Prajadhipok

King Prajadhipok (Rama VII.)

King Prajadhipok ( RTGS : Prachathipok ; pronunciation: [pràʔt͡ɕʰaːtʰíʔpòk] ; Rama VII .; Throne name: Phra Pok Klao , spoken: [pʰráʔ pòk klâw] - Thai : พระบาท สมเด็จ พระ ปกเกล้า เจ้า อยู่ หัว ; * November 8, 1893 in Bangkok , Thailand ; † May 30, 1941 in Virginia Water , Surrey , England ) was King of Siam from 1925 until his abdication in 1935 . He was the seventh king from the Chakri dynasty and the last absolute monarch of present-day Thailand.

Life

Youth and education

Prince Prajadhipok as a pupil in Eton

Somdet Chao Fa Prajadhipok Sakdidej (Thai: สมเด็จ เจ้าฟ้า ประชาธิปก ศักดิ เดชน์ , pronunciation: [ sǒmdèt ʨâːwfáː pràʨʰaː tʰípòk Sakdidet ], so Prince Prajadhipok Sakdidej ) was as sechsundsiebzigstes child of King on November 8, 1893 Chulalongkorn (Rama V) born. He was the youngest son of Chulalongkorn with his chief wife, Queen Saovabha . Prajadhipok attended Eton College and the Royal Military Academy Woolwich in England.

According to Thai tradition, Prince Prajadhipok went to the monastery for a three-month period ( Vassa ). He married his cousin, Princess Rambai Barni Svastivatana, in August 1918, in the Varopad Piman Villa of the Bang Pa In Summer Palace. From 1921 to 1924 Prajadhipok, who had embarked on a military career, continued his training at the French École supérieure de guerre .

Accession to the throne

King Rama VII at his coronation

As the youngest brother of the childless King Vajiravudh (Rama VI.) , He was actually the second in the line of the throne according to the Palace Law on Succession of 1924. Since the actual heir to the throne, his older brother Prince Asdang Dechavudh ( เจ้าฟ้า อัษฎางค์ เดชา วุ ธ ), had died in February 1925, he came to reign unprepared. He described himself as a dark horse ("outsider who suddenly gained notoriety") and completely inexperienced in state affairs. The coronation took place on November 26, 1925. At that time Siam was in an economically difficult phase and, as a result of the First World War, troubled. He himself estimated that the monarchy's prestige was at a low point. A few years later, the country was also hit by the effects of the global economic crisis .

Prajadhipok, who was influenced by liberal ideas, planned the transition of Siam to a constitutional monarchy based on the British model. On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Chakri dynasty on the Siamese throne in 1932, he wanted to give the country a constitution. The princes represented in the Supreme State Council, above all Prajadhipok's uncle Damrong Rajanubhab , resisted this plan and dissuaded the king from what seemed to them to be “radical”. The king lacked the ability to assert himself against the older and more experienced princes, who in fact divided executive power among themselves. In doing so, however, they caused anger in the rising middle class.

On the 150th anniversary of the Chakri dynasty in April 1932, King Rama VII inaugurated the Phra Phuttha Yodfa Bridge, named after his ancestor and founder of the ruling family Rama I , over the Mae Nam Chao Phraya ( Chao Phraya River ), the Bangkok and Thonburi connects.

Coup and Constitution

Rama VII. Together with his wife in 1934 in Berlin by Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath received

The new bourgeois elites trained in Europe could not find adequate work, and the court had to save and lay off workers. Overall, discontent rose so much that in the summer of 1932 a coup d'état (also known as the “Siamese Revolution”) by a group of bourgeois officers, state officials and intellectuals who called themselves Khana Ratsadon (“People's Party”) abolished the absolute monarchy . The king had the choice of either consenting to a constitutional monarchy or of abdicating immediately. Since he himself was not averse to the introduction of a constitution, Rama VII chose to remain on the throne. On December 10, 1932 he signed the constitution of Thailand dictated by the "People's Party" .

Prajadhipok took no position for Prince Boworadet , who tried in October 1933 with military force to reverse the loss of power of the nobility. He even declared his opposition to the rebellion so as not to give the impression that he was seeking a return to absolutism. However, he refused to come to the capital from his summer residence in Hua Hin and to stand behind the government. Instead, he even suddenly traveled to Songkhla in the far south of the empire, near the border with the then British protectorate of Malaya . This made the representatives of the People's Party suspicious and was interpreted by them as the king's flight from his responsibility. The event contributed significantly to the poor relationship between the rulers and the monarch and thus ultimately to his abdication.

