Olga Feodorovna, Grand Duchess of Russia

Who was Olga Feodorovna, Grand Duchess of Russia?

Grand Duchess Olga Feodorovna of Russia, born Cecilie Auguste, Princess and Margravine of Baden, was the youngest daughter of Grand Duke Leopold of Baden and Sophie Wilhelmine of Sweden.

She received a strict education at the court of Baden in Karlsruhe, becoming a cultured woman. On 28 August 1857, she married Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaievich of Russia, the youngest son of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. Upon her marriage, she converted to the Russian Orthodox faith and took the name Olga Feodorovna with the title of Grand Duchess of Russia. Unusually among the Romanovs of her generation, her marriage was a long and happy union. The couple remained devoted to each other. She raised their seven children with an iron hand.

Between 1862 and 1882, she lived with her husband and their children in the Caucasus in a palace in Tiflis. She was a strong supporter of her husband’s governmental activities as a viceroy of the region and she took interest in charities, particularly in the field of female education. In 1882 the family moved back to the Imperial court in St Petersburg to a large palace on the bank of the Neva river. With a strong personality and a sharp tongue, Grand Duchess Olga Feodorova was not a popular member of the Romanov family. She spent the last years of her life traveling frequently, trying to find relief for her failing health. She died of a heart attack while traveling by train to Crimea.