Thank you for reply. We can just ask the current Prince of Hannover about the letters of Queen Alexandra and the same we can ask for the Greece goverment or to King Constantine of Greece. Personally I think that also these letters are probaly destroyed because was it not a custom to send the complete correspondence back when the writer itself had died? As for the letters towards Queen Olga, I think that the chance that they are still anyware is bigger because she had a lot on her mind at the end of her days and had not even the time to send the letters to her sister-in-law back.
Hi, Teddy:
Well, the House of Hanover is still capable of generating headlines --- though more for the eccentric goings-on of its current head than for anything else. Still, presumably he would be the one to grant permission for access to any of the family archives.
As for the question of ownership (which leads to the question of copyright), I believe that this devolve to the recipient of the letters and that under normal circumstances, they have the right to dispose of their private papers as they wish. As one example, Queen Victoria named her youngest daughter, Princess Beatrice, as her literary executor. Princess Beatrice, in turn, took it on herself to transcribe her mother's diaries, editing as she went along, and then destroying the originals: not even King Edward VII could prevent her. It would seem that Queen Alexandra's request that her letters to various members of her family be returned to her upon their deaths was just that: a request, not adherence to a hard-and-fast custom or policy.
Given the vicissitudes of the Greek Royal Family since 1917, their archives pose some interesting questions. Yes, you are quite right in saying that during the last years of her life, Queen Olga had more important things on her mind than the safekeeping of private papers. As I recall, she was in Russia at the time the revolution broke out there; by the time she was able to leave, I believe that the Greek royals had already gone into exile and that she rejoined them in Switzerland (?), not Athens.
During the years when Greece seesawed between a monarchy and a (nominal) republic, what happened to the archives? Were they impounded intact by the new governments? Were parts of them destroyed? And if so, by whom? Did members of the family have time destroy documents which might, for whatever reason, prove to be detrimental to them (much in the same way that the Empress Alexandra burned portions of her private papers in 1917)? Or, conversely, the did the republican government destroy those papers which would show the royal family in a favorable light?
Certainly at the time of the counter-coup in 1967, I doubt that either King Constantine nor Queen Anne-Marie had much time to worry about letters and diaries. In fact, in one documentary (perhaps the wonderful Danish-produced documentary, "A royal family"?), Queen Anne-Marie spoke quite openly and candidly, saying that they packed very little, assuming that they would only be away for a few days. (Whether or not any such private papers were later returned to them, I have no idea.)
Bringing this back to the letters and diaries of the Empress Marie, the same questions can be asked. We know that many of the Romanov personal papers (letter, diaries, photo albums, etc.) were impounded the by the Soviets and consigned to storage where most of them are just now beginning to surface for the first time since the revolution; still other were taken by their owners when they went into exile or were later sent out of Russia. But what happened to the papers the Empress had in her posession at the time of her death? Are they kept as they treasures they undoubtedly are by family members? Were they destroyed? (And if so, by whom?) Or perhaps as courtesy, were they consigned to the archives of the Danish Royal Family? (Which, among other things, contains the dossier complied at the request of Prince Waldemar into the case of Anna Anderson by Herluf Zahle, the Danish minister in Berlin in the 1920s. It seems that when Zahle retired, he turned his files over to King Christian X where they have remained under embargo ever since. As author Peter Kurth found out when he was researching his book on Anna Anderson/Grand Duchess Anastasia, such documents are considered by Queen Margrethe as being part of the private family archives and, as such, cannot be made available to researchers or scientists.)
With time, as the immediate family members and/or descendants of those involved die, perhaps such papers as are still extant will be released; in the meantime, we can only speculate on their contents.
FASCINATING!
