerup Museum in Pederstrup, Denmark, has about 100 of her works.

At the time of the interment of her body at the York Cemetery, before being lowered into the ground, her coffin 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”.

Portrait of Olga Alexandrovna Kulikovskaya (born Romanova)

References

Phenix, Patricia, "Olga Romanov : Russia's Last Grand Duchess" (Toronto : Viking/Penguin, 1999) ISBN 0-14-028086-3.

Vorres, Ian, "The Last Grand Duchess" (Toronto : Key Porter Books, 2001). ISBN-10 : 1552633020.

Wikipedia article about Grand Duchess Olga of Russia

Additional information :

Beéche, Arturo (ed.), "The Grand Duchesses" (Oakland : Eurohistory.com, 2004). ISBN : 0-9771961-1-9.

Belyakova, Zoia, "Honour and Fidelity : The Russian Dukes of Leuchtenberg" (Saint Petersburg : Logos Publishers, 2010) ASIN : B00C40ONY8.

Crawford, Rosemary & Crawford, Donald, "Michael and Natasha : The Life and Love of the Last Tsar of Russia" (London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997). ISBN : 978-0-7538-0516-9.

Hall, Coryne, 'The Grand Duchess of Knudsminde', published in "Royalty History Digest", 1993.

Hough, Richard, "Louis and Victoria : The Family History of the Mountbattens", 2nd ed. (London : Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984). ISBN : 0-297-78470-6.

Klier, John & Mingay, Helen, "The Quest for Anastasia" (London : Smith Gryphon, 1995). ISBN : 1-85685-085-4.

Kulikovsky, Paul ; Roth-Nicholls, Karen ; Woolman, Sue, “25 Chapters of My Life : Memoirs of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna”. ISBN-10 : 9781906775162. ISBN-13 : 978-1906775162. ASIN : 1906775168.

Kulikovsky-Romanoff, Olga, ‘The Unfading Light of Charity : Grand Duchess Olga As a Philanthropist And Painter’ in "Historical Magazine" (Gatchina, Russia : Gatchina Through The Centuries, undated), p. 4.

Kulikovsky-Romanoff, Olga Nikolaievna, “Road to Emmaus No. 11: A Journal of Orthodox Faith and Culture” (Road to Emmaus Foundation, 2017). ISBN 10 : 1635510112. ISBN 13 : 978-1635510119. (This book contains 2 sections : a) an interview of the author with Duchess Olga and b) previously unpublished letters of the Duchess to her mother about the family’s harrowing escape from Russia.)

Kurth, Peter, "Anastasia : The Life of Anna Anderson" (London : Jonathan Cape, 1983). ISBN : 0-224-02951-7.

Massie, Robert K, "The Romanovs : The Final Chapter" (London : Random House, 1995) ISBN : 0-09-960121-4.

von Nidda, Roland Krug, "I, Anastasia : An autobiography" with notes by Roland Krug von Nidda. Translated from the German by Oliver Coburn. (Penguin Books.no.1550.) (London : Penguin, 1961). ASIN : B0000KXJG.

Paintings by and of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna

H I H Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna Memorial Fund

Unofficial royalty site

The Peerage site

Sherbrooke Telegram 1948

My Heritage record for Nikolai Alexandrovich Kulikovsky

Christ the Saviour Sobor Toronto

"The Royal Forums", 'The Humble Grand Duchess : The Last Grand Duchess' by Ian Vorres

TVO 2017 article : "Exile in Ontario: How the Russian royal family came to an end in Toronto".

Video : Grand Duchess Olga

Ballerup Museum : exhibition regarding Grand Duchess Olga

"Watercolors by the Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna Romanova".