Ileana from Romania
Princess Ileana of Romania , Romanian Domnița Ileana a României (born January 5, 1909 in Bucharest , † January 21, 1991 in Ellwood City , Pennsylvania ) was a member of the House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen .
Life
Ileana was the youngest daughter of six children of the Romanian King Ferdinand I (1865-1927) and his wife Princess Marie Alexandra Victoria of Edinburgh (1875-1938), the eldest daughter of Duke Alfred of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Russian Grand Duchess Marija Alexandrovna Romanova . She was thus on her mother's side a great-granddaughter of the British Queen Victoria and the Russian Tsar Alexander II.
Her mother's deep dislike for her husband emerges from her correspondence with her secret confidante, the dancer Loïe Fuller . Furthermore, the mother had a long affair with Prince Barbu Știrbey (1873-1946), Prime Minister and closest adviser to King Charles I and his successor Ferdinand I, and it is believed that Ileana's younger brother Mircea comes from the connection. Who Ileana's father is still seems unclear.
On July 26, 1931, Princess Ileana married the former Archduke Anton of Austria-Tuscany (1901-1987), third son of Archduke Leopold Salvator and his wife, the Spanish Infanta Blanca de Castilla de Borbón at Peleș Castle in Sinaia . After the marriage, Ileana and her husband were ordered by their brother, King Charles II , to live outside of Romania for political reasons. The couple therefore first stayed in Munich and Mödling near Vienna and later at their Sonnberg Castle in Austria . Six children emerged from the joint relationship:
- Stefan (1932–1998) ⚭ 1954 Mary Jerrine Soper
- Maria-Ileana, called Minola (1933–1959) ⚭ 1957 Jaroslaw Graf von Kotulin and Dobrzenicz (1917–1959)
- Alexandra, called Sandi (* 1935) ⚭ 1962–1972 Eugen Eberhard Prince of Württemberg | ⚭ 1973 Victor Freiherr von Baillou
- Dominik, called Niki (* 1937), industrial designer ⚭ 1960 Engel de Voss
- Maria Magdalena, called Magi (* 1939) ⚭ 1959 Hans Freiherr von Holzhausen
- Elisabetha, called Herzi (1942–2019) ⚭ 1964 Friedrich Sandhofer
Even during her life in exile, Ileana remained an ardent Romanian patriot. During the Second World War , her husband served as a pilot in the German Wehrmacht until the end of 1944 . After his release he went to Törzburg , where his family lived at Bran Castle . In the years from 1943 to 1948 Ileana was heavily involved in the medical service and established the Inima Reginei hospital in Bran through donations . After the coup and the dissolution of Romania's alliance with Germany on August 23, 1944, the couple, their children and their domestic servants, as German citizens, were in danger of being interned or expelled from the country. But it was not until her nephew, King Michael I , had to abdicate and leave the country on December 30, 1947, that Ileana's family was also expelled from the country. The family initially resided in Switzerland and Argentina , before moving to the United States with their children in the early 1950s . By selling her jewels, Ileana used to buy a house in Newton , Massachusetts . In 1954 the couple divorced and a few months later Ileana married the Romanian exiled Stefan Nikolas Issarescu (1906–2002) in Newton. This marriage also failed and was divorced in 1965.
In 1967, Ileana founded a Romanian Orthodox monastery and wrote numerous religious, spiritual books that are now considered to be important literature of the Romanian Orthodox Church . In 1990 Ileana, meanwhile a nun Maica Alexandra , was able to visit the Bran Castle before she died on January 21, 1991.
title
- 1909–1914 Princess of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen
- 1914–1931 Princess of Romania
Names
- 1931–1954 Ileana Habsburg-Lothringen (historically called Archduchess of Austria and Princess of Tuscany )
- 1954-1965 Ileana Issarescu
- 1967–1991 sister Maica Alexandra
literature
- Hannah Pakula: The Last Romantic: Biography of Queen Marie of Roumania , Phoenix House (1996) ISBN 1-85799-816-2 .
- Ileana von Österreich-Toskana: I Live Again Princess Of Romania Archduchess Of Austria , Rinehart & Company Incorporated (1952).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Hannah Pakula: The Last Romantic: Biography of Queen Marie of Roumania. Phoenix House, 1996, ISBN 1-85799-816-2 , p.?.
- ^ Hannah Pakula: The Last Romantic: Biography of Queen Marie of Roumania. Phoenix House, 1996, ISBN 1-85799-816-2 , p.?.
- ↑ Entry about Schloss Sonnberg on Burgen-Austria
- ^ Literature from Ileana of Romania
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ileana from Romania |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Ileana of Habsburg Tuscany |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Romanian nobles, Princess Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Princess of Romania |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 5, 1909 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bucharest |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 21, 1991 |
| Place of death | Ellwood City , Pennsylvania |