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« on: June 08, 2008, 01:20:09 PM »
I've been reading Stephane Groeff's biography of King Boris III, "Crown of Thorns", and it has good information about the princesses. Apparently, the four siblings (Boris, Kyril, Eudoxia, & Nadejda) were very close. Their father was very authoritarian. Princess Eudoxia was closest to King Boris. From "Crown of Thorns"... "Four children who grew up without a mother, in the shadow of an overpowering father who never gave them an affectionate hug or a tender word: "Bo," the eldest, the most sensitive, a very intelligent youngster and conscientious worker; "Kiki," a bigger, stronger boy although a year younger, more extroverted and mischievous, and a lazy student; Evdokia, of "Koka," four years younger than the crown prince, probably the brightest child, a girl with an unusually strong will and explosive temper, like her father's; Nadejda, called "May" or "Micky", a pleasant and obedient girl at whose birth their mother, Princess Maria-Louisa, née Bourbon-Parma, died."
When Ferdinand abdicated in October of 1918, the entire family were exiled from Bugaria except Boris. His sisters were allowed to return in 1922, and later on Prince Kyril. The princesses provided emotional support for the young ruler, who was struggling to maintain a throne while so many other monarchs, of much older dynasties, were abdicating. Another excerpt on the princesses' personalities- "Boris, for instance, had never heard Evdokia and Nadejda discuss haute couture or hairdressers, nor seen them wear makeup or fancy jewelry. When they were girls, their stepmother, Queen Eleanore, dressed them, invariably, in austere old-fashioned garb, prim and proper enough to satisfy the monarch, who personally decided on the family jewely the wore, on special occasions only. Later, in the sober atmosphere of the postwar years, the princesses never developed the slightest interest in clothes, girl talk or frivolities of any sort. Instead they became, especially the brilliant and politically minded Evdokia, the closest confidantes of their harassed brother, who often discussed important public affairs with them."
Princess Nadejda married Albrecht in the beginning of 1924. Eudoxia, on the other hand, loved her native Bulgaria so much that she did not wish to marry and thus be forced to leave it. When Boris married Princess Giovanna of Italy, some sister-in-law unpleasantries arose and Eudoxia moved into a house newly-built for her. Apparently, Boris was the only person Eudoxia would aquiesce to when things did not go her way. Eudoxia abhorred the Nazi movement, and at one point Nadejda and Albrecht escaped problems with the regime only because of Nadejda's connection to King Boris.
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