Olga Novikoff Essays

Description

A writer on Russian policy, a publicist, a cosmopolitan Pan-Slavic lobbyist, a femme politique, a brilliant Russian woman, one of the most interesting women in Europe, one of the most cultured of Russian ladies, a Russian socialite, a Russian nationalist oligarch, that redoubtable Russian patriot, an orthodox Russian without any sympathy with revolutionary Russia, a Portia a la Russe, a Russian siren, and–perhaps this one had stuck the most–an M.P. for Russia.

In this digital edition we have collected approximately two hundred of Novikoff’s essays that were published in the British press between 1872 and 1925. Where available, we provide reader responses, most of which tend to disagree with Novikoff, sometimes in very strong terms. These instances of public disagreement, and even the very fact that Olga Novikoff, a Russian conservative monarchist, was given a platform in British newspapers, serve as a testament to the late Victorian freedom of expression that, in Eric Barendt’s apt observation, was “weak in principle, robust in practice.”