Prince Arsen of Yugoslavia: Difference between revisions

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By that time, news had already reached [[French Third Republic|France]] about the “madly brave” young Serbian prince, who had been decorated several times for his courage, solidarity with the soldiers, and for saving the life of an officer. He held the rank of [[Sergeant|sergeant]] during his service there. After the armistice with the [[Empire of China|Chinese]] was signed in 1885, he returned to [[Europe]], only to depart once more with the [[French Foreign Legion]]—this time to [[Algeria]], for which he received a medal for his service in the [[Africa]]n campaigns.<ref>Siniša Ljepojević (2018). Knez Arsenije Karadjordjević (pages=29-31)</ref>

By that time, news had already reached [[French Third Republic|France]] about the “madly brave” young Serbian prince, who had been decorated several times for his courage, solidarity with the soldiers, and for saving the life of an officer. He held the rank of [[Sergeant|sergeant]] during his service there. After the armistice with the [[Empire of China|Chinese]] was signed in 1885, he returned to [[Europe]], only to depart once more with the [[French Foreign Legion]]—this time to [[Algeria]], for which he received a medal for his service in the [[Africa]]n campaigns.<ref>Siniša Ljepojević (2018). Knez Arsenije Karadjordjević (pages=29-31)</ref>

His father, Prince Alexander, had already distributed each of his children’s share of the inheritance during his lifetime. Consequently, the only child explicitly mentioned in his will was his son Arsen. However, he left him nothing due to his lifestyle. The will states:

father Alexander had distributed each of his children’s share of the inheritance during his lifetime. Consequently, the only child explicitly mentioned in his will was his son Arsen. However, he left him nothing due to his lifestyle. The will states:

”“…my son Arsenije lives a dissolute life and governs recklessly; therefore, I leave all movable and immovable property to my universal heir, my son George, who is obligated to give Arsen 5,000 [[Florin|florins]]…””

”“…my son Arsenije lives a dissolute life and governs recklessly; therefore, I leave all movable and immovable property to my universal heir, my son George, who is obligated to give Arsen 5,000 [[Florin|florins]]…””

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Their only son was [[Prince Paul of Yugoslavia]] who was Regent of Yugoslavia from 9 October 1934 to 27 March 1941.<ref name=”ghda” /> The couple divorced on 26 December 1896 because of Aurora’s earlier liaison with the young Count Ernst Andreas von [[Manteuffel]] (1873–1953), which resulted in the birth of twin sons, Nikolai (1895–1933) and Sergei (1895–1912), whom Arsen refused to acknowledge.<ref>С. С. Щульц. Аврора. — СПб.: Из-во ДЕАН, 2004. — 208 с.; S.S. Schultz, ”Aurora”, Saint Petersburg, ed. DEAN, 2004, 208 pages</ref> Aurora Pavlovna was remarried to [[Count Palatine]] Nicola di Noghera in Genoa on 4 November 1897,<ref name=”ghda” /> with whom she had a daughter, Helena Aurora di Noghera (22 May 1898 – 12 October 1967). Aurora Pavlovna died in Turin on 28 June 1904 and was buried in the [[Russian Orthodox Cemetery, Nice]], [[France]].<ref name=”ghda” />

Their only son was [[Prince Paul of Yugoslavia]] who was Regent of Yugoslavia from 9 October 1934 to 27 March 1941.<ref name=”ghda” /> The couple divorced on 26 December 1896 because of Aurora’s earlier liaison with the young Count Ernst Andreas von [[Manteuffel]] (1873–1953), which resulted in the birth of twin sons, Nikolai (1895–1933) and Sergei (1895–1912), whom Arsen refused to acknowledge.<ref>С. С. Щульц. Аврора. — СПб.: Из-во ДЕАН, 2004. — 208 с.; S.S. Schultz, ”Aurora”, Saint Petersburg, ed. DEAN, 2004, 208 pages</ref> Aurora Pavlovna was remarried to [[Count Palatine]] Nicola di Noghera in Genoa on 4 November 1897,<ref name=”ghda” /> with whom she had a daughter, Helena Aurora di Noghera (22 May 1898 – 12 October 1967). Aurora Pavlovna died in Turin on 28 June 1904 and was buried in the [[Russian Orthodox Cemetery, Nice]], [[France]].<ref name=”ghda” />

r, had already distributed each of his children’s share of the inheritance during his lifetime

