Royalty Digest Quarterly no. 3, 2015

The last issue of Royalty Digest Quarterly arrived in my mailbox sometime this week while I was on vacation. I haven't read much of it yet, so this will be a short presentation rather than a review. The front cover shows a photo of Queen Marie of Yugoslavia with her sons Tomislav, Andrej (Andrew) and Petar (Peter). The photo is obviously printed because the magazine's historical consultant, Charlotte Zeepvat, this time has chosen Yugoslavia/Serbia as the topic for the traditional photo album. Her article is titled The Royal House of Serbia and Yugoslavia. Two Family Albums, because the article covers both the Obrenovic and the Karadjordjevic dynasties. Besides a four pages long introduction, the article contains 92 illustrations as well as three pages with genealogial tables. The article starts on page 24 and ends on page 55. I have a soft spot for the Eastern European dynasties and I am therefore very pleased about the topic.

The editor and publisher, Ted Rosvall, uses his Editor's Corner to comment on the recent events in Romania, where the former King Michael in August removed the titles and succession rights from his grandson, Nicholas Medforth-Mills. I am not the only person who has questioned the king's decision to set up a new law of succession for his family. I will not comment further on that discussion here, but just want to express how sorry I am for all the mess and negative headlines the king, who earlier was loyal to the principles of a constitutional monarchy, has created in recent years. Well, Romania is a republic now, and the chances of restoration is close to zero, so it is only an academic discussion anyway.

Michael L. Nash has made many contributions to RDQ over the years, and this time he has written the article The Jewels of Portugal. Another well-known royal history author is Coryne Hall, and she has contributed with the article Princess Beatrice, the Isle of Wight's true friend.

Charlotte Zeepvat's second article of the present issue is titled The Terracotta Angel, which deals with sculptural presentations of various royals, a neglected form of portraiture according to the author.

Then follows her second article, the photo album on the Obrenovic and Karadjordjevic dynasties, which has already been mentioned above.

I am not familiar with the name Stefan Haderer, but he seems to come from Austria, and his contribution is titled A highly unusual affair. The topic is the intimate relationship between Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria and actress Katharina Schratt.

Finally, the column The World Wide Web of Royalty gives a sample of royal news since the last issue was printed. This time we can read news about the Imperial, royal or princely houses of Altenburg, Austria, Bagration, Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Lippe, Oldenburg, Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Solms-Hohensolms-Lich and Solms-Wildenfels. Oh I so much loves the names of the German dynasties!

I have in other words a great reading time waiting for me next week. The only column I miss is the book reviews, as I also commented on last time.

Information on Royalty Digest Quarterly can be found at its editor's website Royalbooks.se. See earlier presentation of RDQ here. See also its Facebook page.