Nikolai Kulikovsky
Encyclopedia
Nikolai Alexandrovich Kulikovsky (5 November 1881 – 11 August 1958) was the second husband of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia
, the sister of Tsar Nicholas II
and daughter of Tsar Alexander III
.
He was born into a military landowning family from the south of the Russian Empire
, and followed the family tradition by entering the army. In 1903, he was noticed by Grand Duchess Olga during a military review, and they became close friends. Olga wanted to divorce her first husband, Duke Peter Alexandrovich of Oldenburg
, and marry Kulikovsky, but neither her husband nor her brother, the Tsar, would allow it.
During World War I, Olga eventually obtained a divorce and married Kulikovsky. They had two sons. Her brother was deposed in the Russian Revolution of 1917
, and Kulikovsky was dismissed from the army by the revolutionary government. The Kulikovskys were forced into exile, and he became a farmer and businessman in Denmark, where they lived until after World War II. In 1948, they emigrated to Canada as agricultural immigrants, but within four years of their arrival they had sold their farm and moved into a small suburban house. He became increasingly disabled by back pain, and died in 1958 aged 76.
of Russia. His grandfather was a general during the Napoleonic Wars
, and his family owned two large estates in the Ukraine
. He rode from an early age, became an expert horseman, and was educated at Petrograd Real College of Gurevich, followed by the Nikolai Cavalry College, from where he graduated with a degree.
He joined the Blue Cuirassier
regiment of the imperial Russian cavalry shortly before 1903. Grand Duke Michael
, the younger brother of Tsar Nicholas II
, was the regiment's honorary colonel. In April 1903, during a military parade at the Pavlovsk Palace
, Grand Duchess Olga, the youngest sister of Nicholas and Michael, saw Kulikovsky and begged Michael to arrange the seating at a casual luncheon so that she and Kulikovsky were adjacent. The Grand Duchess was already married to Duke Peter Alexandrovich of Oldenburg
, who was covertly believed by his friends and family to be homosexual. A few days after her brief meeting with Kulikovsky, Olga asked Oldenburg for a divorce, which he refused with the qualification that he would reconsider his decision after seven years.
Kulikovsky was appointed as captain in the Blue Cuirassiers and posted to the provinces. By 1906, he and Olga were corresponding regularly, when Olga's husband Duke Peter appointed Kulikovsky as his aide-de-camp
. With Peter's permission, Kulikovsky moved into the 200-room residence in Sergievskaya Street, Saint Petersburg
, that Peter shared with Olga. According to a fellow officer, gossip about a possible romance between Kulikovsky and the Grand Duchess, based on little more than their holding hands in public, spread through high society.
At the outbreak of World War I
, Kulikovsky was sent to the front with his regiment. Michael was recalled from abroad, and Olga went to work in a military hospital as a nurse. Olga continued to press the Tsar to allow her divorce. In a letter she wrote, "...finish with the divorce now during the war while all eyes and minds are occupied elsewhere—and such a small thing would be lost in all the greater things". The war went badly for the Russian imperial forces, and the Central Powers
, led by Germany, advanced into Russia. Fearful for Kulikovsky's safety, Olga pleaded with the Tsar to transfer him to the relative safety of Kiev
, where she was stationed at a hospital. In 1916, after visiting her in Kiev, the Tsar officially annulled her marriage to Duke Peter, and she married Kulikovsky on 16 November 1916, in the Kievo-Vasilievskaya Church on Triokhsviatitelskaya (Three Saints Street) in Kiev. Only the officiating priest, Olga's mother the Dowager Empress Marie, Olga's brother-in-law Grand Duke Alexander
, two fellow nurses from the hospital in Kiev and four officers of the Akhtyrsky regiment, of which Olga was honorary colonel, attended. Their two-week honeymoon was spent in a farmhouse in Podgorny that had belonged to family friends of the Kulikovskys. After visiting Kulikovsky's parents and grandmother in Kharkov, Olga and Kulikovsky returned to Kiev.