In January 1934, Prajadhipok initially temporarily resigned as head of state for health reasons and went to England to have an eye ailment treated. During this time he was represented by his uncle Prince Narisara Nuwattiwong , who took over the function of regent .

Abdication and exile

Prajadhipok and Rambai Barni after their abdication in British exile

On March 2, 1935, the king finally abdicated because, in his view, the new government was not behaving according to democratic principles and he saw no chance of influencing further developments. Since there were no more male descendants of Queen Saovabha, the line of succession passed to the descendants of Chulalongkorn's second wife, Savang Vadhana . Prajadhipok's successor was thus his nephew, the only nine-year-old Prince Ananda Mahidol as King Rama VIII. However, he still lived in Switzerland and went to school there, so that in the following years Thailand actually had no king at all. Prajadhipok accepted the title of Prince of Sukhothai and stayed in exile in England.

After Major General Luang Phibunsongkhram of the nationalist-militarist wing of the “People's Party” became prime minister in 1938, he claimed to have uncovered a conspiracy by royalists who allegedly wanted to overthrow the constitutional order and bring Prajadhipok back to the throne. Under this pretext, he tried his political opponents. Prajadhipok, as the alleged backer of the rebellion, was declared persona non grata . He died on May 30, 1941. He was cremated in a private ceremony at Golders Green Crematorium in north London.

Aftermath

King Prajadhipok Museum in Bangkok.

His widow, Queen Rambai Barni, subsequently became a leading figure in the Seri Thai movement , which from England (and with the support of the British and American governments) resisted the Phibunsongkhram government and its collaboration with the Japanese armed forces .

In retrospect, Prajadhipok was the first constitutional monarch in Thailand to be stylized as a symbol of democracy and constitutional statehood. The König Prajadhipok Institute , founded after 1998 and named after him, is a state research and training center for democratic politics and administration. In addition, the King Prajadhipok Museum commemorates the life of the monarch with personal items, photographs and documents.

See also

• Rama (Kings of Thailand)
• Chakri dynasty
• History of Thailand

literature

• Prince Chula Chakrabongse of Thailand: Lords Of Life, The Paternal Monarchy Of Bangkok . Alvin Redman Ltd., London 1960 (without ISBN)
• Federico Ferrara: The Legend of King Prajadhipok. Tall Tales and Stubborn Facts on the Seventh Reign in Siam. (PDF; 192 kB) In: Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Volume 43, 2012, pp. 4–31. Archived from the original on September 14, 2013 ; accessed on November 28, 2015 . 
• Kobkua Suwannathat-Pian: Kings, Country and Constitutions. Thailand's Political Development, 1932-2000. Routledge Shorton, London / New York 2003, ISBN 0-7007-1473-1 , especially Chapter 3 "King Prajadhipok's Experience", p. 71 ff.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mahidol University: King Prajadhipok ( memento of November 17, 2002 in the Internet Archive ), King Prajadhipok's Institute ( memento of October 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
2. ^ The History of King Prajadhipok. Archived from the original on October 17, 2013 ; accessed on November 28, 2015 . 
3. ↑ The wedding. Archived from the original on October 17, 2013 ; accessed on November 28, 2015 . 
4. ↑ Kobkua Suwannathat-Pian: Kings, Country and Constitutions. 2003, p. 71.
5. ↑ Kobkua Suwannathat-Pian: Kings, Country and Constitutions. 2003, p. 72.
6. ↑ Succession to the Throne. Archived from the original on October 17, 2013 ; accessed on November 28, 2015 . 
7. ↑ Kobkua Suwannathat-Pian: Kings, Country and Constitutions. 2003, pp. 79-80.
8. ^ Granting the Constitution. Archived from the original on October 17, 2013 ; accessed on November 28, 2015 . 
9. ↑ Kobkua Suwannathat-Pian: Kings, Country and Constitutions. 2003, p. 107.
10. ^ Federico Ferrara: The Political Development of Modern Thailand. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2015, p. 96.
11. ^ Abdication. Archived from the original on October 17, 2013 ; accessed on November 28, 2015 . 
12. ^ E. Bruce Reynolds: Thailand's Secret War. OSS, SOE and the Free Thai Underground During World War II. Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 23-26.
13. ^ David Beetham: Parliament and Democracy in the Twenty-first Century. A Guide to Good Practice. Interparliamentary Union , 2006, p. 207.

Web links

Commons : Prajadhipok  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• King Prajadhipok Institute (Thai and English)
• Newspaper article about Prajadhipok in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .