Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna, ‘Olishka’, (1895-1918) was the eldest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, Russia’s last Tsar. While many of us know how Nicholas II and his family were killed by the Bolsheviks so ending the Romanov Dynasty, many of us know less about Nicholas’ children. Here, Jordann Stover tells us about Grand Duchess Olga, the lives of the Imperial children, and the tumultuous events in Russia during her life.
You can also read Jordann’s article on Princess Anastasia Romanova, the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II here.
Princess Olga (right), with her younger sister Tatiana.
There is something fundamentally heartbreaking about being the eldest sister of a family. As the first child of one’s parents, it is through them that said parents learn and grow— that is a daunting task for a baby just learning how to toddle around a nursery. Eldest sisters look out for the little ones; the diaper-clad girl with chubby, unsteady legs must set an example for those that come after her. She’s supposed to be inherently nurturing, almost like a second mother to her brothers and sisters. A great deal of pressure comes down on these children making the fits of anxiety and outbursts that often dominate the child’s personality understandable. Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna was the eldest sister to end all other eldest sisters. This blonde haired, blue-eyed little girl came into the world as the first child of the last Tsar of Russia. After her birth, four more imperial children would follow. Olga’s parents put a great deal of pressure on their children, especially their firstborn who was to guide the other children in matters of behavior and their studies. This task was difficult for the little girl, she was sensitive and temperamental, a girl with a strong sense of right and wrong. Her life is often overlooked or forgotten in the chaos that was her father’s reign and subsequent fall which is, undeniably, a shame. Olga, as well as her sisters, were more than just royal children. They were fascinating beings in their own right. Their assassination was brutal, the details so gruesome that it is nearly impossible to stop reading fact after dreadful fact when studying this family. Behind the bloodstained wall and crudely crafted, unintentional bulletproof corsets that served to elongate their suffering during the last few moments of their lives were individuals of great character. Olga had a mind of her own; her heart ached with the pain that accompanied teenage crushes and thumped with anger when arguing with her sisters. Studying the young woman behind the stories is remarkably interesting, her innocence paired with an almost unfounded wisdom utterly captivating.
Before Olga’s birth
Before Olga was even conceived, the controversy that would eventually aid in the end of her family’s dynasty and the family itself had already been in the works for years. Her parents were Nicholas II, Tsar of Russia, and Alexandra Feodorovna (formerly Alix of Hesse and by Rhine, a small German duchy). Nicholas’ father had not believed in his son’s ability to rule, never training him as he should have. So, when Nicholas’ father died suddenly while only in his forties, Nicholas was nowhere near prepared for the job he had no choice but to accept. Alexandra married the Tsar quickly, the two of them being moved around at a dizzying pace because of the unexpected death of the previous Tsar. Once settled into their palaces, it became quite obvious that Nicholas was even more unprepared than they’d feared and that his new bride was not someone they were very fond of. Alexandra, a rather shy woman who had suffered a number of tragedies in her short life, was often withdrawn or sullen. The people of the Russian court did not like her and they made sure that she knew it; this only added to her nervousness, leading the Tsarina to hide away in her rooms whenever possible. As these personal, royal issues caused whispers within palace walls and aristocratic circles, nation-wide tragedies and despair flourished as well. The country was suffering, the working class starving, they were unimpressed with wars they deemed unnecessary and leaders that seemed to ignore their plights. The world in which Olga would be born into on November 15, 1895 was not the picture perfect Russian world Grand Duchesses of the past had the luxury of living in— Olga’s bruised and beaten Russia was heading very quickly toward revolution.
Birth
The day of Olga’s birth was one of celebration for the royal couple and their country. Olga was a beautiful, healthy baby girl, confirming that the couple could indeed conceive of and deliver an heir. They were sure that a healthy son could follow. While a boy was certainly what had been hoped for by the royal couple, they loved their little “Olishka”, Nicholas himself stated in his diary entry the day of Olga’s birth that it would be “A day [he] will remember forever”. Olga was a large baby, weighing over ten pounds. She had piercing eyes and dark blonde hair, the lightest hair of anyone in her family consisting of brunettes and redheads. Her tutor, Pierre Gilliard met Olga when she was ten years old. He described this meeting in his book Thirteen Years at the Russian Court. The Grand Duchesses’ tutor stated that Olga was “very fair…[with] sparkling, mischievous eyes ... she examined [him] with a look...searching for the weak point in [his] armor, but there was something so pure and frank...that one liked her straight off." Olga was a lovely child and the Imperial Family was happy to have her despite what the rest of Russia might have been thinking. Nicholas and Alexandra wanted to have a close knit, happy family. They wanted some semblance of normal life for Olga and themselves. Alexandra had been raised in a close, loving family back in the small duchy of her childhood and wanted that for her own children. Their closeness was not something common among royal families of the time; little intimacies such as breastfeeding or bathing the children themselves even further alienated the Romanovs from royal tradition.
