Olga Alekseevna Novikova

Born Olga Alekseyevna Kireyeva in Moscow in 1840, she later became known as Olga Novikoff. She wrote fiction, memoir, journalism, and political commentary, and was especially active in Britain, where she built a reputation as an interpreter of Russian politics for English-speaking audiences.

Novikoff is often remembered for her public writing on relations between Russia and Britain in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She published books including The M.P. for Russia and Russian Memories, and her long residence in London helped make her an unusually visible Russian voice in British intellectual life.

She died in 1925. Today she is of interest not only as an author, but also as a figure who moved between cultures and used writing to influence how Russia was understood abroad.