2024-09-04 18:12:31
One is left without a father at the age of 6, and the other – without a mother at the age of 5. They want the permission of the Vatican for weddings with Catholic women. They give rights to women, they experience coups
In the life of Tsar Boris III, whose death marked 81 years on August 28, there are several coincidences with similar events in his son Simeon, although
the two have only been communicating live for 6 years.
Then the father dies under mysterious circumstances, and the young heir to the throne becomes king.
One of the first events for both of them is that they were left without one parent early on. Boris III lost his mother – Princess Maria Luisa Bourbon of Parma, when he was only 5 years old. She fell ill with tuberculosis and the doctors at that stage of the development of medicine were powerless to save her.
Then Tsar Ferdinand took charge of Boris’s education personally, and this undoubtedly had an impact. The heir to the throne acquired a stepmother – Princess Eleonora, at the age of 14. She has a wonderful attitude towards her husband’s children, but she cannot replace their mother, and they are already old enough.
Similarly, Simeon of Saxe-Coburg was orphaned at the age of 6. Queen Joanna never married again, and her son not only has no stepfather after this, but he has to get used to the world of the great because he is anointed king. He rules proforma through his regents, and yet even the protocol events he has to attend are not typical of a child.
Later, when they wanted to marry, both Boris III and Simeon II faced the same obstacle. They are Orthodox, their chosen ones are Catholic, and both in 1930 and in 1962, the two varieties of the Christian religion still did not allow mixed marriages and set conditions for them.
The Roman Catholic Church, which had already excommunicated Ferdinand
because he baptized his first-born son as Orthodox, he asked the grown-up Boris to promise in writing that his children with Joanna of Savoy would be Catholics.
He finds himself in a very difficult dilemma, because the Tarnovo Constitution obliges him that the heir to the throne be Orthodox. He cannot please both churches. Boris solves the issue, and after several meetings in the Vatican and with the papal nuncio in our country – Angelo Roncalli, he verbally promises that his children will be Catholics. But he does not comply with it, because he adheres to Bulgarian laws and norms. Even the older sister of Simeon of Saxe-Coburg-Goth – Maria Louisa – is Orthodox.
The same cardinal in 1962 was already Pope John XXIII and gave his blessing for the son of Boris III to marry his beloved Margarita. Before reaching the hepienda, the same requirement is set – that his children be Catholic. But
the future Bulgarian Prime Minister complies with the Tarnovo Constitution.
He baptized his first two sons in the Orthodox faith, and the others and Princess Kalina in the Catholic faith.
Simeon has before him not only the example of his father, but he has studied in detail whether there are no other precedents. His consultant had found a case from 1938 in Japan where the local bishop took responsibility for the marriage of a Catholic woman and a Shinto governor without requiring any guarantees.
In the year before the wedding of Simeon and Margarita, a similar marriage was concluded between the Greek princess Sophia and the Spanish king Juan Carlos of Bourbon. It coincides with the Second Vatican Council, in which Catholics and Orthodox try to overcome the age-old schism. Thus, Saxe-Coburg-Goth found the moment of reconciliation between the two churches, and this helped him to marry Dona Margarita. Of course, John XXIII, known as the “Bulgarian Pope”, also gives his blessing.
Despite the lack of contact in more conscious years between him and his father, there is a repetition in their political actions as well. Women play an important role in the lives of the two Coburgs as rulers. Boris III was the first ruler of the Third Bulgarian Kingdom to allow the weaker sex to vote.
Women’s suffrage in our country was introduced in 1935.
– just one year after the May 19th coup, in which political formations were banned. Simeon II used the registration of the Bulgarian Women’s Party together with the National Movement “Oborishte”, when in 2001 the court did not register his party NDSV for the vote. And in the lists and in the key positions in the administration, he relied on the fairer sex.
To make it clear how forward-looking Tsar Boris acted, we should mention that France allowed women to have the right to vote only in 1944, and Portugal – in 1974. Russia trusted them even after the revolution in 1917. , USA – in 1919
The two monarchs also have a strong relationship with the military. They were produced in officer rank from birth, which is typical of the heirs to the throne in Europe, who then become supreme commanders of their countries. Tsar Boris III participated personally on the fronts of the Balkan Wars and in the First World War. His son did not see combat with his own eyes, but attended the Valley Forge Military Academy in the United States. Under Simeon, there are two more connections with the army – during his term as prime minister, the agreement on Bulgaria’s accession to NATO was signed. In addition, his godfather is the oldest infantry general of his time – Danail Nikolaev.
