Natalija Obrenovic
Encyclopedia
Natalie Keşco was Princess consort
Princess consort
Princess consort is a title or an informal designation normally given to the wife of a sovereign prince. Since a male sovereign ruler is generally titled as a king and not a prince, the title of princess consort is not widely used. More rarely, it may be given to the spouse of a king, if the more...

 of the Principality of Serbia from 1875 to 1882 and the Queen consort
Queen consort
A queen consort is the wife of a reigning king. A queen consort usually shares her husband's rank and holds the feminine equivalent of the king's monarchical titles. Historically, queens consort do not share the king regnant's political and military powers. Most queens in history were queens consort...

 of the Kingdom of Serbia
Kingdom of Serbia
The Kingdom of Serbia was created when Prince Milan Obrenović, ruler of the Principality of Serbia, was crowned King in 1882. The Principality of Serbia was ruled by the Karađorđevic dynasty from 1817 onwards . The Principality, suzerain to the Porte, had expelled all Ottoman troops by 1867, de...

 from 23 March 1882 to 6 March 1889 as the wife of King Milan Obrenović IV
Milan Obrenovic IV
Milan Obrenović was a Serbian monarch reigning as Prince Milan IV of Serbia from 1868 to 1882 and King Milan I of Serbia from 1882 to 1889.-Early years:...

.

Early life and royal marriage

She was born in 1859 in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

 as the first child of the Russia
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

n colonel
Colonel
Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...

 Piotrj Ivanovich Keşco (born Petre Keşco, son of a Marshal of Nobility
Marshal of Nobility
Marshal of Nobility was an elected position in Russian local self-government prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917.- History :Nobility of each province formed a corporation, Noble Society , governed by the Assembly of Nobility with an elected Marshal of Nobility at its head...

 of Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....

) (1830-1865), and Princess Pulcheria Sturdza
Sturdza family
Sturdza, Sturza or Stourdza is the name of an old Romanian family, whose origins can be traced back to the 1540s.The Sturdza family has been long and intimately associated with the government first of Moldavia and afterwards of Romania...

 of Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...

 (1831-1874). During her childhood, a fortune teller predicted that some day she would wear a crown and that she would lose it - a prediction that would come true.

She had two sisters and one brother:
  • Maria (Mary) (1861-1935), who married on 13 April 1886 Prince Grigore Ghica-Brigadier
    Ghica family
    The Ghica family were a Romanian noble family, active in Wallachia, Moldavia and in the Kingdom of Romania. In the 18th century, several branches of the family went through a process of Hellenization...

     (1847-1913).
  • Ecaterina (Catherine), who married on 5 February 1883 their relative Prince Eugen Ghica
    Ghica family
    The Ghica family were a Romanian noble family, active in Wallachia, Moldavia and in the Kingdom of Romania. In the 18th century, several branches of the family went through a process of Hellenization...

    -Comăneşti
    Comanesti
    Comăneşti is a town in Bacău County, Romania, with a population of 26,230. It is situated on the Trotuş River, which flows between the Ciuc and the Tarcău mountains .The town administers two villages, Podei and Vermeşti.-History:...

     (1840-1912).
  • Ioniţă (John), only brother; he was the fourth and last child.


She married Prince Milan Obrenović IV of Serbia on 17 October 1875 and had two sons with him, the future king Alexander, born 1876, whose godfather was Tsar Alexander II of Russia
Alexander II of Russia
Alexander II , also known as Alexander the Liberator was the Emperor of the Russian Empire from 3 March 1855 until his assassination in 1881...

, and his younger brother Sergei (Sergije), who died just a few days after his birth in 1878.

When Prince Milan proclaimed the Kingdom of Serbia in 1882 after securing international recognition, Princess Natalie assumed the title and rank of Queen of Serbia.

Royal conflict and divorce 1887/88

The relationship of the Royal couple reached a critical level in 1887, following many affairs of the king with other women, but even political differences between king and queen. The king pursued a pro-Austrian foreign policy which the Russian-born and slavophile queen would not tolerate.

These conflict developed into a public scandal when the queen - accompanied by her child, the eleven-year-old crown prince Alexander - left Serbia and settled in the Russian Crimea in May 1887. Slavophile public in Russia honoured the Serbian queen demonstratively. Rumours spread about a royal divorce in the near future, and there was public talk about the king's abdication in favour of his son. These rumours proved to be premature - the divorce occurred one year later, the abdication followed in 1889. In July 1887, the queen and her son returned to Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

, in August the queen left her country again for Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...

. In October, king and queen met in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

 for a formal reconciliation, and with the king's approval the queen and the crown prince left for another foreign travel to Italy until November.

In 1888, Queen Natalie and her son left for another long foreign stay in Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden is a city in southwest Germany and the capital of the federal state of Hesse. It has about 275,400 inhabitants, plus approximately 10,000 United States citizens...

 - obviously without intention to return to Belgrade. The public private scandal turned into politics when the king used the German police in July 1888 to bring the young crown prince back to his kingdom.

