Princess Olga Andreevna Romanoff
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Princess Olga Andreevna Romanoff (; born 8 April 1950) is a Russian princess and descendant of the
House of Romanov The House of Romanov (also transcribed Romanoff; rus, Романовы, Románovy, rɐˈmanəvɨ) was the reigning dynasty, imperial house of Russia from 1613 to 1917. They achieved prominence after the Tsarina, Anastacia of Russia, Anastasi ...
. She is the president of the
Romanov Family Association The Romanov Family Association (russian: Объединение Членов Рода Романовых, Obyedineniye Chlenov Roda Romanovykh) is an organization for descendants of the former Russian Imperial House. It was created in 1979 and o ...
.


Biography

Princess Olga is the youngest child of
Prince Andrei Alexandrovich of Russia Prince Andrei Alexandrovich of Russia ( – 8 May 1981) was the first son and second child of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia and Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia. He was also the eldest nephew of Nicholas II of Russia, the ...
and the only one born of his second marriage in 1942, to Nadine Sylvia Ada McDougall (1908–2000), daughter of Lt. Col. Herbert McDougall. Her father was the son of
Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia (russian: Александр Михайлович ''Aleksandr Mikhailovich''; 13 April 1866 – 26 February 1933) was a dynast of the Russian Empire, a naval officer, an author, explorer, the brother-i ...
, who belonged to a
cadet branch In history and heraldry, a cadet branch consists of the male-line descendants of a monarch's or patriarch's younger sons ( cadets). In the ruling dynasties and noble families of much of Europe and Asia, the family's major assets— realm, t ...
of the Romanovs, and his wife Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna,
Tsar Nicholas II Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov; spelled in pre-revolutionary script. ( 186817 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer,. was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Polan ...
's sister. Olga Andreevna uses the English version of her family name, preferring 'Romanoff' to 'Romanova', the
feminine form In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all noun ...
of her name in Russian. She is known by the title "Princess Olga Andreevna Romanoff".
The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are popular names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia, publ ...
. 25 March 2017
Princess Olga
Retrieved 2 May 2017.
Educated in her mother's
stately home An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peopl ...
Provender, Faversham, Kent, England by private tutors, she was told of her family's tragic imperial heritage in pre-revolutionary Russia as a child by her exiled father. She joined the
Romanov Family Association The Romanov Family Association (russian: Объединение Членов Рода Романовых, Obyedineniye Chlenov Roda Romanovykh) is an organization for descendants of the former Russian Imperial House. It was created in 1979 and o ...
(RFA) in 1980 and, with other members, attended the long-delayed interment of Russia's last emperor and empress in
St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
in 1998. On 3 December 2017, nearly a year after the death of Prince Dimitri Romanovich Romanov on the last day of 2016, she was elected president of the RFA.
Russia Beyond ''Russia Beyond'' (formerly ''Russia Beyond The Headlines'') is a Russian multilingual project operated by TV-Novosti (formerly Russia Today), founded by the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. History ''Russia Beyond The Headlines'' was l ...
. 11 December 2017
Romanovs Elect New Chairman to Spearhead Dynasty
Retrieved 18 July 2018.
In the interim, the senior male Romanov descendant by
primogeniture Primogeniture ( ) is the right, by law or custom, of the firstborn legitimate child to inherit the parent's entire or main estate in preference to shared inheritance among all or some children, any illegitimate child or any collateral relativ ...
, Prince Andrew Andreyevich Romanov (born 1923), was chosen Honorary RFA president. Olga intended to return for the centenary memorial in 2018, at which however, Paul Kulikovsky, a great-grandson of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, and a contingent of other Romanov descendants represented the RFA.
Tass The Russian News Agency TASS (russian: Информацио́нное аге́нтство Росси́и ТАСС, translit=Informatsionnoye agentstvo Rossii, or Information agency of Russia), abbreviated TASS (russian: ТАСС, label=none) ...
. 17 July 2018
Patriarch Kirill I Leads Procession Commemorating Slain Czarist Family
Retrieved 17 July 2018.
She lives at
Provender House Provender is an English country house in Norton near Faversham in the English county of Kent. It is privately owned but open for tours on certain days, and is an event venue. Location The house is reached along Provender Lane, Norton, a village i ...
in the hamlet of Provender, near
Faversham Faversham is a market town in Kent, England, from London and from Canterbury, next to the Swale, a strip of sea separating mainland Kent from the Isle of Sheppey in the Thames Estuary. It is close to the A2, which follows an ancient Briti ...
in Kent, where she has restored the 13th century mansion and opened it to tourists. Having inherited the ageing mansion and estate in 2000, she raised the money to have it refurbished by selling what was left of her father's cache of pre-revolutionary artefacts, most of which had long since been sold to the British royal family. In 2005, she was on ''
Australian Princess ''Australian Princess'' is an Australian reality television show that first premiered on Network Ten on 5 October 2005. It is produced by Granada Australia, who are responsible for other programs such as ''Dancing with the Stars'', ''Australia's ...
'' (a reality show) giving advice to competitors. During an interview on
Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
television's "Royal House of Windsor", she corrected the prevalent view that the fatal abandonment by the British of Tsar Nicholas II, his wife and children to the
Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
during the
Russian revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...
was not due to the callousness of the British government of the day, but to the reluctance of his diffident cousin King
George V George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. Born during the reign of his grandmother ...
, as was revealed by
Kenneth Rose Kenneth Vivian Rose (15 November 1924 – 28 January 2014) was a journalist and royal biographer in the United Kingdom. The son of Ada and Jacob Rosenwige, a Bradford Jewish surgeon, Rose was educated at Repton and New College, Oxford. He serv ...
in his biography of the King. In 2017 she published a memoir, ''Princess Olga, A Wild and Barefoot Romanov''. She serves alongside
Princess Katarina of Yugoslavia Princess Katarina of Yugoslavia, Lady de Silva (born 28 November 1959) is an English businessperson specialising in etiquette and decorum courses. She is a member of the extended former Yugoslavian royal family. Early life Katarina was born in L ...
as a royal patron of the
Queen Charlotte's Ball The Queen Charlotte's Ball is an annual British debutante ball. The ball was founded in 1780 by George III as a birthday celebration in honour of his wife, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, for whom the ball is named. The Queen Charlotte's Ball ...
.


