Giovanna of Italy

Giovanna of Italy
Tsaritsa consort of Bulgaria
Tenure	25 October 1930 – 28 August 1943
Spouse	Boris III of Bulgaria
Issue
Princess Marie Louise Simeon II of Bulgaria
Full name
Giovanna Elisabetta Antonia Romana Maria
House	House of Savoy House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Father	Victor Emmanuel III of Italy
Mother	Elena of Montenegro
Born	(1907-11-13)13 November 1907 Rome, Italy
Died	26 February 2000(2000-02-26) (aged 92) Estoril, Portugal
Burial	Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi
Religion	Roman Catholic

Giovanna of Italy (Bulgarian: Йоанна Савойска, Italian: Giovanna Elisabetta Antonia Romana Maria) (13 November 1907 – 26 February 2000) was the last Tsaritsa of Bulgaria.

Childhood

Princess Giovanna of Savoy as a small child.

Giovanna was born in Rome, the third daughter and fourth child of King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy and Queen Elena, former Princess of Montenegro. She was raised in the Villa Savoia and from a young age was aware of her aim in life: to further the House of Savoy's dynastic aspirations through marriage. Upon her christening into the Catholic faith, she was given the names Giovanna Elisabetta Antonia Romana Maria. Her older brother was the future Italian king Umberto II of Italy.

Marriage and children

Although it would eventually prove to be of no assistance to Italy, Giovanna duly married Tsar Boris III of Bulgaria in Assisi in October 1930, in a Roman Catholic ceremony, attended by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Bulgarians deemed her a good match, partly because of her mother's native Slavic ethnicity. At a second ceremony in Sofia, Bulgaria, Giovanna (who herself was daughter of a Roman Catholic father and a born Orthodox mother) was married in an Eastern Orthodox Church ceremony, bringing her into conflict with the Roman Catholic Church. Giovanna adopted the Bulgarian version of her name, Ioanna. Giovanna knew the Pope's Apostolic Visitor to Bulgaria, Archbishop Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII who was able to help her. She and Boris had two children: Marie Louise of Bulgaria, born in January 1933, and then the future Simeon II of Bulgaria in 1937.

In the years prior to World War II, Tsaritsa Ioanna became heavily involved in charities, including the financing of a children's hospital. During the war she counterbalanced her husband consigning Bulgaria to the Axis by obtaining transit visas to enable a number of Jews to escape to Argentina. Tsar Boris also proved less malleable than Hitler had hoped, and following a meeting in Berlin in August 1943, the Tsar became seriously ill and died, aged 49. While stress and a heart condition were the official reasons for his death, rumours that he had been poisoned by Hitler were voiced at the time and have since grown. Ioanna's son, Simeon, became the new Tsar and a regency was established led by his uncle Prince Kyril, who was considered more pliable by the Germans.

Late Years

Styles of Queen Ioanna of The Bulgarians
Reference style	Her Majesty
Spoken style	Your Majesty
Alternative style	Ma'am

In the dying days of World War II, Bulgaria was invaded by the Soviet Union. Prince Kyril was tried by a People's Court and subsequently executed. Giovanna and Simeon remained under home arrest at Vrana Palace, near Sofia until 1946, when the new Communist government gave them 48 hours to leave the country. After initially fleeing to Alexandria, Egypt, to be with her father, Victor Emmanuel III, they moved to Madrid. After the marriage of Simeon II to the Spanish noblewoman Margarita Gómez-Acebo y Cejuela (a distant relative of the present Spanish King's late brother-in-law) in 1962, Tsaritsa Ioanna moved to Estoril, Portugal, where she lived for the rest of her life, excepting a brief return to Bulgaria in 1993 when she visited Boris's grave. During this last visit to Bulgaria she received a most cordial welcome and thousands of people went on the streets to greet her.

She is buried in Assisi, Italy, where she married King Boris III in 1930.

Ancestry

References