Prince Tomislav of Yugoslavia
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Prince Tomislav Karađorđević (Serbian Cyrillic: Томислав Карађорђевић) (January 19, 1928 – July 12, 2000).
Prince Tomislav was born on January 19, 1928, on Epiphany according to the Julian calendar used by the Serbian Orthodox Church, at 1 A.M., as the second son of the sovereign of the then Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia), King Aleksandar I Karađorđević (1888-1934) and Queen Maria (1900-1961), the second daughter of Romanian King Ferdinand (Hohenzollern) (1865-1927) and Romanian Queen Maria (1875-1938).
He was baptized on January 25 in a salon of the New Palace in Belgrade, by the British Crown's Minister at the Palace, Kennard, representing King George VI, with water from the Vardar and Danube rivers and the Adriatic Sea.
He began his elementary education at the Belgrade Palace. From 1937-1941, he attended Sandroyd School in Cobham, England, then the Oundle School from 1941-1946 and Clare College, Cambridge in 1946-1947.
Near the end of the war, in early 1945, under pressure from British Prime Minister Churchill, King Petar II transferred his royal powers to a regency controlled by the later Yugoslav president, Josip Broz Tito, under whose rule the Yugoslav Constitutional Assembly of November 29, 1945, abolished the monarchy (to be followed, on March 8, 1947, with the revocation of citizenship and confiscation of the property of the entire royal family).
After Cambridge, Prince Tomislav decided to devote himself to fruit growing. While he attended agricultural college, he worked summers as an ordinary field hand in an orchard in Kent. In 1950, he bought a farm in West Sussex, and subsequently specialized in growing apples, having at one point 17,000 trees on 80 hectares of land.
He was married on June 7, 1957, in Salem (Baden, West Germany), to Princess Margarita of Baden, out of which marriage were born Prince Nikola (1958) and Princess Katarina (1959).
After his divorce in 1982, he married Linda Mary Bonney, out of which marriage were born two sons, Prince George (1984) and Prince Michael (1985).
Prince Tomislav was highly active in the life of the Serb emigration, organizing numerous celebrations and gatherings at his farm, and participating in numerous humanitarian organizations and initiatives. Among others, he was president of the Yugoslav Committee for Providing Aid to Old Warriors, the Protector of the Lazarica Church in Birmingham and the President of the Committee for the Restoration of the Hilandar Monastery on Mt. Athos. He was also a high official of the British Order of the Knights of St. John.
During the schism in the Serbian Orthodox Church, during the 1960s and all the way up to its end in 1992, he stood firmly with the Patriarchate in Belgrade, publicly supporting it throughout the Serb emigration.
In 1990, he refused the offer of the Belgrade-based Democratic Party to be its presidential candidate in the first post-war elections scheduled for December of that year.
He was the first member of the ex-royal family who permanently moved back to Serbia, in early 1992, making his residence at the King Petar I Foundation Complex in Oplenac, Serbia, which soon became a mecca for all who wished to personally meet a living prince and the last living son of King Aleksandar I.
He soon became a highly popular figure, especially due to his frequent visits to the Serb soldiers in Republika Srpska and the Republic of Serb Krajina, and the aid he dispensed along with his wife, Princess Linda. There were initiatives for him to be crowned Prince of the Serb-held part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which were, however, rejected by the local political leadership.
After publicly accusing then Serbian president Slobodan Milošević for having "betrayed" the Republic of Serb Krajina, after it fell to the joint Croatian Army operation "Storm" at the beginning of August 1995, his media presence was drastically reduced.
The last five years of his life were marked by a battle with terminal illness; however, he turned down offers for surgery abroad at the time NATO forces began their bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on March 24, 1999, choosing to remain and share the lot of the nation, touring bombing sites even while seriously ill.
He died on July 12, 2000, on St. Peter and Paul Day in the Julian Calendar, the patron saints of the family crypt on Oplenac, where he was buried, in a funeral attended by a crowd of several thousand.
[edit] Issue
- prince Nikola
- princess Katarina of Yugoslavia (born 1959). She is married to Desmond de Silva QC and has a daughter Victoria de Silva.
- prince George of Yugoslavia (born on May 25, 1984 at The Portland Hospital in London). He has attended a University in the north of Scotland, and is currently studying at Belgrade University, Military Academy. He has also run a fireworks company in the past and his interests include engineering and motor sport.
- prince Michael