Soon afterwards King Milan opened the ecclesiastical procedures of divorce. Even the development of these procedures put a shadow on the royal reputation. The Holy Synod of the orthodox church of Serbia declared itself incompetent in the royal divorce. When the consistorium of Belgrade took over the case the queen rejected the king's wish for divorce and advocated the several attempts to reconcile the couple according to ecclesiastical law. When the king managed to get his divorce by a single decision of the Metropolite
Metropolitan bishop
In Christian churches with episcopal polity, the rank of metropolitan bishop, or simply metropolitan, pertains to the diocesan bishop or archbishop of a metropolis; that is, the chief city of a historical Roman province, ecclesiastical province, or regional capital.Before the establishment of...

 of the Serbian church, the queen rejected that decision in public and declared to consider herself still the wife of the king.

An immediate political consequence of these dynastic conflicts was the new right of succession to the throne proclaimed during the parliamentary sessions regarding the new constitution of Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

. The new constitution declared Crown Prince Alexander and his future children (that never were born) to be single legal heirs of the Serbian crown. Possible children of a second marriage of King Milan should be excluded from succession even in the case that Prince Alexander's line should become extinct. A clear votum of mistrust for the king in the handling of his family affairs that foreshadowed his following abdication in March 1889.

Conflicts with the Regency and private reconciliation

On 6 March 1889, as consequence of the surprising abdication of her (former) husband, Natalie's son Alexander I became king of Serbia. Until 1893, when Alexander assumed government himself, he was put under a regency council led by former prime minister Jovan Ristic
Jovan Ristic
Jovan Ristić, or Ristitch was a Serbian statesman and diplomat....

. The former king Milan secured the educational rights for his son for himself and ordered the regency council not to allow the queen mother a permanent stay in Serbia during the minority of King Alexander. Short meetings between mother and son in foreign countries should be possible with permission of the regency.

Queen Natalie did not accept these restricted conditions. In August 1889, she announced publicly to visit her son in the royal palace in Belgrade. Even when Ex-king Milan modified his restrictions to her favor she was not prepared to be restricted at all and insisted on her maternal right to visit her son whenever it should please her, regardless of the government's consent or refusal. When the queen mother indeed arrived in Belgrade on 29 August 1889, she was enthusiastically welcomed by the population.

But the regency denied her royal style (she should be announced just as Mme Keshko) and - after she insisted to be still the ex-kings wife and rightful queen of Serbia - any meeting with her son. In October 1889 the ex-king and the regents allowed meetings between mother and son every 14 days - but strictly outside the royal palace.

In July 1890, the Synod
Synod
A synod historically is a council of a church, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. In modern usage, the word often refers to the governing body of a particular church, whether its members are meeting or not...

 of the Serbian Orthodox church
Serbian Orthodox Church
The Serbian Orthodox Church is one of the autocephalous Orthodox Christian churches, ranking sixth in order of seniority after Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Russia...

 declared the divorce between Milan and Natalie to be legal.

In April 1891, ex-king Milan - after several interferences in government affairs - announced his intention to leave Serbia until his son should be old enough to take over the rule. The parliament instructed the government to ask queen mother Natalie to act accordingly. When the queen refused to leave the country, the police tried to expel her by force on 18 May 1891. The queen opened the window and cried for help to the public, and indeed a crowd of civilians fought the police and the military, freed the queen and triumphantly took her back into her palace. But on the next day, the force of the whole military garrison of Belgrade was used to secure the departure of the queen into exile.

In January 1893, the exiled royals Milan and Natalija reconciled and asked the Serbian government to revoke their divorce. The Metropolite and the synod declared the divorce act of 1888 illegal and the royal marriage still in force in March 1893.

Shortly afterwards their son King Alexander declared himself mature and deposed the regency council in April 1893.

Return and second exile

After ex-king Milan had returned to Serbia in January 1894 and took the position as deputy of his son and commander-in-chief of the army, King Alexander ordered the complete rehabilitation of his parents and the restoration of their royal prerogatives in April 1894 - despite the protests of the radical opposition. Natalie, who lived mainly in France, returned to Belgrade not before May 1895 but kept her habit of frequent foreign travels.

When King Alexander affianced himself with Draga Mašin, a former court lady of Queen Natalie, in 1900, his parents rejected the future queen as improper. Ex-king Milan resigned as army commander and left Serbia for the rest of his life; he died in Vienna a year later, in 1901. Even the relationship between Natalie and Alexander was broken up. Because the queen mother was a strong opponent of her son's marriage to Draga, Natalie was banished from Serbia by her son.

King Alexander and his wife Draga were killed in 1903 during a military coup
May Overthrow
The May Overthrow was a 1903 coup d'état in which the Serbian King Alexander Obrenović and his wife, Queen Draga, were assassinated inside the Royal Palace in Belgrade on the night between 28 and 29 May 1903 by the Julian calendar...

. This left Natalie the sole member of the Obrenović dynasty. She donated the inheritance to the University of Belgrade
University of Belgrade
The University of Belgrade is the oldest and largest university of Serbia.Founded in 1808 as the Belgrade Higher School in revolutionary Serbia, by 1838 it merged with the Kragujevac-based departments into a single university...

 and various churches and monasteries around Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

. The same year, Queen Natalie became member of the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

 and a nun.

Queen Natalie spent the remaining years of her life in exile in France. She died in 1941 in St. Daniel, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, other sources indicate Paris. Her unpublished memoirs were kept in the Vatican
Vatican Museums
The Vatican Museums , in Viale Vaticano in Rome, inside the Vatican City, are among the greatest museums in the world, since they display works from the immense collection built up by the Roman Catholic Church throughout the centuries, including some of the most renowned classical sculptures and...

, but have been published in Belgrade in 1999.

Ancestry



Succession

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