Draga Obrenovich

The father of Draghi was Panta Lunevica, the district chief of the town of Gorni-Milanovac (the son of one of the governors of Karageorgii ), his mother, Angela, was his mother. Draghi had three sisters and two brothers: Nikolai and Nicodemus. At the age of nine, she was sent to study in Belgrade . There she graduated from high school, women's courses, learned several foreign languages, earned translations. In August 1883, Draga married the engineer Svetozar Mashina and lived with him for three years.

Path to the Throne

Later, Draga became the court lady of Queen Natalia . They claimed that it was at this time that Draga had several ugly novels. At court, she met with the young heir to the throne, Prince Alexander Obrenovich . He fell in love with the maid of honor of his mother, being more than a dozen years younger than her. The entire royal family and government were against their union, King Milan IV Obrenovic threatened to leave the throne, ministers - to resign. But Alexander was firm in his decision: on July 23 ( August 5 ), 1900 , they were married ^[2] . A year after the wedding, Draga announced that she was expecting a baby, but in reality she gave out wishful thinking. When Draghi's menstruation stopped, the doctors mistakenly prescribed the woman strict bed rest and plentiful nutrition. And before that, Draghi even had a tendency to obesity, digestive disorders and endocrine disorders, due to which menstruation, in fact, was interrupted. As a result, the rapid increase in fatty omentum mimicked the growth of the abdomen of a pregnant woman. The mobility of the swollen due to flatulence of the intestines, the doctors took for the movement of the fetus. And acute stomach pains seemed to them labor pains. However, then everything was clarified.

Meanwhile, Alexander took the throne and began to rule the country, but many aspects of his inconsistent policy provoked a protest from the people, as well as the fact that Dragha added his brothers to power. In addition, the Russian Imperial House categorically did not want to receive Alexander and Draga on an official visit, like many European Sovereign Houses. It is worth mentioning that Alexander was ready to abandon the throne or transfer inheritance rights to the Montenegrin prince Mirko . On the night of May 29 ( June 11, New Style) in 1903 , when the Serb discontent reached its limit and the conspiracy matured, the royal couple was brutally murdered.

Death

Supporters of the Karageorgievich dynasty from the organization “Solitude or Smrt!”, Otherwise called the “ Black Hand ”, broke into the palace and killed the king and queen. Together with the august spouses, Prime Minister Dimitrie Tsincar-Markovic and Minister of Defense Milovan Pavlovich were also killed. According to the recollection of the participant in those events, Queen Dragh defended her husband until the last minute. Among the killers was also Colonel Alexander Mashin, brother of Draghi's first husband. Here is what the Russian journalist V.N. Teplov reported on the details of this terrible crime ^[3] :

The bodies of the king and queen lay for several days under the windows of the palace. In the end, Alexander and Draga Obrenovichi were buried in the Hungarian (at that time) limits: in the cathedral of the monastery of Krushedol on Fruska Gora ( Voevodina ). So tragically ended the long-term rule of the Obrenovichi house. The former dynasty was replaced by the Karageorgievichs - in the person of King Peter I. Exactly 100 years later, in 2003, Crown Prince Alexander Karageorgievich and his wife Catherine lit candles in repentance on the grave of Alexander and Dragha Obrenovic.

• Herbert Vivian. The Servian tragedy, with some impressions of Macedonia . - London, G. Richards, 1904.- 374 p.
• A royal tragedy; being the story of the assassination of King Alexander and Queen Draga of Servia . - New York, Dodd, 1907.- 272 p.
• Flora (Hayter) Ames. Belgrade, the white city of death. Being the history of King Alexander and of Queen Draga . - London, RA Everett & co., Ltd., 1903. - 234 p.
• Russian line