If you search the Fall 1999 archives of the newsgroup alt.talk.royalty for author Grant Menzies, you will find an exhaustive list of Phenix's errors in a long, long post about this book. A very useful list to print and keep with the book.
Steven
Some notes and corrections on Patricia Phenix’s book "Olga Romanov,
Russia’s Last Grand Duchess" (Penguin Canada, 1999).
This book, to which so many of us had looked forward, does have its
scant bits of usable information, particularly regarding Grand Duchess
Olga’s later life in Canada and the subsequent fortunes and
misfortunes of her sons and daughters-in-law. But it does a great
disservice to Olga and to the reader thanks to hundreds of errors,
mis-interpreted information, typos, and other distractions. It
appears that Ian Vorres’ biography, "The Last Grand Duchess", must
continue to hold the spotlight for an accurate picture of Olga
accurately written and researched.
Below are my notes, compiled after finishing the book today. They are
by no means exhaustive.
p.27: There can’t have been “organ” music at Sandro and Xenia’s
wedding in the Peterhof Palace chapel as instrumental music is not
used in Russian services. In "Once a Grand Duke", Sandro only
mentions that the choir “sang divinely”.
p. 29: Re: the ill Alexander III being forbidden to eat ice-cream by
Empress Marie. In the Vorres book, Olga clearly says that the doctors forbade the Emperor to eat ice-cream. Nowhere does Olga
say, as Phenix writes, that she fed the ice-cream to Alexander.
pp.31-32: Phenix implies that the Prince of Wales, the future King
Edward VII, arrived in Russia at the time of Alexander III’s funeral.
Not true. “Uncle Bertie” was already at Livadia when the Emperor died
and had to take charge of matters when the hysterical Russian staff
lost their heads. (See Vorres.)
p. 33: Phenix implies that with Nicholas II’s accession and marriage
to Alix, Minnie lost husband, son, and title. This ignores the fact
that Minnie, as Dowager Empress, still had right of precedence over
her own daughter-in-law at all court functions at which both werepresent.
p. 38: This is the first appearance of “Saxe-Coburg-GOTHE”. Should be“Gotha”.
pp.39-40: Phenix does not set a proper scene for the Khodinka
disaster, only mentioning the dangerous “trenches” partway through.
Why does no one get this clear? The field had trenches in it, as it
was used for military exercises. These were covered over with boards,
which either broke or were pushed aside by the multitude; people fell
in, others fell onto them, hence the many unrecognizable corpses in
the aftermath. The injuries would have been different had the
trenches not been there, perhaps the death count as well.
p. 41: Phenix only says that Nicholas was persuaded to attend a
“French ball” arranged by Grand Duke Serge the evening of the Khodinka
disaster. It was a ball arranged by the French ambassador forNicholas.
p. 43: This is the first time I’ve read that the lady-in-waiting with
whom Minnie tried to replace the dismissed Nana Franklin was a
“British” woman named Mrs. Orchard. This is too close to the name of
Alix’s own nurse brought from England, Mrs. Orchard or “Orchie”.Clues, anyone?
p. 55: I’d like to know on what basis Phenix can claim that Prince
Peter’s and Olga’s marriage was “almost certainly” consummated.
p. 57: Uses the (?) Russian spelling of Princess Eugenie of
Oldenburg’s estate: Ramon. In Vorres, it’s Ramogne.
p. 68: Phenix seems to think that Olga and Minnie were viewing the
Blessing of the Waters from a dais near the Neva, on the day loaded
cartridges were fired and narrowly missed the Tsar. In fact, Vorres
makes it clear that both women were watching from the Winter Palace
windows and how Olga marveled that the little figure of her brother
standing there below was still so straight and upright despite the
mortification he must have felt. It makes sense that Olga and her
mother were inside the warmth of the Winter Palace rather than
standing out in the January cold.
p. 87: Phenix says Prince Felix Yusupov belonged to one of the great
families of “Europe”. The Yusupovs were one of the great families of*Russia*.
p. 87: Re: Minnie living the “cloistered” life of a former empress.
Knowing Minnie’s fondness for parties and balls, her delight in
wearing jewels and flashing them under the chandeliers, and all the
more so as Alix was such a stick socially, one can only wonder when
the Dowager Empress had time to be cloistered.
p. 89: Re: Olga’s describing herself as being “shelved” (Olga’s word)
at the “tender” (Phenix’s word) age of thirty. Twenty is a tender age,
but not thirty. Being “shelved”, as Olga was, at any age is traumaticenough.
p. 90: Olga told Vorres she was in her bath when news of Nicky’s
declaration of war reached her. She got out, got dressed, and hurried
to see her brother. Nothing about this in Phenix’s account.
p. 91: Phenix says that according to “all accounts”, Prince Peter took
the news of Olga’s declared separation from him with cucumber
coolness. By what other accounts? The only account we have of the
dialogue is Olga’s, in Vorres’ book.
