Draga Mašin

Draga Obrenović
Queen consort of Serbia
Tenure	5 August 1900 – 11 June 1903
Spouse	Svetozar Mašin Alexander I of Serbia
Full name
Draga Milićević Lunjevica
House	House of Obrenović
Father	Pantelija Milićević Lunjevica
Mother	Anđelija Koljević
Born	(1864-09-11)11 September 1864 Gornji Milanovac, Principality of Serbia
Died	11 June 1903(1903-06-11) (aged 38) Belgrade, Kingdom of Serbia
Religion	Christian (Orthodox)

Draga Obrenović (Serbian: Драга Обреновић; née Milićević Lunjevica, Милићевић Луњевица; former Mašin, Машин) (11 September 1864 – 11 June 1903), also known as Queen Draga, was the queen and wife of King Aleksandar Obrenović of the Kingdom of Serbia. She was formerly a lady-in-waiting to Aleksandar's mother Queen Natalija.

Queen of Serbia

Draga (meaning Dear or Precious in English, {cognate with the word dear through Indo-European}) was the fourth daughter of Pantelija Milićević Lunjevica, a prefect of the Aranđelovac area, and wife Anđelija Koljević. Draga was the sixth of seven siblings. She had two brothers, Nikola (Nicholas) and Nikodije (Nicodemus)--both of whom who died with her--and four sisters, Hristina (Christine), Đina, Ana (Anne) and Vojka.

Her mother was dipsomaniac and her father died in a lunatic asylum.^[1]

She was the granddaughter of a close fellow soldier of Aleksandar's great-granduncle (Nikola Milićević Lunjevica). Her paternal grandmother was Đurđija Čarapić,^[2] a relative of Vojvoda Ilija Čarapić (died 1844), husband of Karađorđe Petrović's daughter Stamenka Karađorđević. At the time of her second marriage, she was the widow of Svetozar Mašín (1851–1886), a Czech civil engineer, and was twelve years older than Aleksandar.

They married on 5 August 1900. When Aleksandar announced their engagement, public opinion turned against him. He was viewed as a besotted young fool in the power of a wicked seductress. Dowager Queen Natalija bitterly opposed the marriage, and was exiled by her son, in part because of it. His many arbitrary and unpopular acts were blamed on Draga's influence. There were rumours that Aleksandar would name Draga's brother as heir-presumptive to the throne.

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Assassination

This last rumour was what led to the royal couple's assassination. On 11 June 1903, a group of army officers invaded the royal palace, led by Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević. They found Aleksandar and Draga hiding in a large built-in wardrobe and savagely murdered them, throwing their mutilated bodies from a palace balcony onto piles of garden manure.^[3] Her two brothers, Nikodije and Nikola, were executed by firing squad on the same day.

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