Johannes of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Hereditary Prince of Kohary
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Johannes Albert Leopold Frederick Christian of Saxe-Coburg-Kohary, Hereditary Prince of Kohary and Duke of Saxony, in Slovak: Ján, in Hungarian: Jánoa, in German: Johannes Albert Leopold Friedrich Christian von Sachsen-Coburg-Kohary (born Innsbruck, 17 November 1969 - killed in skiing accident, Ortler, 21 August 1987) was a German royal (prince from the house of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) and presumed heir of his maternal uncle, the childless Emmanuel, Margrave of Meissen, Head of the Royal House of Saxony.
Johannes was the only child of the Princess Mathilde of Saxony, doctor of Medicine, the youngest daughter of Frederick Christian, Margrave of Meissen, thus a granddaughter of Frederick August III of Saxony who was deposed in 1918. Mathilde's brothers did not have any children, and her elder sister Anna's issue with Roberto de Afif was deemed lower-born than the uncontested dynastical prince Johannes. Because of his maternal uncles being already in their middle years and in marriages that look barren, young prince Johannes was groomed from his youth to become the heir of the remarkable material possessions and royal traditions of his mother's family.
Johannes however died on 21 August 1987 as result of a skiing accident when 17 years old. This left his mother's family without a clear dynastically eligible heir, and also left his father, the Prince of Kohary without a direct male heir.
Johannes also was the only son of John Henry of Saxe-Coburg, 10th Prince of Kohary (born 1931), who survived his son. Johannes Henry has since 1945 held the Headship of the Slovak princely house of Kohary, an Austro-Hungarian family of high nobility, whose former princely holdings were Čabrad and Sitno, lost to communist regime of Czechoslovakia. The next males of the Kohary descent are his nearer cousins who were born of a morganatic marriage (and whose branch has hitherto been deemed ineligible to succeed to Kohary rights), and his more distant cousin the ex-king Simeon II of Bulgaria with his sons and grandsons. Prince Johannes also has one half-sister, princess Felicitas of Kohary (born 1958), who is married with Sergey Trotzky, but females are farther in the Kohary succession than its agnates.
Prince Johannes' death made his maternal uncle to look at possibilities for arranging the royal Saxon succession after himself. In 1900s, he arrived at decision to make Johannes' first cousin Prince Alexander of Saxe-Gessaphe as his primary heir, but that arrangement seems to be controversial within the dynasty.
Prince Johannes' prominence is based on his position as nodal point in contemporary royal genealogy, and his unfortunate death which left yet more problems to more than one dynasty.
