Although Prince Milan took power into his own hands in August 1872, when he came of age, the regime established during the Regency continued to exist. Two former members of the body, Milivoje Petrović Blaznavac and Jovan Ristić, have become the most influential ministers in the Serbian government. The prolonged influence of the Regency, and now the ministers, ended in 1873 with the sudden death of Blaznavac, and this event also marks a certain Milan’s independence in the sphere of domestic politics. Along with the young prince, until the opening of the great eastern crisis, the governments of Jovan Marinović, Aćim Čumić and Ljubomir Kaljević were more or less harmonious.

Since the Obrenović dynasty was reduced to a single male member in the Principality, the issue of Milan’s marriage was extremely important and delicate, which would ensure the permanence of the ruling house and solve pronounced money problems. Namely, Prince Milan spent excessively, and significantly more than the amount of money available to him in the form of a civil list and annual income from his inherited property, and securities. The issue of the prince’s marriage was, of course, also a political issue, which also revealed the foreign policy course of the Principality. Immediately after Prince Milan’s visit to Russian Tsar Alexander II in Livadia in 1871, the Regency made plans to marry the prince to one of the Russian princesses. However, this attempt and later attempts by Serbian governments to arrange such a marriage failed due to the fact, as Gorchakov put it, in 1873: “The principle is irrefutable, that a Russian princess cannot marry a vassal prince.” In the spring of 1875, Jovan Marinović was sent to Russia to investigate the situation with the marriage of Prince Milan, but the Russian Tsar and Empress told him that they did not find any opportunity for the prince’s marriage in Russia for now. However, the Russian Empress promised that she would be Prince Milan’s wedding godmother.

The plans for Milan’s marriage, forged by the Regency and later Serbian governments, were motivated by dynastic and state reasons and did not imply that the prince’s marriage was based on real and sincere feelings. However, according to the testimony of Slobodan Jovanović, Prince Milan was sentimental in love. Vladan Đorđević, his personal doctor, says that Milan was almost timidly restrained towards women, but where he saw only a little warmer feeling towards himself, he remained trapped with all his soul. Only two of Milan’s love affairs before marriage are known. Slobodan Jovanović states that, at the time of the fall of Jovan Ristić’s government in 1873, the prince was in love with the wife of a Belgrade lawyer, whose name has not been preserved. On that occasion, Milan’s behavior became the subject of scandalous conversations of Belgrade curious people. Namely, according to the testimony of Slobodan Jovanović, at one Garden Party while the prince was in the garden, his mistress appeared on the court balcony, all dressed up as a young princess, with a rose in her hand. The prince stared at her blissfully. The next chosen one of Milan’s heart was Leposava Novaković, the widow of Dimitrije Novaković. The prince met her at the ball, and young and flirtatious, with enchanting black eyes, Leposava left an exceptional impression on him. This sincere love of the prince lasted a little more than half a year, from the autumn of 1874 to the spring of 1875. However, Leposava kept a whole bunch of Milan’s love letters and, in order not to sell those letters to one interested country, she enjoyed a constant state monthly rent.

Geneology of Obrenović by Đorđe Krstić, around 1880, lithograph, 35,2 х 25,2 cm, Historical Collection of the National Museum Kraljevo (I-1237).

Finally, during 1875, the young prince Milan got married, and his chosen one was Natalie Petrovna Keshko. The future Serbian princess was born on May 2nd/14th, 1859 in Florence. Her father was the colonel of the Russian army, Petre Keshko from Bessarabia, and her mother was Pulcheria, a member of the former Moldavian ruling family Sturza. Petre Keshko died in 1865, and as Pulcheria’s mother was chronically ill, Natalie, her two sisters, Maria and Catherine, and brother John, were often left in the care of Princess Catherine Muruza or Prince George Manukbey. Although the children were from a wealthy family due to the early death of their father and the long illness of their mother, their childhood was disordered, interspersed with constant relocations. Pulcheria Keshko died when Natalie was fifteen, so the children were sent to her aunt Catherine Muruza. According to personal testimony, Natalie first saw Prince Milan when she was twelve years old and when she was staying in Baumgart near Vienna. On that occasion, Milan’s mother Maria Catargiu and his maternal grandmother, who was Natalie’s grandmother-aunt, came to visit her and showed her a photo of the young prince. Due to the discomfort or the beauty of Milan, Natalie was confused and always kept the picture in her room. When Natalie was sixteen, her grandmother proposed marriage to a Serbian prince, and although she objected to having to leave her country, Natalie agreed after the persuasion. The true acquaintance of Milan and Natalie took place in the summer of 1875, most likely in Vienna, although there are sources that say that it happened in Paris. Already on July 25th / August 6th, 1875, the young and in love prince was in a hurry, without prior notification of the Serbian government, and perhaps in order to overtake his cousin Alexander Konstantinović in courtship, he engaged Natalie Petrovna Keshko.

The wedding of the young couple was held on October 5th/17th, 1875 in the Cathedral Church in Belgrade. Due to the outbreak of the Eastern Crisis and the uprising in Bosnia, the event itself was somewhat more modestly organized than would have been expected. The Russian Tsar was the best men at the wedding. The prince’s closest relatives gathered in the prince’s court, and the guests came straight to the church. The formal reception was in the court in the afternoon. The very act of marriage was accompanied by a bad omen. When the bride and groom went to the church, the day was beautiful and sunny, but soon dark clouds gathered over Belgrade, predicting an imminent storm. After the wedding, the young couple sat in the wedding carriage, but the harnessed horses did not want to move. When they finally did, ten minutes later, they began to curvet and almost overturned the carriage with the newlyweds. Rain and darkness covered Belgrade, and the prince and princess were visibly upset.

Princess Natalie quickly gained the sympathy of her subjects with her Slavic orientation and attitude during the wars with the Ottoman Empire, and Natalie also accepted Serbia as her new homeland. Despite the bad omen, the first years of Milan and Natalie’s marriage, although they were wartime, were happy. According to Ljubomir Kaljević, “The prince loved his young and beautiful wife, and she loved him so much, that they often looked to me like children who can’t hide their feelings.” The young couple had two sons: Alexander, August 2nd/14th, 1876, later king, and Sergei, September 2nd/14th, 1878, who died five days later.

Darko Gučanin
historian, archivist
Director of the National Museum Kraljevo

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