Embed from Getty Images
Princess Olga of Greece and Denmark / Princess Paul of Yugoslavia was born on this day in 1903, 115 years ago! The eldest daughter of Prince Nicholas of Greece and Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia, she was the elder sister of Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent and Princess Elizabeth, Countess of Toerring-Jettenbach and a first cousin of King George, King Alexander, and King Paul of Greece, Queen Helen of Romania, the Duchess of Aosta, Vladimir, Grand Duke of Russia, the Duke of Edinburgh, Princess Margarita of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Princess Theodora, Margravine of Baden, Grand Duchess Cecile of Hesse, and Princess Sophie of Hanover. The family went into exile after the overthrow of the Greek Monarchy in 1917, and eventually settled in Paris. After a failed engagement to King Frederik IX of Denmark, in 1922, Princess Olga married Prince Paul of Yugoslavia in Belgrade, with whom she had three children. After the assassination of King Alexander in 1934, Prince Paul served as regent for the young King Peter II, until being ousted by a British backed coup during WWII, when he seemed to closely allied to Nazi Germany. Prince and Princess Paul were kept under house arrest in British Kenya, and she was the only member of the family allowed to comfort her sister, Princess Marina, after the death of her husband during the war. After the war, the Serbian Monarchy was abolished by the Communist government and their extensive properties were confiscated. Prince and Princess Paul lived between Paris and the magnificent Villa di Pratolino in Tuscany, which Prince Paul had inherited from his maternal grandfather, Count Pavel Pavlovich Demidov, the 2nd Prince of San Donato. The couple attended a lot of royal events around Europe, many in her native Greece, which the Princess continued to do after his death in 1976. Princess Olga passed away in Paris in 1997, aged 94, and was initially buried at the Bois-de-Vaux Cemetery, Lausanne before being rehabilitated to the Karađorđević Family Mausoleum of Oplenac in 2012.
Diamond Kokoshnik Tiara | Boucheron Diamond Tiara | Emerald Earrings
Robert Prentice’s Princess Olga of Yugoslavia: Her Life and Times
When you look at photos of the three sisters as little girls and look at photos of Prince Philip’s sisters at the same age they look as if all of them were sisters and not cousins. The family resemblance is extremely strong!