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Michael of Romania: Romantic, royal and retiring |
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Written by The Economist (UK)
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Thursday, 17 May 2007 10:00 |
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Michael of Romania: Romantic, royal and retiring “UNTIL the collapse of communism, being an exiled monarch was merely thankless. Since then it has been cruelly disappointing. In Albania, Georgia, Hungary, Montenegro, Russia and Serbia the monarchist cause has at best crashed and burned—or more often failed to ignite at all, leaving royal pretenders (or pretend royals) stranded on the eurotrash heap of history. In Bulgaria, Simeon Saxcoburggotski (or ex-King Simeon II) was briefly a popular prime minister. But now he languishes in an uncomfortable coalition with the ex-communists, heirs to the party that exiled him and murdered his followers. The classiest act, however, is Michael of Romania: dignified, modest and sharpwitted; ambitious for his country, but not for himself. He is one of only three surviving heads of state from 1945 (the others are ex-King Simeon, who was only seven when the war ended, and Mohammed Zahir Shah, once King of Afghanistan and now, aged 92, back home as “Father of the Nation”). Michael makes no claims to his throne; in return, Romania’s current rulers treat him with the courtesies due to a former head of state…”
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