p. 91: Re: Phenix’s curious description of Russian citizens glaring
hatefully at the Romanovs because they were spending money on
armaments and ruining the country, one can only point out that
Nicholas was liquidating his own private fortune to buy these
armaments. I doubt that this early in the war against Germany people
were doing the glaring that they certainly did when the tides began to
turn against Russia.
p. 92: Re: a “religious” icon. In a Russian Orthodox home, is there
any other kind of icon?
p. 94: Phenix implies that Kulikovsky, mussed from the battlefield,
showed up several times at Olga’s hospital. But in Vorres only the
one time is mentioned, when Olga ran to her future husband and hugged
him, to the astonishment of onlookers.
p. 97: Phenix makes it seem that when Olga discovered the nurse about
to crack her on the head with a jar of vaseline, she screamed and ran
away. In fact, in Vorres’ account Olga did scream, but it was the
nurse who ran out.
p. 100: Phenix curiously and wrongly refers to Grand Duke Nicholas
Nikolaevich as if his last name was “Nikolaevich”. Did she mean to
use his familiar family nickname, Nikolasha?
p. 109: Phenix errs grievously in stating that Nicholas returned to
Petrograd from the Stavka at Moghilev on hearing of Rasputin’s death,
only to find that revolution had broken out. Rasputin was murdered in
December 1916; the revolution took place in March 1917. Big
difference. And Nicky came back to Tsarskoe unhampered on hearing
about Rasputin.
p. 110 ff: Lots of loose-cannon talk about Nicholas being surrounded
by “treason”, without details. This is parroting of something the
author has read. The situation at Nicholas’ abdication is far more
complex. Some of his retinue, like Count Alexander Grabbe, were given
a bad rap as “traitors” by gossip which then hardened into fact among
émigrés who had nothing better to do in exile.
p. 116: Phenix refers to Olga’s “imperial” retinue. Olga was a grand
duchess, but by her marriage she was not an imperial and could not
have had such a “retinue”.
pp. 116-123: Phenix mixes up where everyone lived at Ai-Todor.
Minnie, Sandro and Xenia and their children, lived in Ai-Todor, while
it was Olga and Kulikovsky who moved to the little cottage on the
grounds (where Grand Duchess George had once stayed in happier days,
by the way). Phenix seems to have skimmed her source materials a bit
too lightly.p. 118: I don’t recall reading that the sailors invading Minnie’s
bedroom at Ai-Todor ripped up floorboards. They ripped open cushions
and ripped up carpets, but floors?
p. 119: Olga hid Minnie’s jewels in cocoa TINS, not just one tin, asPhenix says.
p. 122: To Vorres, Olga commented that the Sevastopol and Yalta
soviets were arguing about who had the prior right of “cutting our
heads off”. Meant, obviously, half in jest. Phenix appears to take
this beheading comment too seriously.
p. 122: Zadorozhny, in charge of the Romanovs at Ai-Todor and Dulber,
was waiting to hear from the Sevastopol Soviet re: what to do with the
captives, not waiting to hear from Lenin himself.
p. 122: Dulber, a town? Dulber was just Dulber, the estate of the
Grand Duke Peter Nikolaevich. (See “Flight of the Romanovs” for a map
of the Crimean estates.)
p. 124: Phenix is wrong about the chain of events following Olga’s
hearing the news that the Yalta soviet’s troops had arrived. Olga
heard the news, wrapped Tikhon in a blanket, and with Kulikovsky hid
in the rocks at the seashore, ventured forth at nightfall to Dulber
and begged the Sevastopol troops to let her in, was refused, and THEN
trudged up the hill to spend the night with a friend. There is no
mention in Vorres about Olga finding a friend bayoneted beside the
road. Olga did HEAR that a kindly commissar she had known was
murdered by the Yalta troops, by bayonet. That’s different from
finding him beside the road.
p. 126: Phenix refers to King George V, well into W.W.I, as “now”
being King George V.
p. 127: Phenix implies that Alexandra’s German birth made her
unwelcome in England. Again, the truth is far more complicated thanthat.
p. 127: Phenix retails the discredited story about the family being
chopped up and burned before being thrown down the mine shaft.
p. 128: No credit given to Olga’s Caucasian servant, Yachik, for
bringing the Kulikovskys to the temporary safety of Novo-Minskaya, his
home village. General Kutepov only offered to take them by train toRostov.
p. 129: Re: Olga being unused to hard living. Working as a war-nurse
had assuredly hardened Olga by this time, and she had never been a
fainting violet anyway.
p. 134: Hvidore was NOT Minnie’s “childhood summer villa”. She and
her sister the Princess of Wales bought it together as married adultwomen.
p. 134: Phenix describes Minnie as “imposing”. She could pull off the
majesty trick when needed, but Minnie was a very small, delicatewoman.
p. 138: Re: Minnie sitting in the ground floor “glassed-in pergola” at
Hvidore watching the ships sail to Russia. It seems to me from my
reading, and from viewing pictures of Hvidore, that there is a
glassed-in lookout on top from which Minnie and her sister used to be
able to see Copenhagen and all the passing ships. Surely this is the
higher ground Minnie would require from which to obtain such views?
