Olga Constantinovna of Russia


Olga Constantinovna of Russia was Queen of Greece as the wife of King George I. She was briefly the regent of Greece in 1920.
A member of the Romanov dynasty, Olga was the oldest daughter of Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaievich and his wife, Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg. She spent her childhood in the Russian Empire, primarily Saint Petersburg, Congress Poland, and the Crimea, and married George in 1867 at the age of sixteen. At first, she felt ill at ease in the Kingdom of Greece, but she quickly became involved in social and charitable work. She founded hospitals and schools, but her attempt to promote a new, more accessible, Greek translation of the Gospels sparked riots by religious conservatives.
On the assassination of her husband in 1913, Olga returned to Russia. When the First World War broke out, she set up a military hospital in Pavlovsk Palace, which belonged to her brother. She was trapped in the palace after the Russian Revolution of 1917, until the Danish embassy intervened, allowing her to escape to Switzerland. Olga could not return to Greece as her eldest son, King Constantine I, had been deposed.
In October 1920, Olga returned to Athens on the fatal illness of her grandson King Alexander of Greece. After his death, she was appointed regent until the restoration of Constantine I the following month. After the defeat of the Greeks in the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–22 the Greek royal family were again exiled and Olga spent the last years of her life in the United Kingdom, France and Italy.

Family and early life

Olga was born at Pavlovsk Palace near Saint Petersburg on. She was the second child and elder daughter of Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaievich and his wife, Grand Duchess Alexandra, a former princess of Saxe-Altenburg. Through her father, Olga was a granddaughter of Tsar Nicholas I, a niece of Tsar Alexander II and first cousin of Tsar Alexander III.
Olga's childhood was spent at her father's homes, including Pavlovsk Palace and estates in the Crimea. Her father was a younger brother of Alexander II, and her mother was considered one of the most intelligent and elegant women of the court. In 1862, Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaievich was appointed viceroy of Russian Poland by his brother and moved to Warsaw with his wife and children. The stay in Poland proved difficult for Constantine, who was the victim of a nationalist assassination attempt on 3 July 1862. Although Constantine embarked on a program of liberalization and re-instated Polish as an official language, Polish nationalists continued to agitate for reform and Olga's mother returned to Saint Petersburg with the children in 1863. Olga's difficult experiences in Poland marked her profoundly.

Engagement and marriage

The young King George I of Greece visited Russia in 1863 to thank Olga's uncle Tsar Alexander II for his support during George's election to the throne of Greece. Whilst there, George met the then twelve-year-old Olga for the first time.
George visited Russia again in 1867 to meet with his sister Dagmar, who had married Tsarevitch Alexander the year before. He was determined to find a wife and the idea of an alliance with a Russian grand duchess, born into the Eastern Orthodox Church, appealed to him. Her father was initially reluctant to agree to their marriage, thinking that at the age of fifteen she was too young and, being close to his daughter, concerned by the distance between Greece and Russia. For her part, Grand Duchess Alexandra was much more enthusiastic than her husband and, when some members of the imperial family noted the extreme youth of her daughter, she replied that Olga would not always be as young. Eventually, it was decided that Olga and George would marry when she had reached her sixteenth birthday. Meanwhile, she would continue her schoolwork until her wedding day.
Olga and George married at the chapel of the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg on. After five days of festivities, they spent a brief honeymoon at Ropsha, south-west of Saint Petersburg. Over the following twenty years, they had eight children:
The Tsar told Olga "to love her new country twice more than her own", but she was ill-prepared for her new life. Aware of her youth, she chose to retain the services of her governess to continue her education. On arrival at Piraeus, Olga wore blue and white, the national colors of Greece, to the delight of the crowd. On the way to the capital, popular unrest was such that Olga, who was not accustomed to such demonstrations, was close to tears. Unable to speak Greek, and with little time for rest, she attended official functions over several days. Overwhelmed, Olga was found sobbing under a staircase cuddling her teddy bear a few days after her arrival in the kingdom while she was expected for a formal event. In less than a year, she learnt Greek and English. On the advice of her mother, she took an interest in the archeology and history of Greece to gain public support.

