Boris III Palais Royal Sofia

Hi all
Interesting postcard
Appreciate any comments

A bit of history!

1930 King Boris married Princess Giovanna, daughter of King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy in a Catholic ceremony in Assisi attended by Benito Mussolini. Queen Giovanna gave birth to a daughter, Maria Louisa, and an heir, Simeon, in 1937. Controversially, King Boris insisted that Prince Simeon convert from Roman Catholicism to Eastern Orthodox Christianity; a decision that earned the enmity of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. King Boris was excommunicated by The Pope.

King Boris III was reduced to the role of puppet king in 1934 when a military dictatorship overthrew the government and abolished political parties. The King staged a counter-coup and regained his power as absolute monarch just like his late godfather Tsar Nicholas II who had been assassinated with his family in 1918 in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. Under the 'King's government', Bulgaria prospered but the regime only lasted for five years. On the outbreak of World War II, Adolf Hitler attempted to win King Boris's loyalty by demanding Romania give territories back to Bulgaria but the king chose to remain neutral. He appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 1941 wearing full military uniform vowing not to send Bulgarian troops to fight side-by-side with the Germans against Russia.

Bulgaria's Prime Minister Bogdan Filov was a Nazi sympathiser and passed laws in accordance with the Nuremberg Convention that were hostile to the nation's Jews. In 1943, Hitler's emissary Theodor Dannecker was sent to negotiate with King Boris demanding that the monarch deport 20,000 Jews from Bulgarian territories Thrace and Macedonia. Just over 11,000 Jews were deported but this did not meet the Nazi quota so Dannecker demanded King Boris deport Bulgarian Jews to make up the number. King Boris intervened personally to stop this monstrous proceeding. The secretary of Pope John XXIII said 'with the help of King Boris of Bulgaria, thousands of Jews from Slovakia who had first been sent to Hungary and then to Bulgaria – and who were in danger of being sent to the Nazi concentration camps – obtained transit visas for Palestine signed by him'.

Though nominally neutral, Bulgaria was bombed by the US and UK forces in 1943. In the same year, it was announced that King Boris III had died of heart failure while visiting Adolf Hitler even though Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxis suspected poisoning. King Simeon II reigned under a Regency Council overseen by his uncle Prince Kyril of Bulgaria. In 1944 the Soviet Union declared war on Bulgaria and the Red Army invaded. Prince Kyril, Bogdan Filov and 100 cabinet ministers, royal advisers and MPs were executed. In 1946, the Soviet Army oversaw a referendum and 97% of Bulgarians voted to abolish the monarchy. But after years in exile, the ex-king was elected Prime Minister of Bulgaria in 2001. King Boris IIIs body was disinterred and has since disappeared. His heart was found buried in the courtyard of the Vrana Palace in Sofia.

Thank you. Interesting.

Franz Joseph I can't have objected to something that happened in 1937. Perhaps an earlier event.

Boris, not Simeon!

"Boris was born on 30 January 1894 in Sofia to Ferdinand I, Prince of Bulgaria, and his wife Princess Marie Louise of Bourbon-Parma.

In February 1896, his father paved the way for the reconciliation of Bulgaria and Russia with the conversion of the infant Prince Boris from Roman Catholicism to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, a move that earned Ferdinand the frustration of his wife, the animosity of his Catholic Austrian relatives (particularly his uncle Franz Joseph I of Austria) and excommunication from the Catholic Church. In order to remedy this difficult situation, Ferdinand christened all his remaining children as Catholics. Nicholas II of Russia stood as godfather to Boris and met the young boy during Ferdinand's official visit to Saint Petersburg in July 1898. "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris..._of_Bulgaria

22crows
Thank you