Although known as a womanizer, Prince Arsen never married again. One of his most famous love affairs was with Gita Genčić (1873–1940), renowned for her beauty, who had previously divorced her first husband, General Vojislav [[Cincar-Janko|Cincar-Janković]], because of her second husband, the politician [[Đorđe Genčić]], [[Ministry of Economy (Serbia)|Serbian Minister of National Economy]], and later ended her marriage to Genčić following her affair with the Prince. To avoid a greater scandal, Arsen decided to leave Serbia in haste; and after that, he never technically returned to live there again.<ref>Siniša Ljepojević (2018). Knez Arsenije Karadjordjević (pages=114-115)</ref>

Although known as a womanizer, Prince Arsen never married again. One of his most famous love affairs was with Gita Genčić (1873–1940), renowned for her beauty, who had previously divorced her first husband, General Vojislav [[Cincar-Janko|Cincar-Janković]], because of her second husband, the politician [[Đorđe Genčić]], [[Ministry of Economy (Serbia)|Serbian Minister of National Economy]], and later ended her marriage to Genčić following her affair with the Prince. To avoid a greater scandal, Arsen decided to leave Serbia in haste; and after that, he never technically returned to live there again.<ref>Siniša Ljepojević (2018). Knez Arsenije Karadjordjević (pages=114-115)</ref>

Serbian military officer (1859–1938)

Prince Arsenije “Arsen” of Yugoslavia (Serbian: Арсеније Карађорђевић / Arsenije Karađorđević; 16/17 April 1859 – 19 October 1938) was a dynast of the House of Karađorđević and an ancestor of the current cadet branch of the Serbian royal family. He long served as an officer in the Russian Imperial Army.

Biography

He was born in Timișoara, then part of the Austrian Empire, a year after his father Prince Alexander Karađorđević had been deposed from the Serbian throne (the predecessor regime to the Yugoslavian monarchy). His mother was Persida Nenadović, a guiding force behind the throne and a member of the powerful Serbian Nenadović family. His eldest brother was Peter I, King of Serbia and, later, King of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

Born and raised during his family’s exile, he, unlike his brothers and sisters, had virtually no connection to Serbia, aside from his name and the stories of his ancestry. When he was nine years old, his father was arrested, and much of the family’s property and money began to disappear. The only thing that did not change was his parents’ determination to educate their children, even if it meant spending their “last kreutzer.” Thus, during the family’s exile, Stevan V. Popović was brought in as the private tutor of the two youngest boys, George and Arsenije.

After his time with the tutor and teacher, Arsen completed his primary schooling in Timișoara, and continued his education in Paris, where he graduated from the renowned Lycée Louis-le-Grand.

“By nature restless and adventurous,” after finishing school he sought new challenges—which, for someone of his background at the time, meant only one thing: a military, warrior’s career. Thus, in 1883, he joined the 2nd Battalion of the French Foreign Legion, and already in the autumn of that same year, as a newly accepted legionnaire, he departed for Vietnam, as part of the expeditionary corps of Admiral John Corbett, as part of the French expeditionary forces taking part in the Sino-French War.

By that time, news had already reached France about the “madly brave” young Serbian prince, who had been decorated several times for his courage, solidarity with the soldiers, and for saving the life of an officer. He held the rank of sergeant during his service there. After the armistice with the Chinese was signed in 1885, he returned to Europe, only to depart once more with the French Foreign Legion—this time to Algeria, for which he received a medal for his service in the African campaigns.^[2]

During his military expeditions—when his father was already weak and frail—Prince Alexander had distributed each of his children’s share of the inheritance during his lifetime. Consequently, the only child explicitly mentioned in his will was his son Arsen. However, he left him nothing due to his lifestyle. The will states:

“…my son Arsenije lives a dissolute life and governs recklessly; therefore, I leave all movable and immovable property to my universal heir, my son George, who is obligated to give Arsen 5,000 florins…”

It appears, however, that the original intention was not to entirely exclude Arsen from the inheritance. The will was written in 1884, and Arsen’s exclusion was added later as a supplement to the original document. As a result, Prince Arsen grew up without an inheritance and entered life under those circumstances.^[3]

Prince Arsen was married in Saint Petersburg on 1 May 1892 to Aurora Pavlovna Demidova, Princess of San Doanto, born a member of the fabulously wealthy Demidov family. She was the eldest daughter of Pavel Pavlovich Demidov, 2nd Prince of San Donato (whose uncle, Prince Anatoly Demidov, had been married to Princess Mathilde Bonaparte) by his second wife, Princess Elena Petrovna Trubetskaya (1853-1917).^[4]