Olga was not an only child for long-- Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia followed within just a few years. The four of them were incredibly close, closer than any other group of princesses. Olga and Tatiana, nicknamed “the Big Pair”, shared a bedroom while “the Little Pair”, Maria and Anastasia shared another bedroom. Together, the four sisters often signed their letters or referred to themselves as OTMA (Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia) as opposed to writing their full names. While Nicholas and Alexandra loved their girls, they needed a son for dynastic purposes. Russia had an incredibly strict Salic law which forbade female descendents from inheriting the throne. The law dated back to the times of Catherine the Great, her son having hated his mother so much that he put the law in place after the Empress’ death. In the meantime, Alexandra and Nicholas focused on creating a loving family life for their four “girlies”. They raised them to be humble people, girls used to sleeping on plain beds and having simple toys instead of having a lavish life most grand duchesses would have had. The four had a thorough education, studying different languages, history, art, and more. Pierre Gilliard, the aforementioned tutor of the children, stated that Olga “emanated such a feeling of purity and sincerity that she immediately gained [his] sympathy.” She was intelligent and dedicated to her studies, the young girl often lost in analytical thoughts about both herself and the world around her. This deep introspection was almost certainly inherited from her mother. Alexandra was known to be the same, a trait that had been solidified by the loss of her mother and sister from diptheria and her brother from a fall at a young age. The young girl who had once been joyous became a shell of herself, carrying out courtly duties that her mother had once performed all the while grieving for the world she once knew. Olga, like her mother, was deeply religious and critical of herself. Alexandra’s mother, who died when Alexandra was just six years old, instilled in her the importance of helping others, something Alexandra would then instill in her own daughters. She was taught, as is common for most eldest sisters, that she must set an example for her siblings. Olga was expected to be well behaved and set the standards for her three little sisters. The Tsarina who had been sickly her entire adult life, often emphasized the importance of such behavior to Olga by making it seem as though Alexandra’s health was contingent on a lack of stress from her daughters. She would write letters to the Grand Duchesses to be delivered to their nurseries when Alexandra was ill. She would often ask Olga to be good for her sisters, that she was feeling ill and negative reports about her girlies would only worsen her condition.
A different upbringing
Olga had been aware of her place from a very young age. Being the daughter of the Tsar of Russia meant that she had responsibilities that any other girl of her age could not have fathomed. Her studies took up an incredible amount of her time. Academics aside, there were affairs of state, public relations appearances, and more. This little girl knew how to speak with ministers and military leaders when young girls nowadays may be mastering the art of speaking with a waitress when out for a meal with their family. At the same time, she and her sisters were incredibly sheltered. They could speak French and interact with their father’s colleagues but they were blind to the rest of the world that existed beyond the yard of the Alexander Palace. By the time the girls were young women, they were far more immature than they should have been. The girls might have been able to keep up with their contemporaries around Europe when it came to academics, but their social skills were severely lacking. They did not know how to properly interact with anyone that existed outside of the small inner circle of their family’s trusted friends.
As a child, it was always noted by tutors that Olga was the most intelligent of her sisters. She was very critical of herself as well as any work that she may have been doing. Tutors noted that she was studious but her knack for self analysis could often impact her studies. With her natural intelligence came a sense of frankness and even anger at times-- she was known for having a temper and an inability to hold her tongue. Margaret Eager noted an example of those characteristics in her book, Six Years at the Russian Court which accounts her years as a governess to the four Grand Duchesses. Eager states that Olga once snapped at an artist after his portrait was proving to take a great deal of time; she said to the man “You are a very ugly man and I don't like you one bit!". Despite pre-adolescent outbursts, Olga was known for her kind nature. She cared deeply for those around her and studied the lives of others to better understand the ever changing world. She worked tirelessly for wounded soldiers during the First World War and took up her sickly mother’s duties quite often. She accompanied her father to official business, the young girl having to learn from a young age the importance of charming officials and courtiers alike. All of this responsibility, the pressure no young woman should have to carry on her shoulders, got to her at times. After the stress of working with wounded soldiers during the First World War, she was noted by Maria in her diary as having broken a number of window panes with an umbrella. Valentina Chebotareva, another woman working with Alexandra and the Big Pair in military hospitals, recounted in her memoir a time in which Olga flew into a rage and destroyed many items in a hospital closet. It was clear that the work was becoming too much for the young woman of only nineteen years. She still cared deeply for her soldiers, one of which she fell madly in love with despite the fact that such a relationship could never be, but had to let her nursing work go. Instead, she did office work for the hospital and visited soldiers to try to lift their spirits while her mother and sister, Tatiana, continued to work in the operating room.
