ORDER OF ST. PRINCE LAZAR
(Orden Sv. kneza Lazara - Орден Св. кнеза Лазара)
The collar Order of St. Prince Lazar was founded in 1889 by the Royal Serbian Regency on behalf of King Alexander I Obrenovich, to commemorate 500th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo.
The collar of St. Prince Lazar belongs in its single class exclusively to the ruler of Serbia and his Heir apparent, upon attaining majority at the age of 18. The statutes of the Order were never published.
The Order’s founder, King Alexander I Obrenovich, fell victim of a plot and assassination in 1903. The House of Obrenovich became extinct with him and the Parliament elected king the rival pretender, Peter Karageorgevich.
King Alexander I Obrenovich, the founder of the Order (left) and King Peter I Karageorgevich (right), who dethroned him in 1903, both wearing Collar of St. Prince Lazar
The new King did not abolish the Order of St. Prince Lazar. Instead, he wore it and appointed his son and heir, Crown Prince George Karageorgevich (1887-1972), to the “roll”. Prince George abdicated in favor of his brother Alexander (1888-1934), later Aleksandar I of Yugoslavia, in 1909.
Crown Prince George Karageorgevich (1887-1972, left) who abdicated the rights to the throne in 1909 to his younger brother Alexander Karageorgevich (1888-1934), both wearing Collar of St. Prince Lazar in their capacites of Heir Apparent.
Alexander, Prince Regent of Serbia in 1915 and of the unified Yugoslav state in 1919 and King in 1921, was assasinated in Marseilles during the state visit to France in 1934. Prince George served as officer of the serbian Army during the WWI after which he was placed in a mental institution (apparently due to both medical and political reasons, where he stayed until 1941, when he was released. After the WWII, he lived in Yugoslavia until his death in 1972 as a commoner.
King Peter II Karageorgevich of Yugoslavia was apparently the last one to actually wear the insignia of the Order.
King Peter II of Yugoslavia
The whereabouts of the insignia, made by Nikolaus u. Dunker, of Hanahu, Germany, are unknown.
Present status Current members of the roll are, HRH Crown Prince Alexander Karageorgevich, and his son and heir Peter, appointed in 1998.
The Order was named after a historical figure, Lazar Hrebelianovich (Лазар Хребељановић, 1329-1389), a Serbian feudal baron and the logothetos at the Serbian court, who emerged as the most powerful figure after the decline of the medieval Serbian state after 1355. Lazar was.
Lazar's armies of Christian Serbs engaged the Ottomans on 15th June 1389 at Kosovo Field (aka Amselfeld, situated northwest from the modern city of Prishtina), which Serbs lost with Lazar captured and eventually beheaded. The medieval Serbia continued as vassal Ottoman state and finally succumbed to Ottoman occupation in 1459. The event was one of the most decisive ones for the subsequent role of Ottoman Turkey in Europe which lasted more the five centuries.
Lazar was canonized as martyr by the Serbian Orthodox Church in late 13th century.
NOTES
“Srpske novine” (Official gazette) No. 79 of 9th April 1889.
Regency for King Alexander I (Obrenovic) consisted of Dr. Jovan Ristic, General Kosta Protic and General Jovan Belimarkovic.
This title (“Knez”) should be understood in the fashion of German “Fürst”.
From Karadjordje’s uprising in 1804 to the Berlin Congress in 1878.
Sovereign Principality of Serbia was proclaimed Kingdom on 22th February 1882.
No insignia of the Serbian King existed at that time; the Crown jewels were first made for coronation of Petar I Karadjordjevic in 1904.
Originally, there was one collar, that of King Alexander I (Obrenovich). After his assassination, it was worn by King Peter I (Karageorgevich) and another one was commissioned for Crown Prince George. After his abdication in 1909 it was worn by his brother Alexander, later King Alexander I. According to the memoirs of the renown sculptor Ivan Meshtrovich, Prince Paul Karageorgevich, regent of the Kingdom on behalf of King Peter II after the latter’s father assassination, allegedly ordered the new collar and intended to present it to the King on his 18th birthday, “because the old collars were too worn out”. This is the only indirect evidence of the existence of the third collar.