During the war, internal tensions and economic deprivation in Russia continued to mount and revolutionary sympathies grew. After Nicholas II was deposed in early 1917, many members of the Romanov dynasty, including Nicholas and his immediate family, were held under house arrest. The new government retired Kulikovsky from the army with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Dowager Empress Marie, Grand Duke Alexander, Grand Duchess Olga, and Kulikovsky managed to escape to the Crimea
where they lived for a time before they too were placed under house arrest at one of the imperial estates. As a commoner, Kulikovsky was permitted more freedom of movement than the Romanovs, and was occasionally able to leave the estate in a pony-cart, which allowed him to run errands, obtain food, and seek news of the outside. On 12 August 1917, Olga and Kulikovsky's first child and son, Tikhon, was born in the Crimea. He was named after one of the Grand Duchess's favorite saints, Tikhon of Zadonsk
. Although the grandson of an emperor and the nephew of another, Tikhon received no titles because his father was a commoner.
As newspapers were banned and letters infrequent, the Romanovs under house arrest knew little of the fate of Tsar Nicholas and his family. Nicholas, his wife, and their children, were originally held at their official residence, the Alexander Palace
, but the provisional government under Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky relocated them to Tobolsk
, Siberia
. Eventually, in July 1918, Nicholas and his family were killed by their Bolshevik
guards. In the Crimea, the Grand Duchess's family were condemned to death by the Yalta
revolutionary council but the executions were stayed by the Sevastopol
council, who refused to act without orders from Moscow. In March 1918, German forces advanced on the Crimea, and the revolutionary guards were replaced by German ones.
When Germany surrendered to the Allies of World War I
in November 1918, the German troops evacuated, allowing the surviving members of the imperial family time to escape abroad. The British warship HMS Marlborough
rescued the Dowager Empress Marie and some of her family from the Crimea but Grand Duchess Olga and Kulikovsky decided to stay in Russia and travelled to the Caucasus region, where the Bolsheviks had been pushed back by the White Army. During the journey, a coupling on the train carriage in which they were travelling developed a fault, possibly from sabotage, and Kulikovsky crawled over the carriage roofs to reach the driver and stop the train. In the Caucasus, Kulikovsky took a job working on a farm as he was unable to secure a military posting in the White Army because the commanding general, Anton Denikin, wished to avoid association with the Romanovs. In a rented farmhouse at the large Cossack
village of Novominskaya Olga and Kulikovsky's second son, Guri, was born on 23 April 1919. He was named after Guri Panaev, who had been killed serving in Olga's Akhtyrsky regiment. 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; they travelled to Rostov-on-Don
, and from there took refuge in the residence of the Danish consul at Novorossiysk
, Thomas Schytte, who informed them of Dowager Empress Marie's safe arrival in Denmark
.
After a brief stay with the Danish consul, the family were shipped to a refugee camp on the island of Büyükada
in the Dardanelles
Strait near Istanbul, Turkey, where the Kulikovsky family shared three rooms with eleven other adults. After two weeks, they were evacuated to Belgrade
in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later Yugoslavia
. The Yugoslav Regent Alexander Karageorgevich, later to become King Alexander I
, offered them a permanent home there, but Dowager Empress Marie summoned her daughter to Denmark. The Grand Duchess complied, and the family arrived in Copenhagen on Good Friday 1920. They lived with Kulikovsky's mother-in-law, Dowager Empress Marie, at first at the Amalienborg Palace
and then at the royal estate of Hvidøre. Kulikovsky and Marie did not get along; he resented his wife acting as Marie's secretary and companion, and Marie was distant toward him.
, who claimed to be Olga's niece, Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia
. According to Harriet von Rathlef
, who witnessed the meeting, while Olga and Anderson conversed, he sat in a corner and sulked. Although Olga felt sympathy for Anderson, if only because she was ill, she eventually denounced her as an impostor. Possibly, she was pressured to do so by Kulikovsky and Dowager Empress Marie.
