Olga Constantinovna of Russia

Olga Constantinovna of Russia
Queen consort of the Hellenes
Tenure	27 October 1867 – 18 March 1913
Regent of Greece
Tenure	17 November 1920 – 19 December 1920
Spouse	George I of Greece
Issue
Constantine I of Greece Prince George Princess Alexandra Prince Nicholas Princess Marie Princess Olga Prince Andrew Prince Christopher
House	House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov
Father	Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich of Russia
Mother	Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg
Born	3 September 1851(1851-09-03) Pavlovsk
Died	18 June 1926(1926-06-18) (aged 74) Pau, Béarn
Burial	17 November 1936 Royal Cemetery, Tatoi Palace, Greece
Religion	Eastern Orthodox

Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia (Russian: Великая Княжна Ольга Константиновна), later Queen Olga of the Hellenes (Greek: Βασίλισσα Όλγα των Ελλήνων) (3 September [O.S. 22 August] 1851 – 18 June 1926), was the queen consort of King George I of Greece and briefly in 1920, Queen Regent of Greece. She is the great-grandmother of Queen Sofia of Spain, the paternal grandmother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and the great-grandmother of Charles, Prince of Wales, heir apparent to the British throne.

Early life

Grand Duchess Olga Konstantinovna as a child.

Grand Duchess Olga Konstantinovna before her marriage.

She was born in Pavlovsk to Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich of Russia and Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna, a former princess of Saxe-Altenburg. She was a granddaughter of Tsar Nicholas I and first cousin of Tsar Alexander III. The young King George I of Greece visited Russia in 1863 to thank her uncle Tsar Alexander II for his support during George's election to the throne of Greece. Whilst there, George met the then twelve-year old Olga for the first time.^[1]

George visited Russia again in 1867 to meet with his sister Dagmar, who had married Tsarevitch Alexander the year before. George and Olga fell in love and married on 27 October 1867 (Gregorian calendar), when she was sixteen years old.

Together George and Olga had eight children:

• Constantine (1868–1923), who succeeded his father as king;
• George (1869–1957), High Commissioner of Crete;
• Alexandra (1870–1891), married Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia (son of Alexander II of Russia). Mother of Dmitri Pavlovich Romanov, assassin of Grigori Rasputin;
• Nicholas (1872–1938), married Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia;
• Marie (1876–1940), married first Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia and second Pericles Ioannides;
• Olga (7 April 1880-2 November 1880);
• Andrew (1882–1944), father of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh; and
• Christopher (1888–1940), father of Prince Michael of Greece.

Queen

Olga was a genuinely popular Queen and was extensively involved in charity work, endowing the Evangelismos (Annunciation) Hospital, Greece's largest, in downtown Athens, as well as a Russian hospital in Piraeus.^[1]

In 1898, she insisted on continuing her engagements without a military guard even though shots had been fired at her husband and daughter.^[1]

"Evangelika" controversy

Being an Orthodox Christian from birth, Queen Olga became aware, during visits to wounded servicemen in the Greco-Turkish War (1897), that many were unable to read the Bible. The version used by the Church of Greece included the Septuagint version of the Old Testament and the original Greek language version of the New Testament. Both were written in Koine Greek while her contemporaries used either Katharevousa or the so-called Demotic version of Modern Greek. Katharevousa was a formal language that contained archaicised forms of modern words, was purged of "non-Greek" vocabulary from other European languages and Turkish, and had a (simplified) archaic grammar. Modern or Demotic Greek was the version commonly spoken. Olga decided to have the Bible translated into a version which could be understood by most of her contemporary Greeks rather than those educated in Koine Greek. The translation was opposed by those who considered the translation "tantamount to a renunciation of Greece's 'sacred heritage'".^[2]

The Royal Couple of Greece in 1903.

