Queen Of The Hellenes Elisabeta

Notable

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Family

Princess of Romania by birth and member of the House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen and by marriage Queen consort of the Hellenes from 1922 to 1924. Raised by her great-uncle King Carol I of Romania and his wife Queen Elisabeth of Wied, she developed an introverted character which socially isolated her. Married to the heir to the Greek throne in 1921, she felt no passion for him and suffered the political turmoil that crossed her adopted country after World War I. After her husband became King of Greece in 1922, Elisabeth was involved in assisting refugees who arrived to Athens after the disaster of the Greco-Turkish War. The rise of the revolutionary climate, however, affected her health and with great relief she left the Kingdom of Greece with her husband in December 1923. The royal couple then settled in Bucharest, where eventually King George II was deposed on 25 March 1924. In Romania, Elisabeth and George II's relationship deteriorated and eventually the couple divorced in 1935. Very close to her brother, King Carol II of Romania, the princess amassed an important fortune, partly due to the financial advice of her lover, the banker Alexandru Scavani. After the death of her mother, Queen Marie, in 1938 and the dethronement of Carol II in 1940, Elisabeth took the role of First Lady of Romania. At the end of World War II, she established close links with the Romanian Communist Party and openly conspired against her nephew, the young King Michael I, earning the nickname of "Red Aunt" of the sovereign. However, her communist links didn't save her from being expelled from the country when was proclaimed the Socialist Republic of Romania in 1947. Exiled, the princess moved to Switzerland and then to Cannes, in southern France. She had a romantic relationship with Marc Favrat, a man almost thirty years younger, whom she finally adopted just before her death on 14 November 1956. Link to Wikipedia biography