Dynasty

By Christina Oxenberg

Girls all over the world dream of being a princess. Not unreasonably, they imagine wearing the finest frocks and being squired by the most desirable bachelors; being pampered in palaces of marble; living lives of unimaginable splendour. Why not such a dream, indeed? They would be wise, however, to beware and never forget that beneath the surface are veins of boiling vengeance. Behind the glory lie heaps of mutilated bodies, rival brothers hanged or hacked to death, tremulous fathers mercilessly shot. The founder of the Serbian Karageorgevic dynasty met with a grisly end - decapitated - his head sent to the Grand Sultan in Constantinople. All this was so that one day Serbia's children might exist in tranquillity, free of repression by Turks or their vassals, and with the gory past politely swept aside. From a mountain geyser spout the first droplets of a widening river of descendants eventually emptying into the sea, the sea of civilized life where they could become noble patrons of the arts and aesthetes. I look at footage of King Alexander I, driving through Marseilles in 1934. He is dapper, wearing formal military dress in an open car. He is smiling at the thronging crowds that welcome his official visit. He is visibly pleased. Then he is shot dead xii Dynasty instantly, and his head slumps sideways, blood oozing down his jaw. It was shocking to me to watch this. What a way to meet a relative. How does such a dynasty begin?

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0D98V16YQ
• ISBN13: 9798332413926
• Release Date: July 2024
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 261 Pages
• Weight: 1.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.0" x 0.6" x 7.0"