by Susan Flantzer  © Unofficial Royalty 2018

• Unofficial Royalty: Russian Titles and Patronymics

The second husband of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia, Nikolai Alexandrovich Kulikovsky was born on November 5, 1881, in Evstratovka, Voronezh Province, Russian Empire. His parents were Alexander Nikanorovich Kulikovsky, a Major General in the Russian Imperial Army, and Evdokia Nikolaevna Kharina. The Kulikovsky family were minor nobility and owned a large estate and horse farm in Nikolai’s birthplace. Nikolai’s great-grandfather from his mother’s side, Kirill Ivanovich Gudovich, was a Major General in the Russian Imperial Army during the Napoleonic Wars.

Nikolai learned to ride at an early age and became an excellent horseman. From 1900 – 1902, he attended the Nikolaev Cavalry School, the top military school in the Russian Empire, which was established to train young noblemen who entered the Life Guards regiments from universities or private boarding schools and did not have military training. After graduation, Nikolai joined the Blue Cuirassier Guards where one of the commanders was Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich, the younger brother of Nicholas II, Emperor of All Russia.

In April 1903, Grand Duke Michael’s sister, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, attended a military review of the Blue Cuirassier Guards. Grand Duchess Olga was in an unsuccessful marriage with Duke Peter Alexandrovich of Oldenburg. At the military review, Olga saw a tall, handsome man in the uniform of the Blue Cuirassier Guards – Nikolai – and their eyes met. Olga said to her official biographer Ian Vorres, “It was fate. It was also a shock. I suppose I learned on that day that love at first sight does exist.” Michael arranged for Nikolai and his sister Olga to meet. A few days later Olga asked her husband for a divorce. Peter Alexandrovich refused, saying that he would reconsider his decision 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, Olga’s husband 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 had continued to ask her brother Nicholas II for permission to marry Nikolai. Nicholas II always refused because he believed that marriage was for life and that the 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 Kiev, where she was stationed at a hospital. In 1916, after visiting Olga in Kiev, 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. Olga’s mother the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna, her sister’s husband Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich (Sandro), two fellow nurses from the hospital in Kiev and four officers of Nikolai’s regiment attended.

Olga and Nikolai had two sons:

• Tikhon Nikolaevich Kulikovsky (1917 – 1993), married (1) Agnet Petersen, no children, divorced (2) Libya Sebastian, had one daughter, divorced (3) Olga Nikolaevna Pupynina, no children
• Guri Nikolaevich Kulikovsky (1919 – 1984), married Ruth Schwartz, had three children, divorced (2) Aze Gagarin, no children

The February Revolution was the first of two revolutions that took place in Russia in 1917. The February Revolution was caused by military defeats during World War I, economic issues, and scandals surrounding the monarchy. The immediate result was the abdication of Olga’s brother Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire. Later in 1917, the October Revolution occurred, paving the way for the establishment of the Soviet Union.

After Nicholas II abdicated, many members of the Romanov family, including Nicholas, his wife, and their children, were placed under house arrest. In search of safety, Olga and Nikolai along with Olga’s mother Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, and Olga’s brother-in-law Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich (Sandro) traveled to the Crimea where they were joined by Olga’s sister (Sandro’s wife) Grand Duchess Xenia. They lived at Sandro’s estate, Ai-Todor, where they were placed under house arrest by the local Bolshevik forces. On August 12, 1917, Olga’s first child Tikhon Nikolaevich was born during their house arrest.

Olga and Nikolai refused to leave Russia. One of Empress Maria Feodorovna’s personal bodyguards, Timofei Ksenofontovich Yatchik, took Olga, Nikolai, and their son Tikhon to his hometown Novominskaya where Olga gave birth to her second child Guri Nikolaevich in a rented farmhouse on April 23, 1919. As the White Army was pushed back and the Red Army approached, the family set out on what would be their last journey through Russia. Yatchik, the former bodyguard, accompanied Nikolai, Olga, and their sons as they traveled to Rostov-on-Don and then to Novorossiysk where the Danish consul Thomas Schytte gave them refuge in his home. Finally, they arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark on April 2, 1920, and Olga was reunited with her mother. Yatchik, the former imperial bodyguard, guarded Empress Maria Feodorovna until her death in 1928 and then lived the rest of his life in Denmark.

Nikolai, Olga, and their sons lived with her mother in Amalienborg Palace in Copenhagen, Denmark where Olga’s first cousin King Christian X of Denmark was quite inhospitable. Eventually, they all moved to Hvidøre, the Danish country house Empress Maria Feodorovna and her sister Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom had purchased together in 1906. Nikolai and Marie Feodorovna did not get along. He was resentful of Olga acting as her mother’s secretary and companion and Marie Feodorovna was distant toward him.  After Maria Feodorovna’s death in 1928, Hvidøre was sold and with Olga’s portion of the proceeds, Olga and Nikolai were able to purchase Knudsminde Farm, outside of Copenhagen. The farm became a center for the Russian monarchist and anti-Bolshevik community in Denmark.

After World War II, the Soviet Union notified the Danish government that Olga was accused of conspiracy against the Soviet government. Because she was fearful of an assassination or kidnap attempt, Nikolai and Olga decided to move their family across the Atlantic to the relative safety of rural Canada. On June 2, 1948, Olga, Nikolai, Tikhon, and his Danish-born wife Agnete, Guri and his Danish-born wife Ruth along with their two children and Olga’s devoted companion and former maid Emilia Tenso (Mimka) started their voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. The family lived in Toronto, Canada until they purchased a 200-acre farm in Halton County, Ontario, near Campbellville.  Nikolai was relieved to move out of Toronto and escape media attention.

By 1952, Olga and Nikolai’s sons had moved away and the farm became a burden so they sold it and moved to a five-room house at 2130 Camilla Road, Cooksville, Ontario, Canada, a suburb of Toronto.  Nikolai’s health worsened and by 1958, he was virtually paralyzed and had difficulty sleeping. At the end of his life, he was sleeping on the sofa in the living room to avoid waking Olga. On August 11, 1958, Nikolai Kulikovsky died at his Cookvsille home at the age of 76.  He was buried at the  York Cemetery in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Olga survived him by a little more than two years, dying on November 24, 1960, at the age of 78. She was buried next to her husband Nikolai at York Cemetery in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

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Works Cited

• 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].
• En.wikipedia.org. (2018). Nikolai Kulikovsky. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Kulikovsky [Accessed 18 Mar. 2018].
• Ru.wikipedia.org. (2018). Куликовский, Николай Александрович. [online] Available at: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D1%83%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9,_%D0%9D%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B9_%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.