Dowry and wealth

Upon her marriage Olga received the customary 1,000,000 rouble dowry granted to all grand duchesses of the Russian imperial family. The capital was held in Russia, with the interest paid to Olga at a rate of 5% annually. Olga's status as a member of a foreign royal family resulted in more generous financial provision being made for her by the provisional government of Russia following the overthrow of the monarchy during the Russian Revolution; her 1,000,000 dowry capital was transferred to the Greek government on 3 April 1917.

Private life

Throughout their marriage, George I and Olga were a close-knit couple, and contrary to the prevailing custom in the aristocracy, spent much time with their children, who grew up in a warm family atmosphere. With age, however, George I argued with his sons and Olga lamented the quarrels that divided the family periodically. In private, Olga and George I conversed in German because it was the only language they both spoke at the time of their marriage. With their offspring, they spoke mainly English, although the children were required to speak Greek among themselves, and Prince Andrew refused to speak anything but Greek to his parents.
The life of the royal family was relatively quiet and withdrawn. The Athenian court was not as brilliant and sumptuous as that of Saint Petersburg, and days in the Greek capital were sometimes monotonous for members of the royal family. In spring and winter, they divided time between the Royal Palace in Athens and Tatoi Palace at the foot of Mount Parnitha. Summers were spent on vacation at Aix-les-Bains in France, visiting relatives in the Russian capital or at Fredensborg and Bernstorff in Denmark, and relaxing at Mon Repos, Corfu.
Olga remained nostalgic for Russia. Her room was filled with icons from her homeland and, in the palace chapel, she sang Slavic hymns with her children. She often visited Russian ships that were docked at Piraeus and invited the Russian sailors to the royal palace. She was the only woman at the time to be an admiral, having been appointed to the rank in the Imperial Russian Navy by Tsar Alexander III. She was honored in the Greek navy by having a ship named after her. She regularly returned to Pavlovsk, travelling on the Greek royal yacht Amphitrite from Piraeus to Odessa, and from there by rail to Saint Petersburg aboard the imperial train.

Social work

Olga was genuinely popular and was extensively involved in charity work. On arrival in Athens, her immediate patronages included the Amalieion orphanage founded by the previous queen consort Amalia of Oldenburg, and the Arsakeion school for girls located on University Boulevard. With her personal support and the support of wealthy donors, she built asylums for the terminally ill and for the elderly disabled, and a sanatorium for patients with consumption. She founded a society to help the poor, a kindergarten for the children of the poor, and a soup kitchen in Piraeus that doubled as a cooking school for poor girls that was later expanded into a weaving school for girls and elderly women in financial difficulty. She was patron of two military hospitals and endowed the Evangelismos Hospital, Greece's largest, in downtown Athens. She built the Russian Hospital in Piraeus in memory of her daughter, Alexandra, who died in Moscow in 1891. Although aimed primarily at Russian sailors, the hospital was open to all seamen visiting Greece, with consultation fees set at the low rate of thirty lepta and medicines being free. Olga also supported the establishment and funding of hospitals during the conflicts between Greece and its neighbors, including the Greco-Turkish War of 1897 and the First Balkan War. For their work for the wounded, Olga and her daughter-in-law Crown Princess Sophia were awarded the Royal Red Cross by Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom in December 1897.
Before Olga's arrival in Greece, there were no separate prisons for women or the young, and she was instrumental in the establishment of a women's prison in the capital and, with the support of wealthy philanthropist George Averoff, one for juvenile delinquents.
Shortly after Greece's defeat in the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, shots were fired at Olga's husband and daughter by disgruntled Greeks in 1898. Despite the failed assassination, Olga insisted on continuing her engagements without a military guard. Her son Nicolas wrote in his memoirs that one day he spoke of the importance of public opinion to his mother, and she retorted, "I prefer to be governed by a well born lion rather than four hundred rats like me." Olga's interest in political and public opinion was limited. Although she favored Greece's Russian party, she had no political influence over her husband and did not seek political influence in the Greek parliament.