Tennis anyone?
The Romanov family loved to play tennis. They mention it throughout their letters and diaries constantly. In Grand Duchess Olga’s 1913 diary alone, she mentions “tennis” a whopping 100 times! Read more THE ROMANOV FAMILY AND TENNIS
In keeping with the Romanov family pet theme, I would like to dedicate his own page to Grand Duchess Olga’s cat Vaska. From Grand Duchess Anastasia’s letter to her “Papa” Nicholas II:
“31 October, 1916. Tsarskoe Selo. My dear Papa Darling! Well it is again my turn to write to you… Forgive me that I’m writing so violently, but this quill scratches terribly and nothing comes out… We continue playing billiards a bit at our infirmary, sometimes it turns out well – and then I’m happy… Right now Olga’s cat is running around here, I think he grew and is rather cute… Well now, my dear Papa! I send you and Aleksei a 1000 awfully big kisses, may God be with you. Your loving loyal and faithful Kaspiyetz [sic].”
Read more GRAND DUCHESS OLGA’S CAT
By Helen Azar
The First English Translation of the Wartime Diaries of the Eldest Daughter of Nicholas II, the Last Tsar of Russia, with Additional Documents of the Period
In August 1914, Russia entered World War I, and with it, the imperial family of Tsar Nicholas II was thrust into a conflict they would not survive. His eldest child, Olga Nikolaevna, great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, had begun a diary in 1905 when she was ten years old and kept writing her thoughts and impressions of day-to-day life as a grand duchess until abruptly ending her entries when her father abdicated his throne in March 1917. Held at the State Archives of the Russian Federation in Moscow, Olga’s diaries during the wartime period have never been compiled into English until this volume. At the outset of the war, Olga and her sister Tatiana worked as nurses in a military hospital along with their mother, Tsarina Alexandra. Olga’s younger sisters, Maria and Anastasia, visited the infirmaries to help raise the morale of the wounded and sick soldiers. The strain was indeed great, as Olga records her impressions of tending to the officers who had been injured and maimed in the fighting on the Russian front. Concerns about her sickly brother, Aleksei, abound, as well those for her father, who is seen attempting to manage the ongoing war. Gregori Rasputin appears in entries, too, in an affectionate manner as one would expect of a family friend. While the diaries reflect the interests of a young woman, her tone grows increasingly serious as the Russian army suffers setbacks, Rasputin is ultimately murdered, and a popular movement against her family begins to grow. At the point Olga ends her writing in 1917, the author continues the story by translating letters and impressions from family intimates, such as Anna Vyrubova, as well as the diary kept by Nicholas II himself. Finally, once the imperial family has been put under house arrest by the revolutionaries, we follow events through observations by Alexander Kerensky, head of the initial Provisional Government, these too in English translation for the first time. Olga would offer no further personal writings, as she and the rest of her family were crowded into the basement of a house in the Urals and shot to death in July 1918.
The Diary of Olga Romanov: Royal Witness to the Russian Revolution, compiled and introduced by scientist and librarian Helen Azar, and supplemented with additional primary source material, is a remarkable document of a young woman who did not choose to be part of a royal family and never exploited her own position, but lost her life simply because of what her family represented.
ROMANOV GRAND DUCHESSES: THEIR LOVE OF CHILDREN
All four Romanov grand duchesses loved little children, but Olga and Marie did in particular.
OTMA regularly went to visit the “Nanny school” – a local orphanage – and in Olga’s diaries we often see references to them playing with children, and clearly enjoying this.
It makes one feel very sad indeed to consider that these loving young women never lived to have children of their own. Read more ROMANOV GRAND DUCHESSES: THEIR LOVE OF CHILDREN
From Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna’s 1913 diary: Read more IMPERIAL LIFE IN LIVADIA PRIOR TO THE WAR (1913).
From the 1913 diary of Olga Romanov:
“… [We] went to Kharax, returned at 3 o’clock and walked in Oreanda and our Livadia vineyards… Wonderful weather – sunny… [I] walked with Sh. the whole time, and also sat with him at tea, also with S., and again [had] a strange feeling…”
During the year 1913 Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna fell in love with two young officers, in her diary she referred to them as “Sh.” and “S.”. You can read more about them in Olga Romanov’s full 1913 diary in the book below. Read more OLGA ROMANOV: GRAND DUCHESS IN LOVE (1913 DIARY)
