IMG-39a5feade4e5b1bcc63d21bb5157945b-VMOST HATED QUEEN ITEMS: Queen Draga's personal seal
The female figure whose photo we are publishing is the personal seal of Queen Draga and one of the exhibits of the exhibition
Waiting for permanent setup Historical Museum of Serbia. It highlights the most valuable items belonging to the Karađorđević and Obrenović dynasties, not to mention the collection that is not available to the public because the Historical Museum of Serbia does not have a building, or even a permanent exhibition.
Apart from the collection, the exhibition drew attention to the actors of the local historical scene whose influence, although not directly, was important for the events in the state of their time. Queen Draga is one of them.
On July 1900, XNUMX, King Aleksandar confided in General Ljuba Lešjanin, court marshal, his intention to marry his mistress Draga Mašin. From that moment on, all of Belgrade learned about it, and Draga Mašin became the most hated queen in the memory of the Serbian people.
What did they blame her for? Everything. And before she became queen, and after that.
According to official documents, she was born on September 23, 1866 in Gornji Milanovac, but that date was believed to be incorrect. The chargé d'affaires of the Russian embassy stated in the report on the royal wedding that "the bride is 36 years old, although it is officially recognized that she is 33".
Other information about her birth was not disputed. Her father was Panta Lunjevica, a descendant of a well-known merchant family. His father Nikola generously helped the insurgents and thus earned the trust of Prince Miloš, and he was also a brother-in-law at the wedding of Prince Miloš with Ljubica, as her cousin. Panta Lunjevica was a clerk whose advancement was conditioned by loyalty to the Obrenovićs. He became the mayor of Šabac, then the administrator of the municipality of Belgrade, and then again the mayor of Šabac. Because of this, the family was respectable and well-to-do in the sixties and seventies of the 19th century. Also, Panta inherited an enviable property from his father, and he invested the money in buying a house in Belgrade. At the age of 21, he married Anđa Koljević, the daughter of the mayor of the municipality in Čačak. Draga, the second of their six children, was born in that marriage.
Panta and Anđa believed that female children needed education, so after primary school, Draga was enrolled in the Higher Women's Institute, better known as the "Cermankin Institute" in Belgrade. She was especially gifted in languages. She was withdrawn and read a lot. In the last, fourth grade, she fell in love with Bogdan Popović, then a student, and later a literary critic and professor, but her father decided to marry her to an engineer of great reputation and wealth, Svetozar Mašin, the son of Prince Mihailo's personal physician and Alexander's brother, a soldier from career, who will be Chief of the General Staff for a time. Mašin was then thirty-nine years old, and the bride was seventeen.
Two stories are related to the glamorous wedding in the Cathedral Church in 1883. According to the first, Bogdan Popović sent her a bouquet of yellow roses from a boy with a note that said "Did it have to be like this", and according to the second, Draga and Aleksandar met for the first time at the wedding. Namely, after the wedding, the newlyweds were invited to a dance party in the garden near the National Assembly. Seven-year-old Aleksandar Obrenović was passing by in a carriage and, happy to see the bride, waved to the wedding party.
The marriage of the Masins lasted three years. They lived modestly, Draga followed her husband around the fields or, waiting for him to return from some research, she lived with her father-in-law in Belgrade. They had no children, and according to some testimonies, Draga was once pregnant. Svetozar Mašin died on the field in 1886. The doctors wrote that he died of a heart attack, and people said that he had an epileptic attack due to a large amount of alcohol, and that Draga used poisonous medicines to get rid of him.
Draga returned to her family, she lived with her mother, brothers and sisters in her father's house. After her father's death, she took care of the family. Her pension received after her husband's death and the pension received by her mother were not enough for the family to live decently. Draga tried to get a job as a German language teacher - unsuccessfully. Then she started translating, she collaborated in magazines, she was a member of the Belgrade Journalists' Association, she also translated several novels, novellas and theater pieces, and for the longest time she collaborated in the magazine "Domaćinstvo" published by the Belgrade Women's Society - the first women's association in Serbia , which worked under the state patronage and patronage of Obrenović. Draga actively participated in that Society. She also started to write.
To save the family from poverty, she took advantage of her father's dynastic connections. She became a court lady of Queen Natalia. After the divorce of King Milan and Queen Natalija, the abdication by which Milan designated his minor son Alexander as viceroy, and after Milan's departure from Serbia, it was decided that Natalija should also leave the country. She refused it. She no longer lived in the court, and in her new home she gathered progressives and liberals, that is, opponents of the radical deputy government. When the police forced her out, Queen Natalia chose Biarritz as her permanent residence. In Belgrade, she was surrounded by court ladies and socialites, however, she could not expect that they would accompany her into exile. That is why she chose a companion who does not sacrifice or lose anything by leaving Serbia - Draga Mašin.
Queen Natalija and Draga Mašin lived in a newly built villa, which the queen named "Sashino" - after her son Alexander. At first, their relationship was very intimate. "She is a very good person," Natalija wrote in one letter. She changed her mind, it is assumed, when Draga wrote a letter to her sister that King Milan suddenly appeared in Bijarica, predicting their reconciliation, and that's how all of Belgrade learned about it. After that event, Natalija said in a letter that Draghi "hit her head with the title of lady of the court and that she is a real fool".
