The Succession Prospects of Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna (1895-1918)

Current political histories of late imperial Russia seldom discuss Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna (1895-1918), the eldest daughter of Emperor Nicholas II (r. 1894-1917), because she is considered to be politically insignificant. Nicholas's discussions with his ministers in the early 1900s regarding the possibility of Olga's succession in the absence of a direct male heir, the inclusion of the young Grand Duchess in the amended regency act of 1912, and the degree of importance attributed to her choice of husband reveal that the Emperor conceived a political role for his eldest daughter and considered her, at various times, to be a possible successor to the Russian throne. Nicholas II's attempts to unilaterally influence the line of succession after 1905 provide evidence of his unwillingness to work with the Duma regarding the governance of the imperial family. In an environment in which Nicholas II's actual intentions regarding the succession were open to conjecture, the foreign press constructed a popular narrative concerning Olga's political significance as a possible successor to her father, creating the conditions for the intense international interest regarding the fate of Nicholas and Alexandra's children that would be expressed after the murder of the imperial family in 1918.