Court Restores Name of Banished Yugoslav Regent

The Higher Court in Belgrade on Wednesday rehabilitated Prince Pavle [Paul], the former Yugoslav regent deposed in 1941 by a coup.

The ruling quashed a state commission verdict of September 1945, which declared Prince Pavle a criminal, as well as all other legal consequences including property confiscation.

“Prince Pavle lived in very tough political times and he made a very pragmatic decision,” historian Nenad Stosic told Balkan Insight.

“At that time Yugoslavia was surrounded by the [Axis] Tripartite pact states and it had no guaranties that it would not be attacked.

“This rehabilitation is significant because it liberates him from the charges made before and after the war,” he added.

The Communist authorities accused Prince Pavle of “violating the Constitution on coming to power, taking the entire authority into his own hands and ignoring the people’s representatives” as well as “signing the Tripartite Pact and therefore contributing to the Axis powers’ aggressive war”.

The Pact was a treaty signed by Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan in 1940, which established the Axis Powers, an alignment of great powers that fought the Allies – Russia, Britain and the US.

 “Prince Pavle was declared a criminal for ideological-political reasons,” lawyer Dusanka Subotic-Homen told the Belgrade-based daily, Vecernje Novosti.

The rehabilitation request was filed by his daughter Princess Elizabeth, or Jelisaveta, Karadjordjevic three and a half years ago.

Prince Pavle was a descendant of the warrior leader who established Serbia’s independence from the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century.

The Prince took over the Regency after his cousin, King Alexander, was assassinated in Marseille, France in 1934.

When the Second World War broke out Yugoslav government signed the Tripartite Pact, which allowed the German army to pass through Yugoslavia. The alternative was an Axis invasion. That caused popular dissatisfaction and led to a military coup that forcibly removed the Regent from power.

During the war the British government kept Prince Pavle with his family under house arrest in Kenya, Africa.  Forbidden to return to Yugoslavia, Prince Pavle spent the rest of his life in exile. 

Pavle was known for his passion for the arts.  He collected, donated and dedicated a large number of art works to Yugoslavia, including foreign masterpieces. His gifted paintings by Rubens, Rembrandt, Monet, Van Gogh and other Old Masters are now kept in the National Museum of Serbia.