Simeon Sakskoburggotski

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Simeon Borissow Sakskoburggotski (2015)

Simeon Borissov Saxe-Coburg Gotha , German Simeon Saxe-Coburg and Gotha ( Bulgarian Симеон Борисов Сакскобургготски * 16th June 1937 in Sofia ) was when Simeon II. Underage 1943-1946, the last Tsar of Czardom Bulgaria and between 2001 and 2005 Prime Minister of the Republic Bulgaria . He is also the head of the Sachsen-Coburg-Koháry line , a branch line of the Sachsen-Coburg and Gotha family .

origin

On his father's side, Simeon comes from the Catholic sideline Koháry of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as well as the French dynasty Orléans . His great-grandmother was Princess Clementine d'Orléans , daughter of the "Citizen King" Louis Philip I of France. She married Prince August von Sachsen-Coburg and Gotha , son of Prince Ferdinand Georg August von Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld-Koháry and Maria Antonie Gabriele von Koháry . On his mother's side, he is associated with the Italian Savoy dynasty . His mother was Princess Giovanna of Savoy , who was the third daughter of King Victor Emanuel III. of Italy and Queen Elena , nee Princess of Montenegro , was born. His godfather was Danail Nikolaew , a highly decorated Bulgarian military man , known as the “grandfather of the Bulgarian armed forces”, and temporarily Bulgaria's minister of war.

Life

Simeon was the second child of Tsar Boris III. and Tsarina Giovanna of Savoy as the Bulgarian heir to the throne on June 16, 1937 in Sofia and received the title Knjas "Simeon Tarnowski" ( Bulgarian княз Симеон Търновски ; German: Prince Simeon von Tarnowo ). Like Elizabeth II , Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and Philippe , King of the Belgians, he belongs to the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. After the death of his father on August 28, 1943, Simeon ascended the Bulgarian throne at the age of 6. Since he was still a minor , a three-member Regency Council, consisting of his uncle Prince Kyrill of Bulgaria , Defense Minister Lieutenant General Nikola Michow (1891-1945) and Prime Minister Bogdan Filow , led the official business since September 9, 1943 .

Second world war and exile

Only a few days after Simeon's accession to the throne came the proposal from Germany that Hitler should be appointed guardian of the minor king. Queen Giovanna managed to smuggle her son through Turkey to Syria , where she stayed with him until the end of the war. After the Germans withdrew from Bulgaria, Queen Giovanna and her son Simeon II returned to Bulgaria. After the invasion of Soviet troops on September 5, 1944 and the Communists seizing power on September 9, the three members of the Regency Council and 92 other officials were sentenced to death and executed in February 1945 , but Simeon initially remained king. After a referendum in 1946, the Bulgarians voted for the republic with 3.8 million votes against only 200,000. The abolition of the monarchy forced the royal family to flee, whereupon they left Bulgaria for good on September 16, 1946, accompanied by ten court members.

Queen Giovanna and her family initially settled in very poor conditions in Egypt , where her father, the former Italian King Victor Emanuel III. , lived in exile. In 1951 the family accepted an invitation from the Spanish dictator General Franco and went to Madrid , where they were given a house with Spanish servants and were granted diplomatic status and full royal privileges. When the great fortune that her father Viktor Emanuel III. left by Italy, became free and could be paid off to the heirs, Giovanna of Savoy received a seventh. This secured the financial future of the royal family. She later took up residence in Estoril / Portugal.

Training and work

Simeon graduated from Victoria College , Alexandria , Egypt. He later attended the Lycée français de Madrid , where he studied law and political science . 1958-1959 he attended the boarding school Valley Forge Military Academy and College in Pennsylvania (USA) as a cadet Rilsky . He completed his training with the rank of lieutenant . In addition to Bulgarian, he speaks English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Arabic and Portuguese.

For thirteen years, Simeon Sakskoburggotski worked as President of the Spanish branch of the French defense electronics group Thomson (Thomson-CSF; later Thales Group ). He has also acted as a consultant to several major companies in Europe and Africa in the banking, hospitality, electronics and food delivery sectors.

Return to the political life of Bulgaria

In 1996 Simeon von Sachsen-Coburg and Gotha, now under the real name Sakskoburggotski, returned to Bulgaria, which had been democratic since 1990, for the first time after almost 50 years of exile. On April 8, 2001 he founded the National Movement Simeon II. (NDSW, since 2007 National Movement for Stability and Progress ), which ran for parliamentary elections on June 17, 2001. After a clear victory with 42.74 percent of the votes (120 of the 240 seats) in front of the second-placed conservative electoral alliance VDK ("United Democratic Forces") with 18.17 percent of the votes (51 seats), he formed a coalition with the Turkish minority party DPS (7th , 45 percent, 21 seats) and was elected Prime Minister on July 24, 2001. His party, which had existed for almost ten weeks, only missed an absolute majority by one seat. Simeon is the only deposed European monarch in history to have regained political power in a democratic election.

