Source:
Olga Grigor'eva at lastromanovs on VK
Above: Olga. Photo courtesy of TatianaZ on Flickr.
Above: Alexandra. Photo courtesy of tashusik 2 on Flickr.
Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia (born November 3/15, 1895, died July 17, 1918) was the eldest child of the last Tsar of the Russian Empire, Tsar Nicholas II, and of Empress Alexandra of Russia.
During her lifetime, Olga's future marriage was the subject of great speculation within Russia. Matches were rumoured 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, she nursed wounded soldiers in a military hospital until her own nerves gave out and, thereafter, oversaw administrative duties at the hospital. Olga was renowned for her deep compassion and desire to help others, but she also had a strong stubborn streak, a penchant for blunt honesty, and a hot temper that she learned to control as she grew up; she was the only one of her siblings to really talk back and had a slightly strained relationship with her mother and a very close relationship with her father, in whom she often confided, and vice versa. She was also the only one of her siblings to like schoolwork, often seen reading a book, and as a young woman she often read newspapers and was thereby informed about the dangerous and ever-worsening political situation in Russia and popular hatred of her parents, which contributed to her serious anxiety and depression during the war years; and it is a possibility that Olga was autistic (more information on this on my blog about her). Like the rest of her family, Olga was deeply religious and her strong faith was a constant in her everyday life, and especially as a child she was interested in Heaven and the afterlife.
Olga's murder following the Russian Revolution of 1917 resulted in her canonisation as a passion bearer and new martyr by the Russian Orthodox Church. In the 1990s, her remains were identified through DNA testing and were buried in a funeral ceremony at Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg along with those of her parents and two of her sisters.
The letter:
Ея Величеству Государынѣ Императрицѣ Александрѣ Феодоровнѣ.
Саровъ.
Тамбов: Губ:
Мы сегодня были у бабушки въ саду и нашли много грибовъ.
Ольга.
With modernised spelling:
Ея Величеству Государыне Императрице Александре Феодоровне.
Саров.
Тамбов: Губ:
Мы сегодня были у бабушки в саду и нашли много грибов.
Ольга.
English translation (my own):
To Her Majesty Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.
Sarov.
Tambov Governorate.
Today we visited Grandmama in the garden and found a lot of mushrooms.
Olga.
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