Revolutionary times
Russia was a country on the cusp of revolution which left the lives of the royal family in perpetual imminent danger. Nicholas and Alexandra feared for their children, the assassination attempts aimed at Nicholas’ father and the successful assassination of his uncle made the royal couple even more paranoid about their safety. Alexandra was especially worried, refusing to allow her children (or husband for that matter) anywhere without a trusted group of guards in their presence. They rarely made public appearances save for a few that they simply could not miss such as the tricentennial ceremony celebrating the Romanov dynasty in 1913.
The whole dynamic of the Russian Imperial family as well as their ideas of protocol changed in the summer of 1904 when Alexandra finally gave birth to the son that everyone wanted from her. Tsarevich Alexei was born and for a brief period of time, it was bliss for the family. Nicholas and Alexandra had their four girlies and a new heir, the baby being showered with love from his parents and older sisters. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia loved the little boy - they understood the importance of his birth for the dynasty but more than that, he was a new little one to play with and dote on. The happy little bubble that the family lived in did not take long to burst. It was discovered after a considerable period of unprompted bleeding from the infant’s navel that he had inherited the deadly disease of Hemophilia from his mother. Recent scientific studies have proven that the Tsarevich suffered from the more dangerous Hemophilia B, a genetic mutation in which the blood does not clot properly. Alexandra had inherited the mutation from her mother who inherited it from her own mother, Queen Victoria of the UK. Women are usually only carriers of the disease, while men suffer greatly. This is because the genetic mutation impacts the X chromosome. Women have two X chromosomes and men have one, inheriting the chromosome from their mother. If one’s mother is a carrier of the mutation, a son would only receive her afflicted X chromosome whereas a daughter would have another X chromosome to balance the hemophilia chromosome. This mutation meant that any little bump or fall could cause bleeding in the joints and possibly death for the Tsarevich. The Tsar and Tsarina were in constant fear for their little one’s life which led them to the infamous Grigory Rasputin who was, in the flesh, more menacing than anything 20th Century Fox could have animated. He was a Siberian peasant believed to be a holy man by many. He was, through sheer coincidence, psychology, or faith if you believe in such miracles, able to ease the Tsarevich’s pain. He seemed to be able to heal the boy with prayers alone. Nicholas and Alexandra, both loving parents and rulers well aware of their need for a healthy heir, became fiercely loyal to the man who, in their eyes, could save their son. Many extended members of the royal family and the majority of the country did not approve of Rasputin’s influence over the Imperial family. He was a drunk who was sexually promiscuous and violent. He had free reign in most parts of the palace, even having access to the children’s nurseries when they were in their bed clothes. There is no evidence of him being indecent with the young girls who were quickly blossoming into young women but that did not stop the rumors from persisting. Rasputin was hated by the people but needed by the family who by now viewed him as a friend and savior. Because of Alexei’s condition and the subsequent hatred of their favorite Siberian monk, the tight circle of trusted friends became smaller, and the family became more reclusive than ever. Alexei’s condition was kept from the people, a decision made to hopefully prevent fears of instability within the Romanov line of succession.
Growing problems for the Imperial family
This decision was an interesting one. It seems as though the Imperial Family had no clue what it was that actually worried their people. Russia had fallen from a time where the populous worshipped the Tsar as infallible, a caring father-figure. By this time, the Russian people were far more worried about the lack of food and horrendous working conditions. As the animosity toward the Imperial family intensified, perhaps knowing of Alexei’s condition therefore humanising the royal bunch could have altered the eventual outcome. When looking at the fall of this family, it is impossible now, through a modern lense, to deny that they were a loving family. We can see the benevolence in them that the Russian people could not. If the family had allowed their people in just a little more, let their vulnerability shine through at times, the populace may have been more patient with their shortcomings. If these two groups were not so separate, those in charge could have seen clearly how the Russian people were suffering. Nicholas was not necessarily a malicious man; his unfavorable decisions usually preceded advisors giving an unqualified man information. Alexandra had a kind heart that was plagued with the belief in autocratic rule that had been drilled into her from the moment she was born. These leaders were not inherently bad people. They were bound to a system of government that was both outdated and deeply flawed that ultimately made any sense of human goodness further lost in the minds of their people who were suffering horribly. Alienating their family in the midst of this only intensified the growing hatred for anything imperial.
The end
All of this chaos and sense of impending doom came to a head when, on March 15, 1917 Olga’s father, Tsar Nicholas II, abdicated the throne for both himself and Alexei. Revolution was in full swing, different factions competing and people desperate for a change of any kind. A provisional government was put in charge of the Romanovs’ vast and aching Russia while the family was placed under house arrest. They would go from the Alexander Palace to Tobolsk and then finally to Ekaterinburg. With each move, their imprisonment became more strict, their lives becoming darker with every passing day. In their last prison cell, the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg, it was noted that Olga was keeping to herself. She was quiet, had lost weight. No one can know for certain if she had any idea of what was to come but she certainly knew that life as she knew it would never again be the same. After a grueling 78 days of house arrest surrounded by anti-tsarist soldiers who often became drunk and rowdy, of having guns aimed at their heads and windows boarded up, the Romanov family was told they would be leaving the Ipatiev house. They had been awoken in the night and told that an army of revolutionaries were nearby meaning the family had to be moved to safety. They gathered what little of their belongings they were allowed, including family jewels sewn into the bodices of the girls clothes, and made their way to the basement. Once standing in what must have been a dirty, musty basement, a death order was read aloud and bullets began bouncing off of the walls. What followed was a brutal execution of the Romanov family and their few companions. The children undoubtedly suffered the most, the jewels protecting them from the gunfire. They watched as their parents were murdered and cried helplessly for escape until bayonets and bullets to the skull ended their lives.
What if?
Something about Olga that will always be fascinating are the things that will forever remain a mystery due to her tragic end, the ‘what ifs’ that accompany her story. What would have happened if Olga had been married off to a foreign prince as tradition called for? If her parents had put more pressure on her to find a marriage prospect, could she have survived the Russian Revolution? Perhaps she could have used her influence as Queen or Princess Consort to get her family back in Russia to safety. She could have brought them to her new home, hiding them away from the assassins determined to end them. Or perhaps her new husband would have refused, forcing the girl to watch in horror as her family’s land fell into chaos and her family was murdered? If that were the case, would she have even wanted to survive? Would the young woman have wanted to die alongside her beloved family and friends? Could things have ended differently if she had married one of the wounded officers she’d fallen for? Could that choice, the Tsar allowing his daughter to marry a commoner, have changed the way the Russian people saw their royals? What if Olga had married and given birth to a Romanov heir? A little boy free of hemophilia with Romanov blood flowing through his veins- what would that have meant for the beaten and battered country coming out of the First World War? Would Olga have hidden the boy away to keep him safe or would he have tried to claim the throne that was rightfully his from the Soviets? We’ll never know the answers to these questions but they are interesting enough to consider.
It is nearly unimaginable to consider the amount of change that happened in just a few years following the Russian Revolution. The world in which Olga had lived had been completely eradicated, leaving a country that the Romanovs never would have recognized in its place.
What do you think of Princess Olga? Let us know below.
And remember, you can read Jordann’s article on Princess Anastasia Romanova, the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, here.
References
Azar, Helen. 2014. The diary of Olga Romanov: royal witness to the Russian Revolution. Yardley, Pennsylvania : Westholme.
Eager, Margaret. 2016. Six years at the Russian court. SoHo, NY: Gibbons' Rare Books.
Gilliard, Pierre. 2016. Thirteen Years at the Russian Court.
Massie, Robert K. 1967. Nicholas and Alexandra. New York: Atheneum.
Rappaprt, Helen. 2014. The Romanov Sisters. New York, St. Martins.
Vyrubova, Anna. Memories of the Russian Court. Alexanderpalace.org.