As Prime Minister, Simeon continued the conservative course of the previous government and ensured a further upswing through economic policy measures, which was only felt in the urban areas. However, he was unable to keep his election promise made in 2001 to change the country noticeably in 800 days. In the 2005 parliamentary elections, his party was unable to repeat the success and, under pressure from former coalition partner DPS, became a junior partner in a grand coalition led by the Bulgarian Socialist Party , the renamed and reformed Communist Party. The result was a government in which the successors of the communists, who were responsible for Simeon's deposition as monarch in 1946 and for the re-Bulgarization campaign against the Bulgarian Muslims in the 1980s, and the Muslims who had fought against communist repression in the late 1980s, and last but not least, found Simeon himself again.

After the NDSW no longer came through the threshold of four percent in 2009, which was due to the corruption allegations against the three-party coalition, Simeon resigned from the party chairmanship.

Marriage and offspring

Simeon Sakskoburggotski with his wife Doña Margarita Gómez-Acebo y Cejuela (2017)

In 1962 Simeon married the Spanish noblewoman Doña Margarita Gómez-Acebo y Cejuela (* 1935). The couple have five children: four sons and a daughter. His son Kiril was an economic advisor to the Bulgarian President Petar Stojanow (1997-2002).

  • Cardam (1962–2015) ∞ Miriam de Ungria (* 1963)
    • Boris (* 1997)
    • Beltran (* 1999)
  • Kiril (* 1964) ∞ Rosario Nadal de Puigdorfila (* 1968)
    • Mafalda (* 1994)
    • Olympia (* 1995)
    • Tassilo (* 2002)
  • Kubrat (* 1965) ∞ Carla Royo-Villanova (* 1969)
    • Mirko (* 1995)
    • Lukas (* 1997)
    • Tirso (* 2002)
  • Konstantin-Assen (* 1967) ∞ Maria Gracia de la Rasilla (* 1970)
    • Umberto (* 1999)
    • Sofia (* 1999)
  • Kalina (* 1972) ∞ Antonio "Kitín" Muñoz Valcárcel (* 1958)
    • Simeon Hassan Muñoz (* 2007)

Orders and decorations

According to the decree of the President of the Republic of Bulgaria on July 15, 2007, Simeon was awarded the highest state honor, the Grand Cross of the Order "Stara Planina" , in recognition of his services to the state . He is also the holder of over thirty other international medals , including:

Movie

1996 The return of the tsar. 45 minutes NDR, directed by Jean Boué

The German-Bulgarian documentary film The Boy Who Was King by Andrei Paunow, produced in 2011, describes the life of Simeon II / Simeon Sakskoburggotski and his influence on today's Bulgarian society.

literature

  • Hans-Joachim Böttcher : Ferdinand von Sachsen-Coburg and Gotha 1861–1948 - A cosmopolitan on the Bulgarian throne . East European Center Berlin / Publishing House (Anthea Publishing Group), Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-89998-296-1 .

Web links

Commons : Simeon Sakskoburggotski  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Josef Knodt: Ferdinand the Bulgarian: The Balkan Mission of a Prince from the House of Saxe-Koburg and Gotha-Kohary. 1887-1918. Bechauf, Bielefeld 1947, OCLC 452471702 , p. 43.
  2. ↑ Five Cornerstones. In: vfmac.edu. Archived from the original on August 20, 2009 ; accessed on July 24, 2021 .
  3. ↑ Iskra Baeva, Evgenia Kalinova: Bulgaria from East to West: Contemporary History from 1939. Translated by Michael Meznik. Braumüller, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-7003-1639-8 , p. 140.
  4. ↑ The boy who was king. Documentary Bulgaria / Germany, 2011. In: ard.de . July 7, 2012, accessed July 24, 2021 .
personal data
SURNAME Sakskoburggotski, Simeon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Simon of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha; Simeon II (name as Tsar); Сакскобургготски, Симеон Борисов (Bulgarian); Sakskoburggotski, Simeon Borissow (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION last Bulgarian Tsar (1943–1946), Prime Minister of the Republic of Bulgaria (2001–2005)
BIRTH DATE June 16, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Sofia