However, there is a distinct difference in the baptism of the father and the son.
Boris III was first initiated into the Catholic faith, but the dissatisfaction of Russia and the Bulgarian people forced Ferdinand to ask the emperor to baptize the future king as Orthodox.
But before this happened, according to the tradition of Catholics, Boris had already received several names after the first one: Kliment (to his grandmother Clementina) Maria (as his mother) Robert (his grandfather) Pius (the pope, his mother’s godfather) Turnovsky to the old Bulgarian capital.
With Simeon, all this was spared, because the Orthodox tradition was different, and he was directly baptized as an Eastern Orthodox. Queen Joanna wanted to name her son Borislav, but the crowd gathered in front of the palace chanted the name Simeon. But in fact, both he and his father were named after some of the most famous Bulgarian rulers – Boris I the Baptist and Simeon I the Great.
This has not prevented dramatic events from happening to them – they both experience coups. One – the Nineteenth of June and the Nineteenth of May, and the other – the Nineteenth of September. And while the last
radically changes the course of Simeon’s life, dethrones him,
his parent had to recognize the authority of the military and Alexander Tsankov in 1923, and of the officers and Kimon Georgiev in 1934.
According to the memories of one of the participants in the events of May 19, 1934 – Petar Hadiivanov, there were even plans to kill the king and his family if they opposed what was happening. A group of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization had been prepared to enter the palace unhindered with the help of the Military Union officers guarding the entrances. The decision was canceled at the last minute. Kimon Georgiev also spoke of an option for the forced abdication of the king if he did not agree to their demands.
But at that moment Boris III survived. As did his son after September 9, 1944, but only because he was a minor.
Instead, the Bulgarian Communist Party organized a referendum and declared the country a republic, expelling little Simeon, his mother and sister out of the country. Thus he begins his exile – something his father did not experience.
There is another plot line that somehow unites the lives of Boris and Simeon –
Rila and the Rila Monastery play an important role for both of them.
The father uses the name Rilski when he wants to travel incognito, and his son poses as Cadet Rilski at the academy in the United States.
In Rila is the “Tsarska Bistrica” palace, where they both like to stay. There are the thousands of acres of forests, for which cases are still ongoing whether they are state or private property of the Bulgarian monarchs.
They like to climb the peak of the Balkans – Mount Musala, from the mountain villa.
And what is different are the rumors about their bachelor romances – while one has at least some talk, the other is not talked about except for his wife. In 1911, the “Washington Post” announced a future match between the then Prince Boris Turnovsky and the daughter of his godfather, Emperor Nicholas II – the Russian Grand Duchess Olga. That never happens.
The following year, the same journalist wrote about an arrangement for a marriage between the Bulgarian heir to the throne and the Romanian princess Elisaveta. Perhaps the occasion for this article was the visit of her aunt and namesake – Queen Elizabeth, visiting Queen Eleonora in Sofia in 1911. 10 years later, the young Romanian married the Greek crown prince George.
For Simeon of Saxe-Coburg, history is silent on whether he was in love and whether he was forced to marry a European princess according to the dynastic tradition. All that is known is about his love with Doña Margarita, with whom life separated him several times before they got engaged and spent 62 years together.
First, he went to study at the Valley Forge Military Academy in the United States. She arrives to visit a friend and Simeon invites her to a ball. In the meantime though
Dona Margarita left for Japan and the meeting did not take place.
See you next year in Madrid. The two married in Switzerland according to three customs – Catholic, Orthodox and civil marriage.
If the BKP had not expelled the royal family from Bulgaria, the wedding would hardly have been so glamorous.
But Simeon is in exile – something that did not happen to his father, speaking of common and different episodes in their lives.
At the expense of this, however, his grandfather Ferdinand was forced to leave our country like his grandson. And the bearer of dynastic rights bears the name of the last full-fledged Bulgarian king, Boris. Which suggests that the coincidences in the lives of the men in the family may not end there.