Olga Feodorovna of Baden - Death

Death

Olga Feodorovna, who was tradition-conscious and deeply devout, suffered a terrible blow when her second son, Grand Duke Michael Michailovich contracted an unequal marriage in San Remo on 26 February 1891. The marriage was not only morganatic but also illegal under the statute of the Imperial Family and caused a great scandal at the Russian court. Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich was deprived of his military rank and of his position as adjutant at the Imperial Court and also forbidden to return to Russia for life. When Olga Feodrovna heard of her son’s morganatic marriage, she was deeply wounded and fell ill. Few days later, at the insistence of her doctors, the Grand Duchess traveled to Ai-todor, her estate in Crimea to recover her health.

Around noon on 9 April 1891, the express train in which Olga Feodorovna was riding passed trough Kharkov in southern Ukraine. During the afternoon the Grand Duchess suffered a heart attack. As Kharkov was the largest nearby city, the train came back there at about 7pm that evening. Several doctors in Kharkov were invited into her train compartment and they diagnosed her ailments as an inflammation of the lungs. She was taken into the Tsar's waiting room in the station. She was surrounded by her attendance and doctors, bur neither her husband nor any of her children were with her as she was traveling alone. A priest was called and she died there at the train station three days later on 12 April 1891 at the age of 51. She was buried at the Peter and Paul fortress in St Petersburg.