Their only son was Prince Paul of Yugoslavia who was Regent of Yugoslavia from 9 October 1934 to 27 March 1941.^[4] The couple divorced on 26 December 1896 because of Aurora’s earlier liaison with the young Count Ernst Andreas von Manteuffel (1873–1953), which resulted in the birth of twin sons, Nikolai (1895–1933) and Sergei (1895–1912), whom Arsen refused to acknowledge.^[5] Aurora Pavlovna was remarried to Count Palatine Nicola di Noghera in Genoa on 4 November 1897,^[4] with whom she had a daughter, Helena Aurora di Noghera (22 May 1898 – 12 October 1967). Aurora Pavlovna died in Turin on 28 June 1904 and was buried in the Russian Orthodox Cemetery, Nice, France.^[4]
r, had already distributed each of his children’s share of the inheritance during his lifetime
Although known as a womanizer, Prince Arsen never married again. One of his most famous love affairs was with Gita Genčić (1873–1940), renowned for her beauty, who had previously divorced her first husband, General Vojislav Cincar-Janković, because of her second husband, the politician Đorđe Genčić, Serbian Minister of National Economy, and later ended her marriage to Genčić following her affair with the Prince. To avoid a greater scandal, Arsen decided to leave Serbia in haste; and after that, he never technically returned to live there again.^[6]

The relationship between Arsen and son was peculiar from the beginning and can be described as somewhat distant, owing to their starkly different characters—a difference quite noticeable from Prince Paul’s earliest days. He was strikingly unlike the other members of the Karađorđević family, who were generally open, direct, and combative, with strong military inclinations—all qualities Paul notably lacked. This made his relationship with them unique and somewhat tense, as reflected in a 1906 letter from his father, Prince Arsen, to Paul’s teacher, Milorad Pavlović-Krpa, whom Arsen had known since his youthful days in St. Petersburg, but with whom he became particularly close during his years in Belgrade. Namely, Paul had little or no interest in geography, the subject he was studying under Krpa, and consistently received the lowest possible marks. In the letter, Arsen wrote:

“Please instruct my little Paul. He pretends to be naive. His eyes are sweet, and he always looks surprised, but he is only pretending. I know him well. He is most cunning and, worst of all, very jealous—a trait he did not inherit from me. There is little sincerity in him. Once you get to know him better, you will notice another unpleasant quality: he is deceitful. His uncle-in-law, Prince Semyon Abamelek-Lazarev, loves him greatly for that, as in this respect he resembles him very much.”

Arsen’s elder brother shared a similar assessment of Paul. As his official guardian, King Peter I, took note of the young prince’s character too, summoning Krpa to an audience and advising him:

“Continue to be strict with him, as is fitting, for he believes he can get away with anything.”^[7]

After his brother Peter became the King of Serbia, he issued a family statute for the members of the royal house, namely on 30 August 1909. Based on this royal statute, Prince Arsen and his descendants were entitled to the style of Highness. In the years that followed, namely in 1921, and later confirmed in 1931, Arsen and his line were upgraded to the style Royal Highness by his nephew, the new ruler, King Alexander I of Yugoslavia.^[8]

Until 1904, Arsen and his son were subjects of the Russian Empire. Upon receiving Serbian citizenship on 26 April 1904, he was obliged to resign from regular service in the Imperial Russian Army. There had been expectations that, as the king’s brother, he would have prospects in the Serbian Royal Army and be assigned a position befitting his rank. However, this did not come to pass, largely due to the younger members of the Karađorđević family, who feared that their uncle, as an experienced soldier, might outshine them in the eyes of the public, and therefore did everything to prevent it. Nevertheless, after a short time spent in Serbia, he decided to return St. Petersburg, and, at the end of the year, he volunteered to fight on Russia’s side in the Russo-Japanese War.^[9]

For his bravery in the Battle of Mukden, on 26 February 1905, the Russian Emperor Nicholas II awarded the Serbian Prince a gold sword set with diamonds and inscribed ‘For Bravery.’ This was a rare honor, reflecting the high esteem in which ‘Colonel Karađorđević,’ as he was known, was held at court, as only three other officers—Nikolai Yudenich, Paul von Rennenkampf, and Nikolai Ottovich von Essen—received such a jeweled sword crafted by the eminent jeweler Carl Blank.^[10]

The Russian revolution

Prince Arsen, at the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, was forced to leave Russia forever in May 1918—the country in which he had lived for so many decades. His departure marked the end of the turbulent chapter of his life, the one recounted with varying degrees of truth in high society. Through the mediation of Serbian diplomacy, he first safely made his way to Sweden and then to France, where he settled permanently in Paris. He left behind his niece Helen, to whom he was deeply attached, who chose to remain in Russia so she could stay by the side of her husband, Prince John Konstantinovich of Russia.^[11]

Life in Paris

He took up residence in an elegant and refined apartment at 2 Square Monceau, in the seventeenth arrondissement near Montmartre, where he died twenty years later. There he led a quiet, largely comfortable, almost retired life—with fewer friends, but very much on his own terms. He often spent time with the diplomat Miroslav Spalajković, who served as ambassador of the newly formed kingdom to France from 1922 to 1935. Arsen received a regular monthly royal appanage, along with additional income befitting a divisional, later promoted to army general, which included allowances for housing, heating, and household staff. In addition to these sources, he also received income from bank bonds purchased in his name through the royal court. He maintained savings accounts and bought shares in various banks, which provided him with further earnings, all overseen by the court’s financial administration.