Marriage and children

Once considered a possible bride for her third cousin
King Charles III Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. He was the longest-serving heir apparent and Prince of Wales and, at age 73, became the oldest person to a ...
, she married Thomas Mathew (born 8 July 1945, son of Francis Mathew former manager of ''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...
''), in nuptials at the Orthodox Cathedral of the Assumption and at the
Brompton Oratory Brompton Oratory is a large neo-classical Roman Catholic church in the Knightsbridge area of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London. Its full name is the Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, or as named in its Grade II* archite ...
on 1 October 1975. Montgomery-Massingberd, Hugh. " Burke's Royal Families of the World: ''Volume I Europe & Latin America'', 1977, pp. 467, 472–473. A member of the Irish
gentry Gentry (from Old French ''genterie'', from ''gentil'', "high-born, noble") are "well-born, genteel and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past. Word similar to gentle imple and decentfamilies ''Gentry'', in its widest c ...
, he also had homes in England at
South Kensington South Kensington, nicknamed Little Paris, is a district just west of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with ...
and in the vicinity of
Hatchlands Park Hatchlands Park is a red-brick country house with surrounding gardens in East Clandon, Surrey, England, covering 170 hectares (430 acres). It is located near Guildford along the A246 between East Clandon and West Horsley. Hatchlands Park has be ...
in Surrey. They separated in 1989, having had issue: * Nicholas Mathew (b. 6 December 1976); married Judith Aird Stanley (b. 1 October 1976), three children : Thomas (b. 2004) Lucy (b. 2006) Isabella Florence (b. 2011). * Francis-Alexander Mathew (b. 20 September 1979); freelance photographer. 2012 contestant on Ukraine version of '' The Bachelor''. Starred in season 2 of ''
Secret Princes ''Secret Princes'' is an American reality television series that premiered on TLC on September 21, 2012. It chronicles the adventures of several members of international nobility as they leave their home countries to live, work and look for love ...
'' as "Prince Alexander". * Alexandra Mathew (b. 20 April 1981) * Thomas Mathew (27 November 1987 – 20 April 1989)"Person Page − 66012" ''www.thepeerage.com''
Retrieved 16 December 2019


Ancestry


Notes


References


External links

*
Ancestral landscape
{{DEFAULTSORT:Olga Andreevna Romanoff, Princess House of Romanov in exile 1950 births Living people People from London Russian princesses English people of Russian descent