Queen Olga's personal standard

In February 1901, the translation of the New Testament from Koine into Modern Greek that she had sponsored was published without the authorisation of the Greek Holy Synod. The price was set at one drachma, far below its actual cost, and the edition sold well. In order to mitigate opposition to the translation, both the old and new texts were included and the frontispiece specifically stated it was for "exclusive family use" rather than in church.^[2]

At the same time, another translation was completed by Alexandros Pallis (1851–1935), a major supporter of a literary movement supporting the use of Demotic in written language. Publication of the translation started in serial form in the newspaper "Acropolis" on 9 September 1901. Almost immediately Purist theologians denounced this version as a "ridiculing of the nation's most valuable relics"^[3] while a faction of the Greek press started accusing Pallis and his Demoticist supporters of blasphemy and treason.^[2] Ecumenical Patriarch Joachim III of Constantinople denounced this translation, adding further fuel to the opposition.^[3] Riots were started by students of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, who had been organized by conservative professors.^[2] They requested the excommunication of Pallis and anyone involved with the translations, including Olga and Procopios, the Archbishop of Athens who had been a favorite of Olga and had supervised the translation after her personal request.

The conflict between rioters and troops, who had been called in to maintain order, resulted in eight deaths and over sixty people wounded. By December the remaining copies of Olga's translation had been confiscated and their circulation prohibited. Anyone selling or reading the translations was threated with excommunication.^[2] The controversy was called the "Evangelika"", i.e. "the Gospels question", after the word "Evangelion", Greek for "Gospel", and ultimately led to the resignation of the Metropolitan bishop, Procopius, and the fall of the government of Georgios Theotokis.^[4][5]

Regency

A portrait of Queen Olga of Greece in old age by Laszlo.

After her grandson, Alexander I died on 25 October 1920 of a monkey bite, the Greek government offered the throne to his brother, Paul. Paul refused on the grounds that his father Constantine and elder brother George were still living. The government of Eleftherios Venizelos was defeated in a general election and the Regent, Admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis retired on 17 November in favour of Queen Olga. She served as Regent until her son Constantine returned to take over the throne a second time on 19 December after a plebiscite. He had reigned before from 1913 to 1917. His new reign lasted less than two years.

After her death at Pau, Béarn, France, she was first interred in Italy (where the Greek Royal Family lived in exile), but on the restoration of the Greek monarchy in 1935 she was re-interred at Tatoi on 17 November 1936.^[6]

Titles

• Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia (1851–1867)
• Her Majesty The Queen of the Hellenes (1867–1913)
• Her Majesty Queen Olga of Greece (1913–1926)
• Her Majesty The Queen Regent (1920)

Through her life in Greece (1867–1926) she was widely referred to as Her Majesty Queen Olga.

Ancestors

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} The Times (London) Monday 21 June 1926 p.19 col.A
2. ^ ^{a b c d e} Carabott, Philip (1993), "Politics, Orthodoxy and the Language Question in Greece: The Gospel Riots of November 1901" (pdf), Journal of Mediterranean Studies 3: 117–138, http://www.arts.yorku.ca/hist/tgallant/documents/carabottgospelriot_000.pdf, retrieved 22 January 2008 
3. ^ ^{a b} "The Struggle for a Bible in Modern Greek", The Watchtower (Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania), 15 November 2002, http://www.watchtower.org/e/20021115/article_01.htm, retrieved 22 January 2008 
4. ^ John Campbell and Philip Sherrard, Modern Greece (Ernest Benn, London, 1968) p.198
5. ^ The Times (London) Tuesday 26 November 1901 p.9 col.C
6. ^ Edward S Forster, A Short History of Modern Greece 1821–1956 3rd edition (Methuen and Co., London, 1958) p.198

External links

• Guide to Women Leaders

Olga Constantinovna of Russia House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov Cadet branch of the House of Oldenburg Born: 3 September 1851 Died: 18 June 1926
Greek royalty
Preceded by Amalia of Oldenburg	Queen consort of the Hellenes 27 October 1867 – 18 March 1913	Succeeded by Sophia of Prussia

Persondata
Name	Olga Constantinovna of Russia
Alternative names	Queen Olga of Greece
Short description	Queen-consort of the Hellenes
Date of birth	3 September 1851
Place of birth	Pavlovsk, Russia
Date of death	18 June 1926
Place of death	Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France