Marie died on 13 October 1928, and the Kulikovskys moved out of Hvidøre. After a brief stay in the Amalienborg Palace, the Kulikovskys moved to Holte
, near Klampenborg
, where a Danish millionaire, Gorm Rasmussen, engaged Kulikovsky to manage his stables. Hvidøre and some of Marie's jewellery were sold. With Olga's inheritance, Kulikovsky and his family were able to purchase Knudsminde Farm, several miles outside of Copenhagen
. Kulikovsky was appointed to the board of a Russian insurance company based in Copenhagen, and oversaw the running of the farm. The farm-estate became a center for the Russian monarchist and anti-Bolshevik community in Denmark.
On 9 April 1940, neutral Denmark was invaded by Nazi Germany
and was occupied for the rest of World War II. As Olga's sons, Tikhon and Guri, served as officers in the Danish Army, they were interned as prisoners of war, but their imprisonment in a Copenhagen hotel lasted less than two months. Other Russian émigrés, keen to fight against the Soviets, enlisted in the German forces. Despite her sons' internment and her mother's Danish origins, Olga was implicated in her compatriots' collusion with German forces, as she continued to meet and extend help to Russian émigrés fighting against communism. After the surrender of Germany in 1945, the Soviet Union
wrote to the Danish government accusing the Grand Duchess of conspiracy against the Soviet authorities. With the end of the war, Soviet troops came close to the border of Denmark, and Olga grew fearful of an assassination or kidnap attempt. She decided to move her family across the Atlantic to the relative safety of rural Canada, a decision with which Kulikovsky complied.
while arrangements were made for their journey to Canada as agricultural immigrants. On 2 June 1948, Kulikovsky, Olga, Tikhon and his Danish-born wife Agnete, Guli and his Danish-born wife Ruth, Guli and Ruth's two children, Xenia and Leonid, and Olga's companion and former maid Emilia Tenso ("Mimka") departed Liverpool
on board the Empress of Canada. After a rough crossing, the ship docked at Halifax, Nova Scotia
. The family proceeded to Toronto
, where they lived until they purchased a 200-acre (0.8 km2) farm in Halton County, Ontario
, near Campbellville
. Kulikovsky was relieved to move out of Toronto, and escape media attention.
By 1952, the farm had become a burden to the elderly couple. Their sons had moved away; labour was hard to come by; Kulikovsky suffered increasing back pain and disability, and some of Olga's remaining jewellery was stolen. The farm was sold, and Kulikovsky, Olga, and Mimka, moved to a smaller 5-room house at 2130 Camilla Road, Cooksville, Ontario
, a suburb of Toronto (now amalgamated into the city of Mississauga). Mimka suffered a stroke that left her an invalid, and Olga nursed her until Mimka's death in 1954. Neighbours and visitors to the region, including foreign and royal dignitaries, took interest in Olga as the "last Romanov", and visited their small home, which was also a magnet for Romanov impostors whom both Kulikovsky and Olga considered a menace. Welcome visitors included Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent
, the daughter of Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia
, in 1954, and Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma
, and his wife, Edwina
, in August 1959.
By 1952, Kulikovsky had shrunk more than 4 inches (10 cm) from his peak height of 6 ft 2 inches (188 cm). He distrusted conventional medicine and tried homeopathy instead. 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 of the couple's Cooksville house, to avoid waking his wife. He died there on the night of 11 August 1958. His estate was valued at 12,123.47 Canadian dollars, about 93,000 Canadian dollars as of 2010. The Grand Duchess died two years later, and was interred next to her husband in York Cemetery, Toronto
.
Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia
Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia was the youngest child of Emperor Alexander III of Russia. Her older brother was Tsar Nicholas II....
, the sister of Tsar Nicholas II
Nicholas II of Russia
Nicholas II was the last Emperor of Russia, Grand Prince of Finland, and titular King of Poland. His official short title was Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias and he is known as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church.Nicholas II ruled from 1894 until...
and daughter of Tsar Alexander III
Alexander III of Russia
Alexander Alexandrovich Romanov , historically remembered as Alexander III or Alexander the Peacemaker reigned as Emperor of Russia from until his death on .-Disposition:...