(Again see that far superior book, “Flight of the Romanovs”.)
p. 141: Phenix unfairly puts Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich in the same
class as Grand Duke Kyril Vladimirovich, by stating that, like Kyril,
he was “vying” for the Russian throne. Dmitri never did this. Kyril,
on the other hand, did too much of it.
p. 173: Strange sentence construction that can’t be ignored here re:
the Copenhagen church where Olga’s son Guri was married. Phenix would
have done better to write simply that Guri was married in the same
church where his grandmother’s funeral had been held a dozen yearsbefore.
p. 177: Since when was Victoria Melita, sister of Queen Marie of
Romania and wife successively of Grand Duke Ernst of Hessen-Darmstadt
and Grand Duke Kyril Vladimir’ich of Russia, a “commoner”? Phenix
also irritatingly refers here to “Grand Duke” Vladimir Kyrillovich.
p. 188: Re: the strains of Chopin’s “Prelude” floating through the
hotel lobby. Uh, WHICH prelude? He composed quite more than justone.
p. 196: Was the Akhtyrsky regiment not Olga’s own, rather than her
father Alexander’s?
p. 209: What’s this about Olga possessing a portrait of her father
that was cut from its frame in the Alexander Palace by, Zelig-like,
none other than Felix Yusupov? Felix did this with a pair of
Rembrandts in one of his own palaces, but I find this story hard tobelieve.
p. 231-32: With all due respect to the memory of Nicholas Kulikovsky,
Phenix needs to expand on her statement here that he had belonged to
one of the “most aristocratic” families in Russia.
Grant Menzies (from ATR)
Nice to read this. Grant Menzies wrote an accurate and excellent account of many errors in the book....but he forgot a major error...how come Grand-Duchess Olga's son needed a truck(lorry) to get possession of his mother's souvenirs from Imperial Russia? Phenix herself in other part of the book said GD Olga succeeded to escape Russia with few possessions and even if she inherited many from hier mother I don't think it would have been enough to fulfill an entire truck!
Alberto
Grant his a friend of mine Alberto, I'll contact him and find out what he says about that incident.
Kevin (from Australia)
Did he somehow manage to get some things out AFTER the fall of communism?
Sarah
Alberto, you have very sharp eyes! I suppose the reason why Phenix's "lorry" didn't strike me as odd is that it's reasonable that GD Olga would have had a good many Russian things at the time of her death. Not things brought out of Russia, because we know from many sources that she brought very little. (What was it that her maid was able to bring from Petersburg to the Crimea but a feathered hat and Olga's Maltese poodle - though to judge by the latter's adorableness he amounted to a goodly treasure all on his own But Russian things which were given to her. Think of the Russian treasures Anna Anderson left when she died, all of which were given to her. As I recall, the problem in the Phenix book was, as usual, the author's imprecise narrative style, which left lots of loose ends dangling. So a lorry may well have been needed. And for a long life of collecting, a lorry's worth isn't all that much, really.
Grant
Hello Grant
: I suppose
: the reason why Phenix's "lorry"
: didn't strike me as odd is that it's
: reasonable that GD Olga would have had a
: good many Russian things at the time of
: her death. Not things brought out of
: Russia, because we know from many sources
: that she brought very little. (What was it
: that her maid was able to bring from
: Petersburg to the Crimea but a feathered
: hat and Olga's Maltese poodle - though to
: judge by the latter's adorableness he
: amounted to a goodly treasure all on his
: own
You know, by what I know (very little) about GD Olga it's possible the poodle story might be very serious! More valuable than treasures.
: But Russian things which were
: given to her. Think of the Russian
: treasures Anna Anderson left when she
: died, all of which were given to her.
I don't remenber of the treasures of Anna Anderson. I see you have a very good memory! And you are certainly a Romanof expert! ( I thought Marie Antoinette was your speciality? Are you the same nice Grant Menzies from Oregon???)
: As
: I recall, the problem in the Phenix book
: was, as usual, the author's imprecise
: narrative style,
I agree! I think she had a lot of hard work, despite everything we can say against her terrible book. But maybe she would have better stayed home and reading many good books, connected or not with the Romanofs, and she would have learnt how to write well.......
: So a lorry may well have
: been needed. And for a long life of
: collecting, a lorry's worth isn't all that
: much, really.
You are right, thank you! I suppose the Russian colony in Ontario would be only too glad to give GD Olga souvenirs from her beloved Russia
Alberto
Before Olga & family left their farm in Denmark, most of her belongings were sold, but at least she brought with her to Canada some furniture, many paintings and a lot of self-decorated royal china.
Stig
But Russian things which were given to her. Think of the Russian treasures Anna Anderson left when she died, all of which were given to her. As I recall, the problem in the Phenix book was, as usual, the author's imprecise narrative style, which left lots of loose ends dangling. So a lorry may well have been needed. And for a long life of collecting, a lorry's worth isn't all that much, really.