The 19th century was the century of great changes in Europe, gradually the old regimes gave way to the new bourgeois relations. Nevertheless, the aristocracy was still the dominant nobility in many European countries. Its position in areas such as diplomacy and military affairs was maintained almost until the end of the First World War.
The Russo-Turkish War of Liberation (1877-1878) was no exception. It involved both the representatives of the common nobility and the imperial family - the so-called grand princes. One of them will give his life for the freedom of our Bulgaria. This is Prince Sergei of Leuchtenberg - great-grandson of the French Empress Josephine, wife of Napoleon Bonaparte.
"The prince, on the face of it, comes from a Russian family which, far from actually being Russian, shows the fact, which we often overlook as historians, and as a society, that it is international. As much as an aristocracy is national, as much as it insists on its national problems and solves them with wars and diplomacy, it is international in its family ties," historian Nikolai Poppetrov of the Institute for Historical Research of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences told BGNES.
The biography of Prince Leuchtenberg, who took part in the War of Liberation, is a typical example of this. "He made a real contribution to our liberation and to the creation of the modern Bulgarian state. His roots were more Franco-German than Russian, but at the same time he was a Russian nobleman of his highest elite," Poppetrov said.
The prince is a descendant of the Beauharnais family, which traces its origins to an administrator-turned-governor of the Caribbean island of Martinique, who in turn had a son who was a general in the French Revolutionary Army. "This general had the misfortune to lose the battle of Mainz, which was pivotal for the revolutionary army, and was therefore guillotined in the age of terror. There remains a son, Eugène. But the important thing here is something else. The guillotined general was married to a middle-class noblewoman from Martinique who was called Josephine by Emperor Napoleon I - this was the Empress, his first lawful wife, and he was her second husband. Napoleon adopted her children," the historian pointed out.
Eugène de Beauharnais had an amazing career. He became viceroy of Italy, then was sent on a military mission to Bavaria, where he married a princess from the ruling Wittelsbach dynasty. "By marrying this Bavarian princess, the daughter of one of the most intellectually elevated rulers of that era, King Maximilian Joseph, Eugène was given the title Duke of Leuchtenberg. It was given to foreign aristocrats who entered the family of the Bavarian kings. Jochen died in 1824 in Munich and is regarded by German historians as a German, although he was French," Nikolai Poppetrov said.
The family ended up in the Russian Empire thanks to one of Eugène's seven children, Maximilian Napoleon de Beauharnais (1817-1852), who married the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia, daughter of Emperor Nicholas I and Princess Charlotte of Prussia.
"Maximilian was sent on a military mission to St. Petersburg in 1837, where he fell in love with Maria and remained in Russia. There, he started a family in 1839. For them, the emperor built one of the most imposing and beautiful palaces - the Mariinsky, located next to the famous St. Isaac's Cathedral," Poppetrov said.
Maximilian's brother and sisters were also married to the leading royal families - one sister was married to the King of Sweden, the other to the Emperor of Brazil, and his brother to the Queen of Portugal. "Out of seven children, three are consorted with leading dynasties. This is an illustration of dynastic ties and their importance in that era," said Nikolai Poppetrov.
But apart from Bulgaria, the descendants of Eugène de Beauharnais were involved in the intricate games of the Bavarian Wittelsbach family in the Balkans. There was a proposal that the Greek King Otto, who was childless, should be succeeded again by a Bavarian prince, this time with the family name of Leuchtenberg. The second possibility was that she would head the newly created Romania, but in both cases the plans fell through. "We see how a man who will reach Bulgaria how his family leaves a dent in the whole Balkan region. The Balkans are one of the fields of increased dynastic interest on the part of the German states and in particular the two great monarchies of Prussia and Bavaria," the historian said.
He stressed that we underestimate dynastic relations, and they remain the defining relationship of the 19th century. "This mixed blood that flows in the veins of the thesis aristocrats makes them open to other cultures and cosmopolitan in a great European polity. But more importantly they became nationalists and supporters of the politics of the country in which they lived. The Leuchtenbergs would be Russian officers, Tsar Ferdinand I would be the Bulgarian monarch and hold on to Great Bulgaria, and the Romanian king who was of the Hohenzollern family would end up fighting in World War I against Germany ruled by the same family. This is a subject that needs to be understood much more broadly," the historian said.
Maximilian of Leuchtenberg also had seven children. Prince Sergei Maximilianovich (1849-1877) was the sixth child, and there are two other brothers in his family connected in some way to Bulgaria. Prince Nicholas of Leuchtenberg distinguished himself in the battles for Kazanlak, Nova and Stara Zagora, and Prince Eugene was married to the sister of General Skobelev.
Prince Sergei was to make a career in the civil service and more specifically in the key Ministry of the Interior in that era, which was the basis of the Great Reforms that opened Russia's path to capitalism. Sergei, however, chose a military career: 'At that time, the children of the elite did not run away from military careers as they do now'.
Prince Sergei was assigned to the Russian army active in the Balkan Peninsula. In the composition of the Forward Detachment with Lieutenant General Joseph Gurko as commander, he appeared at the liberation of Tarnovo. He was promoted to the military rank of major general in 1877. He was commanded in the Ruschuk detachment with Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich as commander. On 24 October 1877, during a reconnaissance at the village of Ivanovo, he was killed.
"This was the first member of the Imperial family to die on Bulgarian territory in the war. These aristocrats came here, they fought in order to win a war - one of the results of which was that these Slav brothers should be liberated, although for Prince Sergius they were not Slav brothers, but that was the policy. You are a foreigner in Russia, you have naturalized, this policy is your native policy. The world is very dynamic and it is not exactly what we imagine," Nikolai Poppetrov summed up. /BGNES