King Alexander met Draga Mašin in Bijarica in 1894. "As soon as I saw her, I liked her modesty, her intelligence and her behavior, they impressed me," he told a friend. He came into closer contact with her after drowning in the sea. Namely, in 1895, during a morning swim in the Gulf of Tuscany, a sudden tide threatened the life of the king and his entourage. After that, the king knocked on the door of his mother's court lady's room and asked her if she was afraid for him. It was an unequivocal sign that he cared about her and expected that affection to be reciprocated.
After two years, in March 1897, their platonic love became a love affair. King Milan is thought to have initially approved of the relationship because his son had finally established himself as a grown man. However, when Milan saw that his son had become deeply emotionally attached to Draga, a conflict arose. In March 1899, King Alexander mentioned to his father the marriage with Drago. Milan objected and began to prepare a plan for his son's marriage to the German princess Schaumburg Lippe.
The king and the lady of the court corresponded daily. The king thought "that all evil will stay away from us, because true love is a rare force that protects lovers from everything". He turned his bedroom into a temple dedicated to Draga: "If you could see how beautifully I framed your pictures, you would enjoy it." They are all between the stairs and the window, so that I can always look at you without it catching the eyes of those who come to my place. On the other side of the wall is the bouquet that you gave me two years ago in Bijarica, after August 19". Anticipating the next meeting, he wrote to her: "Ah, my love, I can't wait to come, to hold you to my heart, to enjoy you, because you are a delight." He was obsessed with children. "How I would love, my love, that baby of ours, how happy I would be to hear that you are not alone, but that you feel the beating of a small creature that is the product of our love."
The key to the secret room where King Aleksandar and Draga Obrenovic were hidingThe key to the room where Aleksandar and Draga were hiding
They got married on July 28, 1900. It is believed that this was the death sentence for both her and King Alexander, and that the false pregnancy confirmed her.
A month after the wedding, King Alexander announced that the queen was in a blessed state. Dr. Mihailo Veličković, the doctor of the royal couple, was the first to be informed about the change. He advised to call a foreign doctor. Dr. Kole came from Paris. During the examination, Kole spoke to the queen in French, so Veličković, who was present, did not understand anything. Kole determined the pregnancy was four to five weeks old. The queen began to gain weight. She acted like a pregnant woman. During the last months of the Queen's pregnancy, the court was overflowing with gifts for the baby. In the Požarevac district, a cradle with gilded patterns and a crown, a canopy in gold, with curtains made of Serbian linen was made. Doctors from Russia were invited for the next examination. Kole was also present. The doctor's conclusion was that "birth cannot be expected".
Thus, Queen Draga became the embodiment of infertility and the most famous barren woman of our past. She became guilty that the Obrenović dynasty has no heir.
People said that the reason for this was "unclean blood" from the father, who was mentally ill, and the mother, who got drunk after his death. She was criticized for translating, writing feuilletons and stories for a fee. She was declared the flagship of the feminist trend because she was active in the "Women's Society". In most historiographical-memoir works, the time of her widowhood was described as the time of her fornication. Slobodan Jovanović stated that after her husband's death, she had a friend who supported her, but she did not manage to become his wife. She was forced to "go from person to person, but even then she was careful - she caught foreigners and people from the better world". According to the report of the Austro-Hungarian military attache from August 1900, King Alexander was told by two ministers, three generals and the police chief that Draga could be bought for money and gifts.
After the wedding, people declared her a Russian spy, they said that she rules the country, not the king, she was to blame for everything bad that happened in Serbia.
Draga Mašin's ascension to the throne intensified the dissatisfaction of the part of the political elite sympathetic to Karađorđević. The royal couple received threatening and disturbing letters and messages right after the wedding. The agitation in favor of Karađorđević was led by Jakov Nenadović. Young officers of the Belgrade garrison conspired in August 1901 to carry out an assassination on Krajika's birthday at a ball in Kolarac. The royal couple were informed of the plot and did not appear at the ball. During 1902, the palace ushers were armed, and it was said that the king personally checked every evening whether the palace was locked.
The background of the May Uprising is not entirely clear. Historiographers estimate that one of the causes of dissatisfaction in the army is the king's inappropriate marriage, then her false pregnancy and speculation that Draga will impose her brother Nikola Lunjevica as the heir to the Serbian throne. The original plan of the officers was to kill only Draga: they would stage an assassination of the king in order to separate him from Draga, and they would take her to the middle of the Sava and throw her into the water.
The king and queen were killed in the night between June 10 and 11, 1903. Apart from them, the king's adjutant General Laza Petrović was also killed at the time. On the same night, they killed the queen's brothers Nikodija and Nikola Lunjevica. The dead bodies of the king and queen were thrown out the window by the conspirators.
Serbia did not even remember her by her royal name: Queen Draga is remembered as Draga Mašin.
The aforementioned personal seal of Queen Draga shown at the exhibition
Waiting for permanent setup recently donated to the Historical Museum of Serbia by Mr. Miroslav Mlinar. The seal is in the shape of a female figure, encrusted with precious stones, with the Cyrillic monogram "D" at the base, and it was made in a Viennese jewelry shop - it is written in the documentation of the History Museum.