Arsen returned to Serbia only a few times: for the wedding of his nephew Alexander to Princess Maria of Romania in 1921—where he served as the second witness despite Alexander having been one of the reasons for his earlier departure from Serbia. At the time of his return to Serbia, Arsen, an exceptional soldier, posed a natural threat to overshadow his nephews George and Alexander, who, already embroiled in their own rivalry over the succession, could not risk his prominence. As a result, he was offered no significant position in the Royal Serbian Army, and, disappointed, he decided to return to serve in Russia.

He visited Serbia only a handful of times thereafter: for his son Paul’s wedding in 1922, for the transfer of Karađorđe’s relics to Oplenac in 1930, and for King Alexander I’s funeral in 1934. His rare visits were partly due to the fact that he hardly knew anyone there anymore; he had no real circle of acquaintances, and contact with other relatives had largely faded. Though different in temperament, the one person who never abandoned him was his son Paul, a devoted son despite having seen his father only rarely in earlier years.

During his life in Paris, Arsen enjoyed gambling—mostly with former officers—and he often fell into debt, which the royal court later settled. He was not selfish; he frequently gave to charitable causes. In 1924, for example, he donated a sum of money to the volunteer community in Donji Kovilj on the occasion of the “day of consecration of the regimental flag.”

Prince Arsen had a refined taste for elegant attire. Records from his Paris years note his purchases of a “cap of guaranteed fine cloth” and a “field cap of 420-grade serge,” small examples of his fondness for quality and style. He was also an ardent admirer of Cuban cigars. In July 1928, he placed a substantial order through an American firm—a full crate weighing ninety-four kilograms and containing 2,750 cigars.

The shipment from Havana arrived by steamer in Trieste and was then forwarded to Belgrade. There, the unwieldy crate had to be divided into four large parcels, as its original weight exceeded the limits of the Paris postal service. The repacked cigars were finally dispatched to him by courier, sent on his behalf by Antoine Tony Szirmai (1871-1938), Hungarian-born, Paris-based sculptor and engraver, sho served as an official of the Serbian royal legation in Paris.^[12]

Death and funeral

Prince Arsen died at 13:30h in Paris on 19 October 1938. In Yugoslavia, the court of King Peter II observed mourning from 19 October 1938 to 10 January 1939, the first six weeks being a period of deep mourning. Numerous European monarchs and heads of state sent telegrams of condolence, the most publicly noted of which was that of Adolf Hitler, addressed to his son, the Prince Regent. In Paris, where he lived in comfort in a lavish apartment, the main hall was converted into a chapel adorned with black draperies. After the death of His Royal Highness, officers of the Yugoslav Royal Army from the military mission in Paris maintained an honor guard by the bier for three days. After three days, his body was transported by train to the Slovenian town of Rakek, at the Yugoslav border. From there, it was conveyed by the royal train to Belgrade. On the journey from Ljubljana to Belgrade, the remains were accompanied by Prince Regent Paul and his wife, Princess Olga of Yugoslavia, who had spent the last three weeks of her father-in-law’s life at his bedside, during his final illness.

Prince Arsen was buried on 24 October 1938 in the royal mausoleum at Oplenac, with the highest state honors—honors worthy of a king. The solemn and dignified funeral was arranged at the wish of his son, revealing his deep attachment to his father despite the differences in their characters that had often led to disagreements between them. After his death, the 6th Cavalry Regiment of the Yugoslav Royal Army was named in his honor as the ‘Prince Arsen Regiment’.^[13]

Honours and awards

Honours

Foreign Honours
	Order of Saint Vladimir, Fourth class,1905
	Order of Saint Stanislaus, Second Class,1905
	Gold Sword for Bravery, 1906
	Order of Carol I
	Medal -“In memory of Russian -Japanese War ”
	Order of St. George, Fourth Class, 1915
National Honours
	Order of Karađorđe’s Star, First and Fourth Class
	Order of the Yugoslav Crown, First Class, 1930

See also

References and notes

External links