Princess Olga of Greece and Denmark

Princess Olga of Greece and Denmark (Όλγα; 11 June 1903 – 16 October 1997) was a Greek princess who married Prince Paul, Regent of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

After her marriage, she was known as Princess Paul of Yugoslavia.

Princess Olga was a daughter of Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark and Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia, and a granddaughter of King George I of Greece.

A granddaughter of King George I of Greece, Princess Olga was born at Tatoi Palace, the second home of the Greek royal family, in 1903 to Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark (1872–1938) and his wife Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia (1882–1957).

As was the Greek tradition, she was then named after her paternal grandmother, Queen Olga.

She grew up alongside her parents and younger sisters, Princesses Elizabeth (1904–1955) and Marina (1906–1968), at the Nicholas Palace, the current seat of the Italian Embassy in Athens.

Olga was brought up in relative simplicity and her early education was overseen by an English Norland nurse by the name of Miss Fox.

Once a year, Olga and her family travelled to Russia, where they were regularly received by their Romanov cousins.

The princess and her sisters thus had the opportunity to play with the daughters of Tsar Nicholas II, who were roughly the same age as them.

They were also in Saint Petersburg, when the First World War broke out in 1914.

The First World War marked a difficult period for the Greek royal family.

After the fallout between King Constantine I and his prime minister Eleftherios Venizelos over whether Greece should enter the conflict, a virtual civil war shook the Hellenic kingdom, which was partially occupied by the Allies from 1915.

Finally, on 10 June 1917, King Constantine was forced to leave power by the ultimatum of the French High Commissioner Charles Jonnart and he went into exile with his wife and children in German-speaking Switzerland.

Described as the "evil genius behind the monarchy" by the Venizelists, Prince Nicolas was quickly forced to leave Athens in turn and join his brother abroad.

Olga and her family then settled in St. Moritz, when Greece fell into a financial crisis for the first time during her lifetime.

The restoration of Constantine I in 1920 allowed Olga to return to her native country for a brief period, but the king's final abdication in 1922 forced the young princess and her relatives to resume their life in exile.

The princess then settled successively in Sanremo, Paris and London, where she lived with members of her family.

Considered, along with her sister Marina, to be "one of the most beautiful young women of her time", Princess Olga had, according to biographer Ricardo Mateos Sainz de Medrano, a "discreet, romantic and fragile personality".

After a brief engagement in 1922 to Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark, she married Prince Paul of Yugoslavia in 1923.

Prior to her departure into exile, she was linked to the future Frederik IX of Denmark and the engagement of the pair was announced publicly in 1922.

However, the awkwardness of the Danish prince, who held the hand of one of Olga's sisters instead of hers during the official presentation of the young couple to the Athenian crowd, lastingly humiliated the future bride.

Shortly after the event, Olga decided to return her ring to the heir to the Danish throne and called off their engagement.

After moving to the UK, Olga's love life was the subject of much speculation.

Public rumors and claims circulated about her romantic relationships and she was linked to the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) for some time.

Neither Edward nor Olga confirmed the rumors.

A frequent guest of the British upper class, the Greek princess met Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, a grandson of Alexander Karađorđević, Prince of Serbia, at a ball given by her cousin Lady Zia Wernher.

Immediately impressed by the beauty of Olga, Paul sought to win the favor of the princess, but she was rather indifferent to him.

However, other encounters followed, notably at Buckingham Palace, and Prince Paul finally managed to catch her attention.

Once Olga and Paul's engagement was announced on 26 July 1923, the young princess' dowry was purchased and prepared in Paris.

However, it was in Belgrade, in the prince's homeland, that the wedding was organized the following October.

Now Princess of Yugoslavia, Olga set about learning Serbo-Croatian, which she quickly came to master though with a heavy Greek accent.

Now dividing her life between the White Palace in Belgrade, a magnificent chalet in the Bohinj valley and a villa on Rumunska Ulica (now Užička Ulica), Olga benefited from the immense fortune that her husband partly inherited from his maternal family.

In 1934, after the assassination of King Alexander I, Prince Paul was appointed regent of Yugoslavia on behalf of King Peter II, and Princess Olga became the senior lady of the court and acted as first lady of Yugoslavia, working side by side with her husband on representation duties.

In 1941, during the Second World War, Prince Paul was forcibly removed from power after signing the Tripartite Pact, which took Yugoslavia into the Axis with Germany and Italy.

Paul, Olga, and their three children were arrested and given as prisoners to the British.

They spent the rest of the war in house arrest and exile in Egypt, Kenya and South Africa, and were not allowed to return to Europe until 1948.

The couple and their children eventually settled in Paris, where Paul died in 1976.

Having become a widow, Olga spent more and more time in the United Kingdom, the adopted country of her sister, Marina.

Struck by Alzheimer's disease at the end of her life, Olga died in Paris in 1997.

Her remains were buried at the Bois-de-Vaux Cemetery, Lausanne, Switzerland, before being transferred to the royal mausoleum of Oplenac, in Serbia, in 2012.