Princess Olga Paley


Princess Olga Valerianovna Paley was the morganatic second wife of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia.

Early life and first marriage

She was born as Olga Karnovich in Saint Petersburg, the daughter of a Russian nobleman, Valerian Gavrilovich Karnovich, State councilor, Imperial Chamberlain and Vice-Director of the Department of General Affairs of the Ministry of State Property, and his wife, Olga Vasilyevna Meszaros, who was of Hungarian and German ancestry and whose family had been settled in Russia since the 17th century. In 1884, in Riga, Olga Karnovich wed General Erich Gerhard von Pistohlkors, a member of the Pistohlkors family, part of the Baltic German nobility, by whom she had four children, one son and three daughters:
Olga began an affair with Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich, causing a great society scandal. Russian courtiers and members of Paul's family viewed Olga as a commoner and "fornicator." At the Winter Palace ball, she attended wearing the diamonds that the late Empress Maria Alexandrovna had bequeathed to Paul. The appalled Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia recognized the imperial jewels and ordered her chamberlain to escort Olga out of the party. Paul's older brother Vladimir declared that "if will become the wife of my brother, I will turn my back on her and she will never in life see my face again."
Paul asked permission from Emperor Nicholas II to marry Olga, but the Tsar initially refused. Olga's marriage to Pistohlkors was terminated by divorce, and she became pregnant with Prince Vladimir Pavlovich Paley.
In 1902, Paul fled to Paris with three million rubles and married Olga morganatically. Olga was not given any titles, because the marriage was not approved. Tsar Nicholas II was furious with Paul's disobedience, and he lamented that he "fear a whole colony of members of the Russian Imperial Family will be established in Paris with their semi-legitimate and illegitimate wives!" In 1904, Luitpold, Prince Regent of Bavaria granted Olga the title of Countess von Hohenfelsen. In 1915, Olga asked Grigori Rasputin to petition Tsar Nicholas II to grant her a Russian title. Nicholas acquiesced and granted her the title of Princess Paley.
Olga and Paul had three children:
Olga resented her stepson, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, because her son Vladimir could never be a grand duke like his older half-brother. She tried to turn Paul against his own son and wrote to her husband, "I have been telling you in every letter; 'don't trust Dmitri,' and I myself was deceived by his damned tricks! I have rarely hated people, as I hate him right now!" In October 1916, she was angry at Paul for giving fine wine from their cellar to Dmitri and said, "I would somehow understand if you treated the Sovereign to it,” she complained, “but to waste it on Dmitri... was totally unnecessary.”
Her stepdaughter, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, described meeting her stepmother for the first time in 1907 in her memoirs:
"She was beautiful, very beautiful. An intelligent face, with features irregular but fine a skin remarkably white. Father made the introductions. The Countess greeted my aunt with a profound curtsy and turned to me. We were both embarrassed. I did not know how to greet her; finally I timidly put forth my cheek."

In 1916, an Imperial decree approved the decision of the Yaroslavl Assembly of Nobles to include Sergei Valerianovich Karnovich and his sister Olga in the Karnovich family genealogy chart, confirming their nobility birth right. By this time, their brothers Vladimir, Gavril and Denis were not alive. They also had one sister, Countess Lyubov Valerianovna Golovina, who was a good friend of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky.

Exile

Olga left Russia in 1920 with her two daughters and went to Finland, after her son and her husband were executed by the revolutionary government. She died during her exile in Paris, France, on 2 November 1929, at the age of 63.