.
He was born into a military landowning family from the south of the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
, and followed the family tradition by entering the army. In 1903, he was noticed by Grand Duchess Olga during a military review, and they became close friends. Olga wanted to divorce her first husband, Duke Peter Alexandrovich of Oldenburg
Duke Peter Alexandrovich of Oldenburg
Peter Alexandrovich of Oldenburg was the first husband of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia, the youngest sister of Tsar Nicholas II.-Early life:...
, and marry Kulikovsky, but neither her husband nor her brother, the Tsar, would allow it.
During World War I, Olga eventually obtained a divorce and married Kulikovsky. They had two sons. Her brother was deposed in the Russian Revolution of 1917
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
, and Kulikovsky was dismissed from the army by the revolutionary government. The Kulikovskys were forced into exile, and he became a farmer and businessman in Denmark, where they lived until after World War II. In 1948, they emigrated to Canada as agricultural immigrants, but within four years of their arrival they had sold their farm and moved into a small suburban house. He became increasingly disabled by back pain, and died in 1958 aged 76.
Early life
Nikolai Kulikovsky was born into a military family from the Voronezh provinceVoronezh Oblast
Voronezh Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . It was established on June 13, 1934.-Main rivers:*Don*Voronezh*Bityug*Khopyor-Economy:...
of Russia. His grandfather was a general during the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
, and his family owned two large estates in the Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
. He rode from an early age, became an expert horseman, and was educated at Petrograd Real College of Gurevich, followed by the Nikolai Cavalry College, from where he graduated with a degree.
He joined the Blue Cuirassier
Cuirassier
Cuirassiers were mounted cavalry soldiers equipped with armour and firearms, first appearing in late 15th-century Europe. They were the successors of the medieval armoured knights...
regiment of the imperial Russian cavalry shortly before 1903. Grand Duke Michael
Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia
Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia was the youngest son of Emperor Alexander III of Russia.At the time of his birth, his paternal grandfather was still the reigning Emperor of All the Russias. Michael was fourth-in-line to the throne following his father and elder brothers Nicholas and...
, the younger brother of Tsar Nicholas II
Nicholas II of Russia
Nicholas II was the last Emperor of Russia, Grand Prince of Finland, and titular King of Poland. His official short title was Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias and he is known as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church.Nicholas II ruled from 1894 until...
, was the regiment's honorary colonel. In April 1903, during a military parade at the Pavlovsk Palace
Pavlovsk Palace
Pavlovsk Palace is an 18th-century Russian Imperial residence built by Paul I of Russia near Saint Petersburg. After his death, it became the home of his widow, Maria Feodorovna...
, Grand Duchess Olga, the youngest sister of Nicholas and Michael, saw Kulikovsky and begged Michael to arrange the seating at a casual luncheon so that she and Kulikovsky were adjacent. The Grand Duchess was already married to Duke Peter Alexandrovich of Oldenburg
Duke Peter Alexandrovich of Oldenburg
Peter Alexandrovich of Oldenburg was the first husband of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia, the youngest sister of Tsar Nicholas II.-Early life:...
, who was covertly believed by his friends and family to be homosexual. A few days after her brief meeting with Kulikovsky, Olga asked Oldenburg for a divorce, which he refused with the qualification that he would reconsider his decision after seven years.
Kulikovsky was appointed as captain in the Blue Cuirassiers and posted to the provinces. By 1906, he and Olga were corresponding regularly, when Olga's husband Duke Peter appointed Kulikovsky as his aide-de-camp
Aide-de-camp
An aide-de-camp is a personal assistant, secretary, or adjutant to a person of high rank, usually a senior military officer or a head of state...
