Natalia Cheșco

Queen Natalie of Serbia

House in Chișinău where Natalia grew up

Natalia and her son Alexander

Natalia Cheşco , also Natalia Keşco and Natalia Keschko , married Natalija Obrenović , Cyrillic  Наталија Обреновић (born May 15, 1859 in Florence , † May 8, 1941 in Saint-Denis ) was a Romanian princess and queen of Serbia . She came from the Romanian boyarism .

Life

She was born in Florence as the daughter of Petru Cheșco, who came from the old boyar family Wassilko , Colonel of the Russian Imperial Life Guard and Pulcheria, granddaughter of Ioan, member of the Supreme Council of Bessarabia, head of the nobility of the districts of Chișinău and Orhei (1850-1853), then those of Soroca and Iași and Pulcheria, granddaughter of the voivod of the Principality of Moldova , Ioniță Sandu Sturdza , born.

On October 17, 1875 she married in Belgrade the Serbian prince Milan IV, the future King (1882). Milan I. In her honor in 1878 of Natalie Medal as "award from the Princess Natalie" (Serbian: kraljevice Order Natalije ) established as an Order of Women and renamed Queen Natalie's Medal of Merit on February 22, 1886 . The founder was her husband. The order should honor the voluntary care and assistance in caring for the war victims.

In favor of the flooded in Serbia (1879), the Queen had published the booklet Aphorisms of Queen Natalie . In her aphorisms, for example, she wrote: “The rich have only one excuse: to do good.” In addition, she remarks: “Just having for yourself is nothing; but also to spare something for the other, that is something and almost everything. "

Signature of Natalia of Serbia

Cazin-Perrochaud Sanatorium in Berck-Plage around 1900

Tomb of Queen Natalia in Lardy

Their son, later King Alexander I, was born in 1876 . Political differences and numerous affairs of the king led to the fact that the couple divorced on October 24, 1888; however, the divorce was lifted in March 1893. An immediate political consequence of this dynastic conflict was the new right to the throne proclaimed during the parliamentary sessions on the new constitution of Serbia, which Milan sanctioned on January 3, 1889. She declared Crown Prince Alexander and his future children (who were never born) the only legal heirs to the Serbian crown. Possible children of King Milan's second marriage were excluded from the line of succession, even if Alexander remained childless. Although he had agreed to the new law, this clear vote of no confidence in the king was probably the main cause of his abdication on March 6, 1889 in favor of his son. Another reason was the devastating defeat in his war against Bulgaria (1885/1886) and the associated rise of the "radicals" who had won a parliamentary majority under the leadership of Sava Grujić . Natalia became regent for her underage son and exercised great political influence on her country. She disapproved of the relationship and subsequent marriage of her son to her lady-in-waiting Draga Mašin . The marriage caused great outrage in the country itself, as Draga was not only nine years older than her husband and - like her brothers - had a bad repute. In particular, she was suspected of killing her first husband, the Bohemian civil engineer Svetozar Mašín. Furthermore, it was already known in Belgrade society at the time when she had become a lady-in-waiting that she had given herself up to prostitution. That she had no noble roots was secondary. The former Queen Natalia was eventually expelled from the country and banished by her son. King Alexander and the queen, who was hated by the people, remained childless and were murdered in a coup on June 11, 1903.

Natalie remained the only heir to the Obrenović dynasty. She donated all of her inherited wealth to the University of Belgrade and numerous churches and monasteries in Serbia.

Over a year earlier, her conversion to the Roman Catholic faith had taken place on April 12, 1902 in the chapel of the Cazin-Perrochaud sanatorium in Berck-Plage in the Pas-de-Calais department , where she also became a nun. She stayed in exile in Paris for the rest of her life , then in London , where she frequented the court of Edward VII . The latter, who was a regular in Biarritz , advised Natalie to buy some 40 hectares of wooded land in Bidart . After 1892 she had a fantastic villa built on this property: "Les Ailes" (the wings), which can be admired from the heights of Ilbarritz.

Natalia did not leave France until her death. She was buried in Lardy, a place 37 km southwest of Paris. The former monarch left her diary to the Vatican Museums , where it was kept under lock and key for a long time. In 1999 her memoirs were published in Belgrade.

Works

• Queen Natalie's aphorisms. Belgrade 1880.
• Memoirs of Queen Natalie of Serbia. Authorized translation, with portrait of the queen. Publisher Georg E. Nagel, Berlin 1891.

literature

• Teodor Bălan : Documents bucovinene. Vol. 3, Institutul de arte grafice şi editură "Glasul Bucovinei", Cernăuţi 1937.
• Teodor Bălan: Documents bucovinene. Vol. 4, Institutul de arte grafice şi editură "Glasul Bucovinei", Cernăuţi 1938.
• Teodor Bălan: Documents bucovinlinkene. Vol. 6, Editura casei şcoalelor şi a culturii poporului, Bucureşti 1943.
• Mathias Bernath, Felix von Schroeder: Biographical Lexicon for the History of Southeast Europe. Part 3, Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-486-48991-7 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ genealogie.lovendal.ro ( Memento of the original from October 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ Teodor Balan: Documents bucoviniene. Vol. 3, Institutul de arte grafice şi editură "Glasul Bucovinei", Cernăuţi 1937, p. 166.
3. ↑ Meyers Konversationslexikon. 4th edition. Publishing house of the Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892.
4. ↑ zeno.org
5. ↑ The present. Volume 54, issues 27–52, Verlag Gegenwart, 1898, p. 310.
6. ^ Mathias Bernath, Felix von Schroeder: Biographisches Lexikon zur Geschichte Südosteuropas. Part 3, Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1978, p. 207.
7. ^ Nataša Mišković: Bazaars and Boulevards: Belgrade in the 19th Century. Böhlau Verlag, Vienna, No. 149
8. ↑ Christopher Clark: The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914. eBook, Chapter 1 Serbian Ghosts
9. ↑ Klaus-Rüdiger Mai: Secret Societies: Myth, Power and Reality. Verlag Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2006, p. 308 ff.
10. ↑ Messenger of the divine heart of Jesus. Volume 29, Verlag der Franziskaner-Väter, 1902, p. 517.
11. ↑ welt-der-rosen.de

See also

• Wiesbaden prince robbery

Web links

Commons : Natalia Cheșco  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Predecessors	Office	Successors
Julia Countess Hunyady of Kéthely	Princess of Serbia 1875–1882	-
-	Queen of Serbia 1882–1888	Draga Mašin