Princess Olga | |
---|---|
Princess Paul of Yugoslavia | |
Born | Princess Olga of Greece and Denmark 11 June 1903 Tatoi Palace, Tatoi, Greece |
Died | 16 October 1997 Paris, France | (aged 94)
Burial | 23 October 1997 4 October 2012 (reinterred) |
Spouse | |
Issue | |
House | Glücksburg |
Father | Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark |
Mother | Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia |
Princess Olga of Greece and Denmark (Greek: 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. After a brief engagement in 1922 to Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark, she married Prince Paul of Yugoslavia in 1923. 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.