Mihailo Obrenović III, Prince of Serbia
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Mihailo (Michael) Obrenović III (Serbian Cyrillic: Михаило Обреновић) (September 16 (September 4, OS), 1823 – June 10 (May 29, OS), 1868) was prince of Serbia from 1839–1842 and again from 1860–1868. He was deposed in 1842 and assassinated in 1868.
Mihailo was the son of Prince Miloš Obrenović (1780, Dobrinje-1860, Belgrade) and his wife Ljubica Vukomanović (1788 – 1843, Vienna). He was born in Kragujevac, the second surviving son of the couple. His elder brother Milan was born in 1819 but was frequently in poor health. He is stated as being the most enlightened ruler of modern Serbia . He advocated the idea of a Balkan federation against the Ottoman Empire.
On June 25, 1839 their father, Prince Miloš, abdicated in favor of Milan, who was by then terminally ill. His reign was to be short-lived, and he died on July 8, 1839 without having recovered consciousness and perhaps never realizing the crown was in his own hands. Thus, Mihailo became prince of Serbia, but was accepted as an elected ruler rather than a hereditary prince. However, he was still young and fairly inexperienced, and could hardly cope with the political problems, both internal as well as external, that Serbia had to deal with at the time.
In 1842 his disastrous reign came to a halt when he was overthrown by a rebellion led by Toma Vučić-Perišić, which enabled the Karađorđević to accede to the Serbian throne. Eleven years later, Mihailo married Countess Julia Hunyady von Kéthely (1831 – 1919). The marriage was childless. Finally, Mihailo was accepted back as prince of Serbia in 1860 after the death of Prince Aleksandar Karađorđević. For the next eight years he ruled as an enlightened absolutist monarch.
On June 10, 1868 he was strolling through a park Kosutnjak on the outskirts of Belgrade with his cousin Katarina Obrenović, wife of Aleksandar Konstantinović, when they were both shot and killed as a result of a plot that has never been sufficiently clarified. The Karađorđevićs were suspected of being behind the crime but there is not much proof to corroborate this.
Katarina's granddaughter Natalia Konstatinovic (b.1882) was married in 1902 to the Montenegrin Prince Mirko Petrovic-Njegos (1879-1918) whose sister Zorka had married King Petar Karađorđević I in 1883.
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Preceded by Milan Obrenović II |
Prince of Serbia 1839—1842 |
Succeeded by Aleksandar Karađorđević |
Preceded by Miloš Obrenović I |
Prince of Serbia 1860—1868 |
Succeeded by Milan Obrenović IV |