. With Peter's permission, Kulikovsky moved into the 200-room residence in Sergievskaya Street, Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
, that Peter shared with Olga. According to a fellow officer, gossip about a possible romance between Kulikovsky and the Grand Duchess, based on little more than their holding hands in public, spread through high society.
Marriage and revolution
Though Olga repeatedly asked Tsar Nicholas II to allow her to divorce, her brother refused on religious and dynastic grounds; he believed marriage was for life and that royalty should marry within royalty. When their brother, Grand Duke Michael, eloped with his mistress, Natasha Wulfert, the Tsar and Olga were scandalized along with the rest of society. Natasha was a commoner who had been divorced twice, and one of her former husbands was an officer in the same regiment as Kulikovsky. Michael was banished from Russia, and the likelihood of the Tsar ever granting Olga's divorce, or permitting her to marry a commoner, looked remote.At the outbreak of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Kulikovsky was sent to the front with his regiment. Michael was recalled from abroad, and Olga went to work in a military hospital as a nurse. Olga continued to press the Tsar to allow her divorce. In a letter she wrote, "...finish with the divorce now during the war while all eyes and minds are occupied elsewhere—and such a small thing would be lost in all the greater things". The war went badly for the Russian imperial forces, and the Central Powers
Central Powers
The Central Powers were one of the two warring factions in World War I , composed of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria...
, led by Germany, advanced into Russia. Fearful for Kulikovsky's safety, Olga pleaded with the Tsar to transfer him to the relative safety of Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
, where she was stationed at a hospital. In 1916, after visiting her in Kiev, the Tsar officially annulled her marriage to Duke Peter, and she married Kulikovsky on 16 November 1916, in the Kievo-Vasilievskaya Church on Triokhsviatitelskaya (Three Saints Street) in Kiev. Only the officiating priest, Olga's mother the Dowager Empress Marie, Olga's brother-in-law Grand Duke Alexander
Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia
Grand Duke Alexander Mihailovich of Russia, Александр Михайлович Aleksandr Mihailovits was a dynast of the Russian Empire, a naval officer, an author, explorer, the brother-in-law of Emperor Nicholas II, and an advisor of the said Emperor.-Biography: Alexander was born the son of Grand Duke...
, two fellow nurses from the hospital in Kiev and four officers of the Akhtyrsky regiment, of which Olga was honorary colonel, attended. Their two-week honeymoon was spent in a farmhouse in Podgorny that had belonged to family friends of the Kulikovskys. After visiting Kulikovsky's parents and grandmother in Kharkov, Olga and Kulikovsky returned to Kiev.
During the war, internal tensions and economic deprivation in Russia continued to mount and revolutionary sympathies grew. After Nicholas II was deposed in early 1917, many members of the Romanov dynasty, including Nicholas and his immediate family, were held under house arrest. The new government retired Kulikovsky from the army with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Dowager Empress Marie, Grand Duke Alexander, Grand Duchess Olga, and Kulikovsky managed to escape to the Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
where they lived for a time before they too were placed under house arrest at one of the imperial estates. As a commoner, Kulikovsky was permitted more freedom of movement than the Romanovs, and was occasionally able to leave the estate in a pony-cart, which allowed him to run errands, obtain food, and seek news of the outside. On 12 August 1917, Olga and Kulikovsky's first child and son, Tikhon, was born in the Crimea. He was named after one of the Grand Duchess's favorite saints, Tikhon of Zadonsk
Tikhon of Zadonsk
Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk was a Russian Orthodox bishop and spiritual writer who has been glorified a saint of the Orthodox Church....
. Although the grandson of an emperor and the nephew of another, Tikhon received no titles because his father was a commoner.
As newspapers were banned and letters infrequent, the Romanovs under house arrest knew little of the fate of Tsar Nicholas and his family. Nicholas, his wife, and their children, were originally held at their official residence, the Alexander Palace
Alexander Palace
The Alexander Palace is a former imperial residence at Tsarskoye Selo, on a plateau around 30 minutes by train from St Petersburg. It is known as the favourite residence of the last Russian Emperor, Nicholas II, and his family and their initial place of imprisonment after the revolution that...
