Mignon – Romanian Princess

Maria, granddaughter of Queen Victoria of England and great-granddaughter of Empress Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, was born on 9 January 1900 in the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Her mother, the then Romanian princess Maria, upon her birth, named her Mignon after the character from the famous opera. Everyone in the family accepted that nickname, even Maria herself as an adult used that name in her signature. She was baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church in England, and her godparents were prominent members of European royal families. She was a cheerful and smiling girl, captivating with beauty and spirit, and from her childhood she was the favourite child of the Romanian Royal Couple Ferdinand Hohenzollern and Maria Saxe-Coburg Gotha, as well as the entire court. In Romania, she was also called Marioara.

Mignon grew up in Sinaia, in Peleș Castle. Sinaia was a special place for the Romanian Royal Family. The palaces of Peleș and Cotroceni were the residences of the Romanian Royal Family. The Romanian princess spent her childhood and youth in the Peleș Castle. She shared rooms on the first floor of the palace with her sisters Elizabeth and Ileana. Later, when she visited Romania as the Yugoslav Queen, she happily revisited Peleș. Seems, it has been no coincidence that many stylistic elements of the palaces in Sinaia inspired the decoration of the Royal Palaces in Dedinje.

Mignon often travelled with her family to Romania, but also to England and Germany. Her first portrait photos, taken in different settings, depicted her as a girl of divine beauty. Her mother Maria’s letters show how much she was enchanted by her daughter. She appeared in public both in traditional Romanian costume and in modern clothes designed by world fashion houses. As a girl, she did not worry much about her everyday appearance. She dressed casually for play and used to wear work pants when helping her brother with the car. She had harmonious relations with her siblings. As she was modest and eager to please everyone, they also called her “our little Cinderella”. Contemporary research into the personal collections of the Romanian Royal Family show that Mignon was very close with her brother Nicolas. That closeness was the reason for her occasional boyish behaviour, which was considered inappropriate in royal culture.

(Foto arhiva Fonda kraljevskog dvora)

Like all the royal children, she was also educated under the watchful eyes of the King and Queen. Mignon was brought up according to the rules of the English Court. Hence, she learned three languages ​​from an early age: English, French and German. In addition to history, geography and other subjects, she was educated in music and fine arts, which would become especially evident later in her life. The World War I postponed ​​a more serious further education. Mignon and her sisters, together with their mother, were engaged in wartime military hospitals in Iași and Ghidigeni.

Queen Maria of Romania believed she had a very important mission to free her daughters from the practices of the patriarchal society of the Balkans. She strongly encouraged them to study in order to acquire new knowledge important for the emancipation of women. This is how the idea of ​​educating Princess Mignon came about. After the World War I, in 1919, Mignon was enrolled at a girls’ school in Hillfield, England. Far from Peleș, from her parents and sisters, Mignon did not adopt quickly to the strict rules of the boarding school. In April 1920, she wrote to her mother that she was homesick. Not long after, she left the school for France. In Paris and Vichy, she saw new trends in fashion, accepted new lifestyle, met new people and regularly wrote to her mother. In those letters, she underlined the difference between herself and the other girls, emphasizing, however, that she only wanted to please her mother. Although her mother was disappointed by her decision not to continue the education, she understood and supported her daughter. Mignon was interested in cars since her childhood, which influenced her passion for driving. From France, she often sent her father maps of the routes she travelled by car and wrote enthusiastically about her travels.

(Fotografija iz Zbirke Muzeja Jugoslavije)

The political context after the Great War influenced different moves of the Balkan rulers. The Royal House of Romania concluded several marriage alliances with the Balkan monarchies during that period. In 1921 with the Kingdom of Greece, and in 1922 with the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Among others, it seems that the key political figures who shaped the idea of the marriage to Princess Mignon were Dumitru Take Ionescu in the Kingdom of Romania and Nikola Pašić in the Kingdom of SCS. Mignon was not aware of the Balkan political context; she did not know much about the Little Entente and other post-war tensions. According to historian Diana Mandache, Mignon knew that there was a lonely young man in his court in Belgrade and she agreed to meet him. So, on 8 January 1922, a formal breakfast was organised in the Peleș Castle in Sinaia, and the very next morning, Mignon and Alexander decided to get married the following year. On Princess Mignon’s birthday, 9 January, a gala dinner was organised to announce the wedding. The kings Ferdinand and Alexander celebrated the future strong bond between the two neighbouring states. Already on 10 January, the world media reported on the political importance of the engagement, emphasizing the strong alliance between Yugoslavia and Romania, both members of the Little Entente regional alliance. In February, King Alexander came to Romania again, where, following a magnificent reception, the engagement took place in the Cotroceni Palace. The marriage alliance was crowned by the marriage contract in French signed by King Ferdinand and King Alexander in Bucharest. The wedding was scheduled for 8 June 1922 in Belgrade. Preparations for that great event were extensive and thorough. Princess Mignon was preparing to start a new life at the Yugoslav Court as Queen Maria Karadjordjević.

To be continued in the next text!