Queen Olga (1851-1926), consort of King George I

[CarolinaLandgrave]

Please forgive me if this has been stated already, but I am correct in remembering that Marie learned of her marriage into the Swedish Royal Family via a cable that Ella left on her desk???

[snowflower]

I haven't heard that, but on an online biography of Marie it is stated that Marie's consent was taken while she was ill. To tell the truth, Marie had a fairly long engagement , she had secnod thoughts and had the time to break off the engagement. But then her aunt had a serious operation and her sister Irene came to attend to her. When Irene learned about Marie's intentions, she wnet to Marie 's room and said to her that a broken engagement would greaty upset Ella and that she couldn't drive her aunt to her death ( it seems that all the Hessians could be perhaps a little overdramatical). So Marie stepped down...

Originally Posted by Vasillisos Markos

Without going off thread, what was Olga's view of her granddaughter's marriage and who did Marie marry? Why was Marie "dragged" to the marriage?

Marie Pavlova was left under Ella's care after Sergei assasination. Ella was wishing to take the veil, but she wanted to make sure that Marie would be well cared. Since she couldn't rely on Dmitri who was so young to provide for his sister, she arranged a marriage with Prince Wilhem of Sweden. Marie didn't love him,( but liked him fairly) and she was pushed into the marriage to secure her well being. Olga was not very happy with her marriage because there were rumours about Wilhem 's sexuality and because Sweden had always been Russia's enemy. Not to mention that she was not informed about the arrangement until after the engagement was announced and she wished her granddaughter's happiness above all, but was not sure that this match was the best for her (although she certainly favoured a royal match for her ).

[snowflower]

"The Evangelika" (in Greek : " Τα Ευαγγελικά" ) is the name of a series of very important incidents which occured in Athens at the fall of 1901 and they reffered to the riots that occured in Greece after the newspaper Acropolis deared to publish parts of a translated version of Gospels under the Queen's protection. The result was massive riots in Athens, five people dead, a few dozens wounded, a government resigning, the Archibishop of Greece leaving his post and the Ecumenical Patriach puting an anathema on the translation......

Before starting posting , there is a need to refer to the lunguistic issue that then existed in Greece. People used to speak , think and communicate in Modern Greek. But not in Modern Greek in general, a form of it, called Dimotiki (Δημοτική). However, Dimitiki was not taught in schools , Kathareuousa (Kαθαρεύουσα) was. Kathareuousa was a scholarly artificial form of Modern Greek, which was a link between the Ancient Greek and the Modern Greek. It was rather difficult to understand it and if one was not educated, it was impossible but, this was the language used in all official documets and in newspapers. However, the Gospels were written neither in Kathareuousa nor in Dimotiki. They were preserved in the form they were first written during 70 AD which means that they were written in Ellinistiki Koini . At the point, scholars, priests, professors , politicinas and even peasants were debating about which language should be officially used in Greece (although I feel that " debating" is a rather polite word to use to descride what was really happening). So, the linguistic issue was a very heated one who had many different factors involved with it ( national, cultural, political, religious etc).

What happened in 1901 was that Alexandros Pallis (a Greek merchant living in London, who was greatly involved in the lingustic fight and had translated many pieces on literature in Dimotiki) , funded by Queen Olga, translated the Gospels without permission given from The Patriarch and published it. Olga was a very devout person and she was very upset when she found out during visits at the hospital in 1897 that most Greeks, even those who had some schooling , couldn't understand what the Gospels were actually saying. So , in an effort to tone Orthodox morality and devotion in the country and get preople closer to religion, Olga had previously, in 1898 published 1,000 copies of Gospels translated by her presonal secretary Ioulia Swmaki and had them distributed to hospitals . They were made " for a private and domestic study of the Holy Gospels" so the Holy Synod let it go, although many Greeks were greatly irritated that two women ( the Queen and Miss Swmaki) deared to mess with the Holy Gospels. But when Pallis's translation was published, people didn't let it go, and chaos erupted

Before funding Pallis's translation , Queen Olga tried to make a translation on her own, with Miss Swmakis' assistance, after having succesfully distributed the first 1000 copies they made in 1898. So in December 1898, Olga sent a letter to the Holy Synod , asking for theri approval. The response came on March 1899 and it was negative. Olga didn't gave up and contacted with the Patriarch of Constantinople, because if he gave his approval, then the Holy Synod's approval wouldn't be nessecary. But the Patriarch of Constantinople as well as the Patriarchs of Jerusalem and Alexandreia were against a translation. Archibishop Prokopios then did a grave mistake. He said to Olga that the Holy synod would insist on the first decision, but he didn't inform her that The Ecumenical Patriarch and two other senior Orthodx Patriarchs were also dissaproving. So, when Olga funded Pallis' translation , she had no idea that the translation would face an anathema and that she herself could face penalties and even excommunication.

[snowflower]

At 27 September 1901 begins the publication of Pallis’ translation in parts by “ Acropolis” under the title “ Acropolis continues the Queen’s work|”. From the beginning of October the newspapers “ Empros” , “ Kairoi” and “ Script” began attacking the translation and the dimotikistes’ movement (Dimotikistes were the supporters of Dimotiki) , calling them heathens , traitors and foreign agents. The professors of the university’s theological school singed a petition demanding the stop of the publication and in the mid Octomber a letter came to the Holy Synod from Constantinople stating the Patriarch dissaprovement, reminding that whoever possessed a translation without authorization should be excommunicating , but since the the damage was done, excommunicating just Pallis, would do. Archbishop Prokopios found himself in a very difficult position, since he didn’’t want to excommunicate Pallis or clash with the Queen. So he just did nothing and waited for the matter to be forgotten.