, but the provisional government under Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky relocated them to Tobolsk
Tobolsk
Tobolsk is a town in Tyumen Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Tobol and Irtysh Rivers. It is a historic capital of Siberia. Population: -History:...
, Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
. Eventually, in July 1918, Nicholas and his family were killed by their Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
guards. In the Crimea, the Grand Duchess's family were condemned to death by the Yalta
Yalta
Yalta is a city in Crimea, southern Ukraine, on the north coast of the Black Sea.The city is located on the site of an ancient Greek colony, said to have been founded by Greek sailors who were looking for a safe shore on which to land. It is situated on a deep bay facing south towards the Black...
revolutionary council but the executions were stayed by the Sevastopol
Sevastopol
Sevastopol is a city on rights of administrative division of Ukraine, located on the Black Sea coast of the Crimea peninsula. It has a population of 342,451 . Sevastopol is the second largest port in Ukraine, after the Port of Odessa....
council, who refused to act without orders from Moscow. In March 1918, German forces advanced on the Crimea, and the revolutionary guards were replaced by German ones.
When Germany surrendered to the Allies of World War I
Allies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
in November 1918, the German troops evacuated, allowing the surviving members of the imperial family time to escape abroad. The British warship HMS Marlborough
HMS Marlborough (1912)
HMS Marlborough was an Iron Duke-class battleship of the Royal Navy, named in honour of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, and launched in 1912. In World War I she served in the 1st Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet based at Scapa Flow...
rescued the Dowager Empress Marie and some of her family from the Crimea but Grand Duchess Olga and Kulikovsky decided to stay in Russia and travelled to the Caucasus region, where the Bolsheviks had been pushed back by the White Army. During the journey, a coupling on the train carriage in which they were travelling developed a fault, possibly from sabotage, and Kulikovsky crawled over the carriage roofs to reach the driver and stop the train. In the Caucasus, Kulikovsky took a job working on a farm as he was unable to secure a military posting in the White Army because the commanding general, Anton Denikin, wished to avoid association with the Romanovs. In a rented farmhouse at the large Cossack
Cossack
Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...
village of Novominskaya Olga and Kulikovsky's second son, Guri, was born on 23 April 1919. He was named after Guri Panaev, who had been killed serving in Olga's Akhtyrsky regiment. As the White Army was pushed back and the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
approached, the family set out on what would be their last journey through Russia; they travelled to Rostov-on-Don
Rostov-on-Don
-History:The mouth of the Don River has been of great commercial and cultural importance since the ancient times. It was the site of the Greek colony Tanais, of the Genoese fort Tana, and of the Turkish fortress Azak...
, and from there took refuge in the residence of the Danish consul at Novorossiysk
Novorossiysk
Novorossiysk is a city in Krasnodar Krai, Russia. It is the country's main port on the Black Sea and the leading Russian port for importing grain. It is one of the few cities honored with the title of the Hero City. Population: -History:...
, Thomas Schytte, who informed them of Dowager Empress Marie's safe arrival in Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
.
After a brief stay with the Danish consul, the family were shipped to a refugee camp on the island of Büyükada
Büyükada
Büyükada is the largest of the nine so-called Princes' Islands in the Sea of Marmara, near Istanbul, with an area of about two square miles...
in the Dardanelles
Dardanelles
The Dardanelles , formerly known as the Hellespont, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with its counterpart the Bosphorus. It is located at approximately...
Strait near Istanbul, Turkey, where the Kulikovsky family shared three rooms with eleven other adults. After two weeks, they were evacuated to Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
. The Yugoslav Regent Alexander Karageorgevich, later to become King Alexander I
Alexander I of Yugoslavia
Alexander I , also known as Alexander the Unifier was the first king of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia as well as the last king of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes .-Childhood:...
