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Olga Nikolaevna Romanova (Ольга Николаевна Poмановa), Grand Duchess of Russia

Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia, November 15 [O.S. November 3] 1895, November 16 after 1900 – July 17, 1918) was the eldest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia, and his wife Alexandra Fyodorovna.

Died unmarried and without issue.

Biography

During her lifetime, Olga's future marriage was the subject of great speculation within Russia. Matches were rumored with Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia, Crown Prince Carol of Romania, Edward, Prince of Wales, eldest son of Britain's George V, and with Crown Prince Alexander of Serbia. Olga herself wanted to marry a Russian and remain in her home country. During World War I, Olga nursed wounded soldiers in a military hospital until her own nerves gave out and, thereafter, oversaw administrative duties at the hospital.

Olga's murder following the Russian Revolution of 1917 resulted in her canonization as a passion bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church. In later years, when dozens of people made claims to be surviving members of the imperial family, a woman named Marga Boodts claimed to be Grand Duchess Olga, but her claim was not taken seriously. Historians believe that Olga was assassinated along with her family at Ekaterinburg. Her remains were identified through DNA testing and were buried during a funeral ceremony in 1998 at Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg along with those of her parents and two of her sisters.

In 2000, Olga and her family were canonized as passion bearers by the Russian Orthodox Church. The family had previously been canonized in 1981 by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad as holy martyrs.

The bodies of Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra, and three of their daughters were finally interred at St. Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg on July 17, 1998, eighty years after they were murdered.

Sources

Radzinsky, Edvard. The Last Tsar, Doubleday, 1992, ISBN 0-385-42371-3

Links

Thepeerage: Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia

Wings of Memory, The Romanovs (image gallery)