The love of her life

Grand Duchess Olga wanted more than anything else to remain in Russia instead of marrying a foreign prince when she would have to change her Orthodox faith and possibly learn a new language. Prince Peter was

not a very prepossessing fellow, but at least he was Russian despite his title, so she accepted his proposal. Not until the morning after her wedding night, which she spent alone, did she learn that her husband was a homosexual. This was a time in Russia when homosexuals were disparaged and regarded as deviants.

Two years later, Olga was at a military review when she saw a soldier and, as she said, “It was fate. I suppose on that day, I learned that love at first sight does exist.” His name was Nikolai Kulikovsky, a twenty-two-year-old lieutenant in the Blue Cuirassiers, the regiment in which her brother, Grand Duke Michael, was a colonel.

She arranged with Michael to have Nikolai seated next to her at luncheon the following day, and after getting to know him a little better, she asked if she could write to him. No doubt Nikolai was amazed by the request, but they began a correspondence that was lukewarm at first and then heated up. Olga asked Peter for a divorce, but he refused. However, she persuaded him to appoint Nikolai as one of his ADCs so the three of them were living under the same roof. The lovers were discreet at first, but as time went by, they were seen together in public, and the gossip started. Still, Peter refused to give her a divorce.

The situation continued in this manner for thirteen years until 1916, in the middle of WWI, when Olga persuaded her brother, Tsar Nicholas II, to appeal to the Holy Synod for an annulment on her behalf. When the annulment was granted, she lost no time in marrying the love of her life. They remained together through many hardships well into old age.

I wish I could find a title for this book. Any suggestions?

Grand Duchess Olga

My new book (first draft completed – yesss!) is about Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovich, daughter of Tsar Alexander III and Tsarina Maria Feodorovna. formerly Princess Dagmar of Denmark.

She was the youngest in a family of three boys and two girls. Most of her youth was spent in the palace of Gatchina with her brother Michael, living an extraordinarily modest and happy life with their father, who enjoyed simple pleasures. Meanwhile, their mother, with the three older children, spent those same months in St. Petersburg, enjoying the balls and parties as a leading light of society. Despite their differences in tastes and lifestyle, the Tsar and Tsarina had a happy marriage.

 It’s hard not to sympathize with Olga. She was intent on remaining in Russia instead of being forced to marry a foreign prince and live in a strange land with a different language and faith, such as Germany – the fate of many European princesses. When Prince Peter of Oldenburg proposed, she accepted without giving the matter much thought. Prince Peter was not an attractive man, but although the Oldenburgs were originally from Germany, they had lived in Russia for many generations. He fit the criterion.

Prince Peter was not a great catch. He gambled his way through much of her fortune and was a hypochondriac; alas for Olga’s longing to have children, he was a homosexual. Their marriage remained unconsummated until it was annulled by the Pope fourteen years later.

Not to worry. Olga wasn’t entirely without a love life. More later.