29. Olga Woronoff (1893-1982), Russian aristocrat
Olga Woronoff was born in Potchep, Russia, the daughter of Count Constantine Kleinmichel. Her memories of childhood and experiences of life in Russia before the Revolution of 1917 were published in a book, Upheaval, which she dedicated to her daughter, Tatiana. In the book she describes the deeply religious Russian Orthodox life of her aristocratic family.
Olga Woronoff was officially presented at Court to the Dowager Empress Marie and the young Empresses Olga, Tatiana, Marie and Anastasia. There she met her future husband, Paul Woronoff, a Lieutenant Commander in the Imperial Russian Navy, who served as an officer on Their Majesties’ yacht, Standard.
In early 1914 she married Paul Woronoff, in the Feodorovsky Cathedral at Tsarskoe Selo. The Tsar and the Empress fulfilled the traditional roles of representing the parents of the married couple. In her book, Olga Woronoff described in detail the frightening period of the Great War and subsequent Revolution. Eventually she and her husband, who fought with the White Army, escaped on an English steamer, Hanover, to Constantinople and then on to Paris, where their daughter Tatiana was born. They were joined in Paris by Olga’s mother and three sisters. The family later emigrated to the USA and then to Australia.
Olga Woronoff wrote the book of family memories, Upheaval, for a daughter she knew would never know the Russia of her parents’ youth, nor the aristocracy of pre-Revolution days.