Then in the end of October started the direct attack on Olga with articles titled “ Down with the rubles!” and “ Burn that Slav’s evil work!” . Mr Karolidis ( a university professor) published an article claiming “ I f we the Greeks declare to the whole world that we can’t understand our Gospels and that we need a translation, then how can we protest when our fellow Greeks who are leaving in the Ottoman Empire and are Bulgarian, Albanian and vlach speaking will also translate the Gospel, how we will be able to stop them from using another language than ancient Greek in their Churches?” Priest all over Athens started preaching that this translation was an unholy work , hurting Orthodoxy , “ the moment our Greek brothers suffer in Macedonia under the Bulgarian oppression and the Schimatic Bulgarian Church”

Professor Mistriwtis, who was a fervent fighter of Dimotiki, started fanatizing his students at the university, with speeches about how those using Dimotiki in the Gospels were foreing agents trying to alienate Greeks from their true religion and history. in 5 and 6 November 1901 the students of the Philosophy and Theology School had ademonstration in the centre of Athens, along with their professors and many other people. In 7 and 8 of the same month but thing got very wild and unruly. The demonstrators went first to the bulding were Acropolis was and started breaking everything . When the police intervened the demonstrators split up in two groups: one Group went to the Archidese ant the other to the Palace were they started shouting things like: " Down with the Slav", " Bring that Russian agent down from the throne". The next day , there was a general damonstration and the Prime Minister brought the Army to guard. A demonstrator shot at the air and then the Army started shhoting at the crowd. The next day Olga was ordered by her husband (for the first and last time) to leave from Greece immediately and he was forbitten her to go to Russia until he would say in was OK, so she went to Great Britain for a while. The goevernment resigned, the Archbishop resigned and all the copires of the translated Gospels 9 even those published in 1898) were confiscated. Not to mention that when the Constitution was revised , it was added : " No translation of the Holy Gospels with be published in Greece without the authorisation of the Ecumenical Patriarch". Even today there is not one translation of the Greek Orthodox Gospels in actual Dimotiki.

Olga wrote on Minnie about the incidents :" People were told the worst possible lies...that their religion and language would be changed....I am so overall disgusted over the matter. There is no power left inside me to fight further...."

[Wisteria]

This is all very interesting Snowflower. I believe I have read this somewhere before, did you quote from a book? If you did, would you give me the name of it as my memory seems to have gone completely and I would like to read this book again.

[snowflower]

I didn't copy it from a book, I combined parts from Greek encyclopedias and history books. Nevertheless , I am sure that there imust be somewhere a book stating the exact same events (it seems logical after all), but i don't know of any .

[Odette]

Originally Posted by snowflower

I didn't copy it from a book, I combined parts from Greek encyclopedias and history books. Nevertheless , I am sure that there imust be somewhere a book stating the exact same events (it seems logical after all), but i don't know of any .

Very interesting. Perhaps if you refer to your sources we could be helped a tad by looking up those very interesting books to read. Thank you in advance.

[snowflower]

Certainly Odette
As my sources I ve used parts from " The history of the Greek nation" (I don't remember the writer now, but I ll post it later when I am back at the University library), " The history of our linguistic matter" by Giannis Kordatos and "Apanta" (= The whole work) of Manolis Triantafullidis. Although Triantafullidis was later keen on Dimotiki (he even wrote our first Modern Greek Grammar), when he was a student he was a pro Kathareuousa person and was an eye witness at the Evangellika incidents, since he was also demonstrating then. I was also lucky enough to find in my university archives some photocopied issues of the newspapers Acropolis and Script.

[CyrilVladisla]

The Union of Russian Immigrants declared the year 2011 as the Year of Queen Olga of Greece.

1896 Olympic Games: Queen Olga with Albert Edward, Prince of Wales.
https://www.gettyimages.com/license/78958823

Queen Olga visited Thessaloniki, Greece
https://www.gettyimages.com/license/929654850

[Nikolopoulus]

The photo is from the month of February 1913, in March, a month later, her husband King George was killed in Thessaloniki

[CyrilVladisla]

Grand Duchess Olga was from the so-called Konstantinovichi family of the Imperial Romanovs of Russia.

[Blog Real]

Images of Queen Olga:

https://i0.wp.com/www.thecourtjewell...alds.jpg?ssl=1

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...a_Romanova.jpg

[CyrilVladisla]

Queen Olga in a Greek courtgown in the early 1870s
http://carolathhabsburg.tumblr.com/image/179768591842

[JR76]

Originally Posted by CyrilVladisla

Queen Olga in a Greek courtgown in the early 1870s

http://carolathhabsburg.tumblr.com/image/179768591842

It's quite interesting to see Olga's attempt to marry the Russian Court dress that she had grown up with to the style of the Greek folk costumes.

[An Ard Ri]

Queen Olga was also one of the longest serving Greek queen consort 1867-1913

Olga as Queen



Olga as a Dowager Queen

[Stefan]

Originally Posted by An Ard Ri

Queen Olga was also one of the longest serving Greek queen consort 1867-1913

Olga as Queen



Olga as a Dowager Queen

Not one of them she was the longest serving Queen Consort. And she was also the youngest as she and King George I. married when she was only 16 years old.