, offered them a permanent home there, but Dowager Empress Marie summoned her daughter to Denmark. The Grand Duchess complied, and the family arrived in Copenhagen on Good Friday 1920. They lived with Kulikovsky's mother-in-law, Dowager Empress Marie, at first at the Amalienborg Palace
Amalienborg Palace
Amalienborg Palace is the winter home of the Danish royal family, and is located in Copenhagen, Denmark. It consists of four identical classicizing palace façades with rococo interiors around an octagonal courtyard ; in the centre of the square is a monumental equestrian statue of Amalienborg's...
and then at the royal estate of Hvidøre. Kulikovsky and Marie did not get along; he resented his wife acting as Marie's secretary and companion, and Marie was distant toward him.
Danish residency and exodus
Without a role or rank, Kulikovsky brooded in Denmark, becoming moody and listless. A spinal injury sustained during the war, for which he had to wear a corset, remained unhealed. In 1925, Kulikovsky accompanied his wife to a Berlin nursing home to meet Anna AndersonAnna Anderson
Anna Anderson was the best known of several impostors who claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia...
, who claimed to be Olga's niece, Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia
Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia
Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia, and his wife Alexandra Fyodorovna....
. According to Harriet von Rathlef
Harriet von Rathlef
Harriet Ellen Siderowna von Rathlef-Keilmann, , was a Latvian-born sculptor and writer of children's books who escaped to Germany from the Baltic provinces following the Russian Revolution of 1917....
, who witnessed the meeting, while Olga and Anderson conversed, he sat in a corner and sulked. Although Olga felt sympathy for Anderson, if only because she was ill, she eventually denounced her as an impostor. Possibly, she was pressured to do so by Kulikovsky and Dowager Empress Marie.
Marie died on 13 October 1928, and the Kulikovskys moved out of Hvidøre. After a brief stay in the Amalienborg Palace, the Kulikovskys moved to Holte
Holte
Holte is a town and the northernmost suburb of Metropolitan Copenhagen located in Rudersdal municipality, Denmark. It is located between Rudersdal and the top of Geel's Hill on the shores of the Furesø lake....
, near Klampenborg
Klampenborg
Klampenborg is a northern suburb to Copenhagen, Denmark. It is located in Gentofte Municipality, directly on Øresund, between Taarbæk and Skovshoved. Like other neighbourhoods along the Øresund coast, Klampenborg is an affluent area with many large houses....
, where a Danish millionaire, Gorm Rasmussen, engaged Kulikovsky to manage his stables. Hvidøre and some of Marie's jewellery were sold. With Olga's inheritance, Kulikovsky and his family were able to purchase Knudsminde Farm, several miles outside of Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
. Kulikovsky was appointed to the board of a Russian insurance company based in Copenhagen, and oversaw the running of the farm. The farm-estate became a center for the Russian monarchist and anti-Bolshevik community in Denmark.
On 9 April 1940, neutral Denmark was invaded by Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and was occupied for the rest of World War II. As Olga's sons, Tikhon and Guri, served as officers in the Danish Army, they were interned as prisoners of war, but their imprisonment in a Copenhagen hotel lasted less than two months. Other Russian émigrés, keen to fight against the Soviets, enlisted in the German forces. Despite her sons' internment and her mother's Danish origins, Olga was implicated in her compatriots' collusion with German forces, as she continued to meet and extend help to Russian émigrés fighting against communism. After the surrender of Germany in 1945, the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
wrote to the Danish government accusing the Grand Duchess of conspiracy against the Soviet authorities. With the end of the war, Soviet troops came close to the border of Denmark, and Olga grew fearful of an assassination or kidnap attempt. She decided to move her family across the Atlantic to the relative safety of rural Canada, a decision with which Kulikovsky complied.
