Princess Olga Andreevna Romanoff

Princess Olga Andreevna Romanoff (born 8 April 1950) is a Russian princess and descendant of the House of Romanov. She is the president of the Romanov Family Association.

Princess Olga Andreevna Romanoff
President of the Romanov Family Association
Tenure	3 December 2017 – present
Predecessor	Prince Dimitri Romanov
Born	(1950-04-08) 8 April 1950 London, United Kingdom
Spouse	Thomas Mathew ​ ( m. 1975; separated  1989)
Issue	Nicholas Mathew Francis Mathew Alexandra Mathew Thomas Mathew
House	Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov
Father	Prince Andrei Alexandrovich of Russia
Mother	Nadine Sylvia Ada McDougall

Biography

Princess Olga is the youngest child of Prince Andrei Alexandrovich of Russia and the only one born of his second marriage in 1942, to Nadine Sylvia Ada McDougall (1908–2000), daughter of Lt. Col. Herbert McDougall[1]. Her father was the son of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia, who belonged to a cadet branch of the Romanovs, and his wife Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna, Tsar Nicholas II's sister. Olga Andreevna uses the English version of her family name, preferring 'Romanoff' to 'Romanova', the feminine form of her name in Russian. She is known by the title "Princess Olga Andreevna Romanoff".[2]

Educated in her mother's stately home in 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.[2] She joined the Romanov Family Association (RFA) in 1980 and, with other members, attended the long-delayed interment of Russia's last emperor and empress in St. Petersburg in 1998.[2] 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.[3] In the interim, the senior male Romanov descendant by primogeniture, Prince Andrew Andreyevich Romanov (born 1923), was chosen Honorary RFA president. Olga intended to return for the centenary memorial in 2018,[2] at which however, Paul Kulikovsky, a great-grandson of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, and a contingent of other Romanov descendants represented the RFA.[4]

She lives at Provender House in the hamlet of Provender, near Faversham in Kent,[5] where she has restored the 13th century mansion and opened it to tourists.[2][6] Having inherited the ageing mansion and 30-acre (12 ha) 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.[2]

In 2005, she was on Australian Princess (a reality show) giving advice to competitors.[2] During an interview on Channel 4 television's "Royal House of Windsor", she revealed that, contrary to the prevalent assumption, the fatal abandonment by the British of Tsar Nicholas II, his wife and children to the Bolsheviks during the Russian revolution was not due to the callousness of the British government of the day, but to the reluctance of his diffident cousin King George V.[2]

In 2017 she published a memoir, Princess Olga, A Wild and Barefoot Romanov.[7][8]

She serves alongside Princess Katarina of Yugoslavia as a royal patron of the Queen Charlotte's Ball.[9]

Marriage and children

Once considered a possible bride for her third cousin Charles, Prince of Wales,[10] she married Thomas Mathew (born 8 July 1945, son of Francis Mathew former manager of The Times), in nuptials at the Orthodox Cathedral of the Assumption and at the Brompton Oratory on 1 October 1975.[11] A member of the Irish gentry, he also had homes in England at South Kensington and in the vicinity of Hatchlands Park in Surrey.[11] They separated in 1989, having had issue:

• Nicholas Mathew (b. 6 December 1976);[12] 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);[13] freelance photographer.[14] 2012 contestant on Ukraine version of The Bachelor.[15] Starred in season 2 of Secret Princes as "Prince Alexander".
• Alexandra Mathew (b. 20 April 1981)[16]
• Thomas Mathew (27 November 1987 – 20 April 1989)[17]

Title and styles

• Her Highness Princess Olga Andreevna Romanoff[Note 1][18]

Notes

1. Since the Russian revolution members of the Imperial family have tended to drop the territorial designation "of Russia" and use the princely title with the surname Romanoff.[11] However this title, and even her right to the surname Romanoff are disputed. ("if any person in the Imperial Family enters into a marriage with a person of a status unequal to His, that is, not belonging to any Royal or Ruling House, in such a case the person in the Imperial Family cannot pass on to the other person the rights which belong to Members of the Imperial Family, and the children issuing from such a marriage have no right of succession to the throne.")

References

1. "Nadine Sylvia Ada McDougall", Person Page – 11121, www.thepeerage.com, Retrieved 25 Nov 2019.
2. The Telegraph. 25 March 2017. Princess Olga. Retrieved 2 May 2017.
3. Russia Beyond. 11 December 2017. Romanovs Elect New Chairman to Spearhead Dynasty. Retrieved 18 July 2018.
4. Tass. 17 July 2018. Patriarch Kirill I Leads Procession Commemorating Slain Czarist Family. Retrieved 17 July 2018.
5. The East Kent Gazette. 24 August 2011. "Charming tale of the gardener and the maid"
6. The East Kent Gazette. 25 May 2011. "A home fit for a princess..."
7. "Princess Olga, A Wild and Barefoot Romanov". Shepheard-Walwyn Publishers. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
8. http://www.ikonlondonmagazine.com/weeks-party-pictures-13102017
9. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/10277991/Why-todays-debutantes-are-having-a-ball-again.html
10. Ghirardani, Jane (22 August 1998). "I might be a Russian princess but I still go to Safeway's, do all the cleaning and muck out the pony; My Diary: By Princess Olga Romanoff, Housewife". Daily Mirror.
11. Montgomery-Massingberd, Hugh. "Burke's Royal Families of the World: Volume I Europe & Latin America, 1977, pp. 467, 472–473. ISBN 0-85011-023-8
12. "Person Page − 66007" www.thepeerage.com. Retrieved 16 December 2019
13. "Francis-Alexander Mathew-Romanov" VK.com. Retrieved 29 October 2013 – NOTE: The Peerage.com gives his birthdate as 26 September 1978
14. "Francis Mathew Photographer". francismathew.com. Retrieved 31 January 2012.
15. "Great-great nephew of Czar Nicholas II looks for love on Ukraine 'Bachelor'".
16. "Person Page − 66008" www.thepeerage.com. Retrieved 16 December 2019
17. "Person Page − 66012" www.thepeerage.com. Retrieved 16 December 2019
18. "Dynastic Succession" Decree on the Imperial Succession of 1820 Archived 9 June 2009 at the Wayback Machine 26 July 2009 imperialhouse.ru)

External links

• Princess Olga Romanoff on IMDb
• Ancestral landscape

Princess Olga Andreevna Romanoff House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov Born: 8 April 1950
Non-profit organization positions
Preceded by Prince Dimitri Romanovich	President of the Romanov Family Association 5 December 2017 – present	Incumbent