The late W. T. Stead in saying to Madame Novikoff, "When you die, what an obituary I will write of you," was paying her a great compliment; just as was Disraeli, although unconsciously, in referring to her as "the M.P. for Russia in England." With that consummate tact which never fails her, Madame Novikoff has evaded the compliment and justified the sarcasm. Disraeli might with justice have added that she was also "M.P. for England in Russia"; for if she has appeared pro-Russian in England, she has many times been reproached in Russia as pro-English.
Of few women have such contradictory things been said and written, things that clearly show the gradual change in the political barometer; but her most severe critics indirectly paid tribute to her remarkable personality by fearing the influence she possessed. In the dark days when Great Britain and Russia were thinking of each other only as potential antagonists, she was regarded in this country as a Russian agent, whose every action was a subject for suspicious speculation, a national danger, a syren whose object it was to entice British politicians from their allegiance. Wherever she went it was, according to public opinion, with some fell purpose in view. If she came to London for the simple purpose of improving her English, it meant to a certain section of the Press Russian "diplomatic activity." The Tsar was told by an English journalist that he ought to "be very proud of her," as she succeeded where "Russian papers, Ambassadors and Envoys failed"; another said that she was "worth an army of 100,000 men to her country"; a third that she was a "stormy petrel." She was, in fact, everything from a Russian agent to a national danger, everything in short but the one thing she professed to be, a Russian woman anxious for her country's peace and progress.
In Serbia there is a little village whose name commemorates the death of a Russian hero, Nicolas Kiréef, Madame Novikoff's brother. In his death lay the seed of the Anglo-Russian Alliance. Distraught with grief, Madame Novikoff blamed Great Britain for her loss. She argued that, had this country refused to countenance the unspeakableness of the Turk in 1876, there would have been no atrocities, no Russian Volunteers, and no war. From that date she determined to do everything that lay in her power to bring about a better understanding between Great Britain and Russia. For years she has never relaxed her efforts, and she has lived to see what is perhaps the greatest monument ever erected by a sister to a brother's memory—the Anglo-Russian Alliance.
Nothing discouraged her, and at times, when war seemed inevitable, she redoubled her efforts. In all her work, she had chiefly to depend on her own ardour and sincerity. It was this sincerity, and a deep conviction as to the rightness of her object, that caused Gladstone to become her fearless ally. Politically he compromised himself by his frank support of her pleadings for peace and understanding.
For many years feeling ran too high in this country for a reasoned consideration of Madame Novikoff's appeals. "Peace with honour" talk became a meaningless catch phrase, otherwise it would have been seen that it was "peace with honour" that she advocated, and has never ceased to advocate, peace with honour, not to one, but to two great peoples.
Slowly the eyes of empire shifted from one continent to another, and gradually Madame Novikoff found her voice commanding more and more attention, until at last the Anglo-Russian Agreement paved the way for the present Alliance.
Her success is largely due to the methods she adopted. She gave and received hard knocks, and she never fell back upon her sex as an argument or a defence. She was fighting with men, and she fought with men's weapons, and this gained for her respect as an honourable and worthy antagonist. Even at the time when feeling was most strongly against her work, there appeared in the newspapers many spontaneous tributes to her ability and personality. The very suspicion with which she was regarded was in itself a tribute.
Later when Russia and Great Britain had drawn closer together, there appeared in the Press some of the most remarkable tributes ever paid to a woman, from which in justice to her and the Press I venture to quote a few of the many that appeared.
"If we were writing at a date which we hope is a good many years distant of the career of Madame Olga Novikoff, we should begin by saying that she was one of the most remarkable women of her time."—Daily Graphic.