Later life
In May 1948, the Kulikovskys travelled to London by Danish troopship. They were housed in a grace-and-favour apartment at Hampton Court PalaceHampton Court Palace
Hampton Court Palace is a royal palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, Greater London; it has not been inhabited by the British royal family since the 18th century. The palace is located south west of Charing Cross and upstream of Central London on the River Thames...
while arrangements were made for their journey to Canada as agricultural immigrants. On 2 June 1948, Kulikovsky, Olga, Tikhon and his Danish-born wife Agnete, Guli and his Danish-born wife Ruth, Guli and Ruth's two children, Xenia and Leonid, and Olga's companion and former maid Emilia Tenso ("Mimka") departed Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
on board the Empress of Canada. After a rough crossing, the ship docked at Halifax, Nova Scotia
City of Halifax
Halifax is a city in Canada, which was the capital of the province of Nova Scotia and shire town of Halifax County. It was the largest city in Atlantic Canada until it was amalgamated into Halifax Regional Municipality in 1996...
. The family proceeded to Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, where they lived until they purchased a 200-acre (0.8 km2) farm in Halton County, Ontario
Halton County, Ontario
Halton County is a historic county in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is also one of the oldest counties in Canada.-History:Halton County is named after Major William Mathew Halton who was appointed in 1805 as Secretary to the Upper Canada provincial Lieutenant-Governor Sir Francis...
, near Campbellville
Campbellville, Ontario
Campbellville, Ontario, Canada is a community in the geographic township of Nassagaweya in the Town of Milton, Halton Region on the Niagara Escarpment and is a tourist destination for residents of the Greater Toronto Area...
. Kulikovsky was relieved to move out of Toronto, and escape media attention.
By 1952, the farm had become a burden to the elderly couple. Their sons had moved away; labour was hard to come by; Kulikovsky suffered increasing back pain and disability, and some of Olga's remaining jewellery was stolen. The farm was sold, and Kulikovsky, Olga, and Mimka, moved to a smaller 5-room house at 2130 Camilla Road, Cooksville, Ontario
Cooksville, Ontario
Cooksville is a neighbourhood in the city of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. It is located at the intersection of Dundas Street and Hurontario Street.-History:...
, a suburb of Toronto (now amalgamated into the city of Mississauga). Mimka suffered a stroke that left her an invalid, and Olga nursed her until Mimka's death in 1954. Neighbours and visitors to the region, including foreign and royal dignitaries, took interest in Olga as the "last Romanov", and visited their small home, which was also a magnet for Romanov impostors whom both Kulikovsky and Olga considered a menace. Welcome visitors included Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent
Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent
Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, née Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark was a member of the British Royal Family; the wife of Prince George, Duke of Kent, the fourth son of King George V of the United Kingdom and Mary of Teck....
, the daughter of Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia
Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia
Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia 17 January 1882 – 13 March 1957, sometimes known as Helen, Helena, Helene, Ellen, Yelena, Hélène, or Eleni, was a Russian grand duchess as the daughter of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia and Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin...
, in 1954, and Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma
Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma
Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas George Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, KG, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO, PC, FRS , was a British statesman and naval officer, and an uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh...
, and his wife, Edwina
Edwina Mountbatten, Countess Mountbatten of Burma
Edwina Cynthia Annette Mountbatten, Countess Mountbatten of Burma,, GBE, DCVO, CI, DStJ was an English heiress, socialite, relief-worker, wife of Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, and last Vicereine of India.- Lineage and wealth :Edwina Mountbatten, Countess Mountbatten of Burma...
, in August 1959.
By 1952, Kulikovsky had shrunk more than 4 inches (10 cm) from his peak height of 6 ft 2 inches (188 cm). He distrusted conventional medicine and tried homeopathy instead. 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 of the couple's Cooksville house, to avoid waking his wife. He died there on the night of 11 August 1958. His estate was valued at 12,123.47 Canadian dollars, about 93,000 Canadian dollars as of 2010. The Grand Duchess died two years later, and was interred next to her husband in York Cemetery, Toronto
York Cemetery, Toronto
York Cemetery is a cemetery located in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The property of York Cemetery was originally farmed by Joseph Shepard who bought the property in 1805. The brick farm house on the property was constructed by Joseph's son, Michael in 1837...
.