| Prince Paul | |
|---|---|
| Prince Regent of Yugoslavia | |
| Regency | 9 October 1934 – 27 March 1941 |
| Spouse | Princess Olga of Greece and Denmark |
| Issue | |
| Prince Alexander Prince Nicholas Princess Elizabeth |
|
| House | House of Karađorđević |
| Father | Prince Arsen of Yugoslavia |
| Mother | Aurora Pavlovna Demidova |
| Born | 27 April 1893 |
| Died | 14 September 1976 (aged 83) Paris, France |
| Religion | Serbian Orthodox |
| Styles of Prince Paul |
|
|---|---|
| Reference style | His Royal Highness |
| Spoken style | Your Royal Highness |
| Alternative style | Sir |
Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, also known as Paul Karađorđević (Serbo-Croatian: Pavle Karađorđević, Serbian Cyrillic alphabet: Павле Карађорђевић, Slovene: Pavel Karadjordjević, English transliteration: Paul Karageorgevich; 27 April 1893 – 14 September 1976), was Regent of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia during the minority of King Peter II. Peter was the eldest son of his first cousin Alexander I. His title in Yugoslavia was Knez (Knez Pavle Karađorđević), which translates best as "Prince". Prince Paul was officially rehabilitated by Serbian courts in 2011.
Contents |
Prince Paul of Yugoslavia was the only son of Arsen Karađorđević, Prince of Serbia (a brother of Peter I of Serbia) and Princess and Countess Aurora Pavlovna Demidova (a granddaughter of the Finnish philanthropist Aurora Karamzin and her Russian husband Prince and Count Pavel Nikolaievich Demidov, and Russian Prince Peter Troubetskoy and his wife Elisabeth Esperovna, née Princess Belosselsky-Belozersky). He married Princess Olga of Greece and Denmark, a sister of Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, in 1923. George VI of the United Kingdom, as Duke of York, was best man at his wedding in Belgrade.
Paul was educated at the University of Oxford, where he was a member of the exclusive Bullingdon Club - a dining club notorious for its practice of destroying restaurants' property. His closest friends (including the American-born, naturalized British politician Chips Channon) and outlook on life were said to be British. He was installed as a Knight of the Garter in 1939.
On 9 October 1934, Prince Paul took the Regency after his cousin King Alexander was assassinated in Marseille, France. In his will, Alexander named Paul, as the first of three regents to govern until September 1941, when Alexander's son Peter would come of age.[1]
Prince Paul, far more than Alexander, was Yugoslav rather than Serb in outlook. In its broadest outline, his domestic policy was to eliminate the heritage of the Alexandrine dictatorship centralism, censorship, and military control; and to pacify the country by solving the Serb-Croat problem.[2]
In August 1939, the Cvetkovic-Macek Agreement set up the Banovina of Croatia. The central government retained control of foreign affairs, national defence, foreign trade, commerce, transport, public security, religion, mining, weights and measures, insurance, and education policy. Croatia was to have its own legislature in Zagreb, and a separate budget.[3]
When World War II broke out, Yugoslavia declared its neutrality.[4] On March 25, 1941, Yugoslav government signed the Tripartite Pact with significant reservations as it received three notes. The first note obliged the Axis powers to respect territorial integrity and sovereignty of Yugoslavia. In the second note the Axis promised not to ask Yugoslavia for any military assistance. In the third note they promised not to ask Yugoslavia for permission to move military forces across its territory during the war.[5]
Two days later, Prince Paul was forcibly removed from power.[6]
From this distance, the Prince Paul's foreign policy including the signing of the Tripartite Pact seems to have been governed by the desire to give his country as much leeway as possible in thoroughly adverse circumstances. After the fall of France and the defeat of the British, Paul saw no way of saving Yugoslavia except through adopting policies of accommodation to the Axis powers. But even under those circumstances Paul, outwardly neutral, remained determinedly pro-Allied. He aided Greece when Greece was invaded. He fostered military collaboration between the Yugoslav Army and the French. And for almost three years he parried the Axis thrust toward Yugoslavia.[7]
For the remainder of the war, Prince Paul was kept, with his family, under house arrest by the British in Kenya.
Princess Elizabeth, his only daughter, obtained and published information from the Special Operations Executive files in the Foreign Office in London and published them in Belgrade, in the 1990 edition of the Serbian-language biography of her father. The original book Paul of Yugoslavia was written by Neil Balfour, the first was published by Eaglet Publishing in London in 1980.
Prince Paul died in Paris on 14 September 1976, aged 83.[8] He never returned to Yugoslavia.
Prince Paul was father of Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia, Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia the Elder and Prince Nikola of Yugoslavia, and a grandfather of American actress Catherine Oxenberg.
Prince Paul collected, donated and dedicated a large number of art works to Serbia and the Serbian people, including foreign masterpieces. There are especially significant Italian, French and Dutch/Flemish pieces. Most of the works are in the National Museum of Serbia, including work by artists such as Rubens, Renoir, Monet, Rembrandt, Picasso, Van Gogh and Cézanne.
|
Prince Paul of Yugoslavia
Born: 27 April 1893 Died: 14 September 1976 |
||
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Aleksandar I as King of Yugoslavia |
Regent of Yugoslavia 9 October 1934 – 27 March 1941 |
Succeeded by Peter II as King of Yugoslavia |
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||