by Susan Flantzer © Unofficial Royalty 2018
Duke Peter Alexandrovich of Oldenburg; Credit – Wikipedia
The first husband of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia, Duke Peter Alexandrovich of Oldenburg (Peter Friedrich Georg) was born on November 21, 1868, at Oldenburg Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia. He was the only child of Duke Alexander Petrovich of Oldenburg and Princess Eugenia Maximilianovna of Leuchtenberg.
Alexander Petrovich’s grandfather had married Grand Duchess Catherine Pavlovna, daughter of Paul I, Emperor of All Russia, and their children and grandchildren were raised in Russia. Despite his German title, Alexander Petrovich, like his father, had grown up entirely in Russia, served in the Russian military, and was considered part of the Russian Imperial Family.
Peter’s mother Eugenia was the daughter of Maximilian de Beauharnais, 3rd Duke of Leuchtenberg and Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia, a daughter of Nicholas I, Emperor of All Russia. Although she was a member of the French House of Beauharnais, Eugenia was born and raised in Russia, her mother’s native country. She was a great-granddaughter of Joséphine Tascher de La Pagerie (Empress Joséphine, first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French) through Joséphine’s first marriage to Alexandre de Beauharnais.
Peter’s parents Duke Alexander Petrovich of Oldenburg and Princess Eugenia Maximilianovna of Leuchtenberg; Credit – Wikipedia
Eugenia had a long-standing friendship with Empress Maria Feodorovna (born Dagmar of Denmark), wife of Alexander III, Emperor of All Russia. The two helped arrange the marriage of Eugenia’s son to Maria Feodorovna’s youngest child Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna so that Olga would not have to marry a foreign prince and could always be on call for her mother. Duke Peter Alexandrovich of Oldenburg, Olga’s second cousin, was fourteen years older than her. After Olga’s society debut in 1899, Peter escorted her to social events.
In the spring of 1901, Peter proposed to Olga. As Olga told her official biographer, Ian Vorres, “I was just tricked into it.” Olga was brought into a room where Peter stammered through a proposal. Their engagement, announced in May 1901, was unexpected by family and friends, as Peter had shown no prior interest in women and it was assumed he was homosexual. The wedding quickly followed on August 9, 1901. Olga told Vorres, “I shared his roof for fifteen years and never once were we husband and wife.” Obviously, there were no children. Olga and Peter lived in a 200-room mansion in St. Petersburg and had bedrooms at opposite ends of the building. Peter was always kind and considerate towards her but Olga longed for love, a normal marriage, and children.
Olga and Peter; Photo Credit – Wikipedia
Two years after their marriage, Olga met Nikolai Kulikovsky, an army officer her own age. Olga said to Vorres, “It was fate. It was also a shock. I suppose I learned on that day that love at first sight does exist.” Olga asked Peter for a divorce, which he refused but said he might reconsider after seven years. Nikolai was promoted to captain of the Blue Cuirassier Guards and sent far away to the provinces. Olga and Nikolai regularly corresponded. In 1906, Peter appointed Nikolai as one of his aides-de-camp. Nikolai was told that his quarters would be in the Oldenburg mansion in St. Petersburg. The living arrangements at the mansion were a well-kept secret and continued until the start of World War I when Olga went to be a nurse at the front and Nikolai went to war with his regiment. Peter did not keep his promise to reconsider a divorce after seven years.
Over the years, Olga continued to ask her brother Nicholas II, Emperor of All Russia for permission to marry Nikolai. Nicholas II always refused because he believed that marriage was for life and that royalty should only marry royalty. In 1912, when Olga’s brother Michael married a commoner without permission, Nicholas banished him from Russia. Fearing for Nikolai’s safety in the war, Olga pleaded with her brother Nicholas II to transfer him to the relative safety of Kyiv, where she was stationed at a hospital. In 1916, after visiting Olga in Kyiv, Nicholas had a change of heart and he officially annulled her marriage to Peter. On November 16, 1916, Olga and Nikolai were married at the Kievo-Vasilievskaya Church in Kiev.
Since 1880, Peter had a career in the Russian Imperial Army and attained the rank of Major-General. At the time of the February Revolution in 1917, Peter resigned from the army and settled on his estate in the Voronezh province. After the October Revolution in 1917, Peter, his father, and his mother emigrated to France, where he lived in Paris and on a farm near Bayonne, France. In 1922, Peter married Olga Vladimirovna Ratkova-Rognova. Duke Peter Alexandrovich of Oldenburg died at the age of 55 on March 21, 1924, in Antibes, France, and was buried in the crypt of St. Michael the Archangel Russian Orthodox Church in Cannes, France. Both of Peter’s parents survived him.
Peter’s tomb; Credit – Wikipedia
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Works Cited
- En.wikipedia.org. (2018). Duke Peter Alexandrovich of Oldenburg. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Peter_Alexandrovich_of_Oldenburg [Accessed 18 Mar. 2018].
- En.wikipedia.org. (2018). Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchess_Olga_Alexandrovna_of_Russia [Accessed 18 Mar. 2018].
- Ru.wikipedia.org. (2018). Ольденбургский, Пётр Александрович. [online] Available at: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9E%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B1%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B3%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9,_%D0%9F%D1%91%D1%82%D1%80_%D0%90%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B4%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87 [Accessed 18 Mar. 2018].
- Ru.wikipedia.org. (2018). Ольга Александровна. [online] Available at: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9E%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%B3%D0%B0_%D0%90%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B4%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%B0 [Accessed 18 Mar. 2018].
- Vorres, I. (2018). The Last Grand Duchess. Toronto: Key Porter Books Limited.