Here is an installment that I think is very exciting, the result of a collaboration between myself and @
Damian0358 showing some snippets of the history of a region that is quite a bit different than OTL. The full list of the previous monarchs can be found on the next post, but here I present the seven currently reigning
Monarchs of the Balkan States:
King Viktor II is the ninth, and current, King of the Rumanians since the country gained independence from the Ottoman Empire during the First Balkan War (1813-1815). Viktor is a great-great-great-grandson of the revolutionary Tudor Vladimirescu, later Teodor I, who led the fight for Rumanian independence against the Ottomans and was crowned Prince of Wallachia and Moldavia in 1815, and as such he is also the head of the House of Vladimirescu, the royal family of Rumania.
Born in 1941, less than a year after the assassination of Nicolae III and the accession of his grandfather Viktor I, Viktor was third in line to the throne from birth, and spent his formative years with his mother under armed guard at Peles Castle. After the 1944 coup he and his family moved to live in the capital Bucharest, where they remained even as Rumania fell into the Soviet-aligned Warsaw Pact.
Upon the death of his grandfather in 1953, his uncle became King Alexandru VII, whilst Viktor moved to second in line to the throne after his father. Following his service in the Rumanian Armed Forces, Viktor took on more royal duties, frequently representing Rumania internationally for which he became a symbol amongst the Rumanian people of internationalism. It was while on a state visit to Greece in 1977 that he met Princess Irene, younger sister of King Konstantínos II. After a short courtship and engagement the pair married in Bucharest in 1979, and they have three children.
Despite being able to live for a time out of the spotlight, the sudden death of his uncle and accession of his father in 1986 placed Viktor firmly in the public eye as Crown Prince. He was a prominent figure in Rumania during the Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Velvet Revolution, and has been a strong advocate of positive relations with both the Soviet Union and the United Empire.
Since his accession in 1999 Viktor has taken a more nuanced aproach to voicing political opinions, despite Rumania being one of the few monarchies where the head of state still plays an active role in government, and many have seen his reign as a natural end to the progression away from the semi-absolute system of his grandfather to a constitutional monarchy. Viktor is an avid painter, and many of his works detailing key events in Rumanian history have been exhibited internationally to critical acclaim. Under his reign the Rumanian Royal Family continues to remain popular in the country.
King Konstantínos II is the eighth, and current, King of the Hellenes and the sixth member of the House of Tatoi (agnatically still part of the House of Glücksburg) to sit on the throne since his great-grandfather Geórgios I took the throne in 1863.
Born in Athens in 1940, Konstantínos went into exile with his family a year later when the Axis Powers invaded and occupied Greece, spending the next four years first in Cairo and then Cape Town. He returned to Greece with his family in 1946 and attended school and later served in all three branches of the armed forces. Upon the death of his uncle Aléxandros in 1952, Konstantínos became Crown Prince as heir to his father. He would go on to win a gold medal at the 1960 Olympic Games in Hamburg.
In 1964 he married Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark, and in 1966, at the age of 25, Konstantínos succeeded his father as King. Konstantínos' reign has been largely peaceful in Greece, although the 1967 Constitution stripped him of any political power and reduced the role of King to a purely symbolic one. The exception to this period of peace was the 1974 Cyprus crisis which nearly brought the country to war with Turkey over control of the island until the British stepped in. However recently Greece has been racked with unrest due to the effects of the Great Recession, and although popular support for the royal family has remained high, it has fallen in recent polls.
King Tasilo is the current King of Croatia and the third member of the House of Feštetić to sit on the throne since the election of his grandfather, Juraj I, as King of the Axis-aligned Independent State of Croatia. In the aftermath of the Second World War the Croatian people voted to keep the family as ceremonial monarchs of the neutral Kingdom of Croatia.
Tasilo was born in Zagreb in 1978 during the reign of his father, Juraj II. Granted the title of Prince of Bosnia from birth, Tasilo's birth solved the potential succession crisis in the nation as Juraj II had no heir, and his marriage to Princess Josephine, youngest daughter of King Henri VI of France, had yet to produce a child. Tasilo's birth therefore was met with celebration across Croatia, and declared a national holiday. His birth was followed by a younger brother, Prince Juraj, Grand Duke of Herzegovinia, in 1984.
Attending school and university in Croatia as the Cold War came to its end and the Third Balkan War raged in neighbouring Serbia, Tasilo never had the opportunity to serve in active combat during his time in the armed forces, although he was part of a peacekeeping force sent to the Serbian-Dardanian border in 2005. In 2006 he was sent as a representative of the King to the celebration of the accession of Avrám II Kondașcu as Prince of Armanonia, and here he met Princess Theodora of Greece. The pair would later marry in 2008 and have three children.
His father's sudden death in 2011 from a stroke, forced Tasilo and his young family to leave behind their quiet life in Sarajevo for the pomp and ceremony of the national capital. Tasilo's reign has seen his country continue the policy of "quiet neutrality" advocated by his grandfather, whilst Tasilo is reported to be pro-European, and although Croatia joined the EU in 2013 it has an opt-out for the European Defence Community.
King Aleksandar IV is the seventh, and current, King of Bulgaria and the current head of the House of Habsburg-Romanov, the Bulgarian royal family, since the sudden death of his father in 1967.
Born in Sofia in 1937, as the nephew of recently crowned Kardam III, Aleksandar was never expected to inherit the throne. However the sudden unexplained death of his uncle propelled his under-prepared father to the throne in 1943, in the midst of the Second World War. When the war ended and Bulgaria found itself in the anti-Communist camp the Allies backed his father on the throne, despite some in the country calling for his abdication.
Educated at boarding schools and military academies, Aleksandar was known for his outspoken and bombastic nature, as well as his frequent solo hikes in the Balkan Mountains. It was here in 1962 that he met Nadeja Cristova, a young woman two-years his junior. Their whirlwind romance captured the hearts of the nation, but when a year later he asked for his father's permission to marry her, the ailing King declined as the family laws of succession, and the Bulgarian constitution, forbade the heir to the throne from marrying a commoner.
Despite proposing several potential brides from European royalty, Aleksander refused saying there "would be no other but Nadeja". His father's death in 1967 after a long illness allowed Aleksandar the opportunity to finally marry Nadeja, but the government resisted change and it wasn't until 1969 when they married in a public ceremony in Sofia.
Aleksandar's reign is currently the second-longest in Bulgarian history, after the dynasty's founder Aleksandar I Yosifov, son of
Archduke Joseph of Austria and
Grand Duchess Alexandra Pavlovna of Russia. He, his wife and his family remain very popular with the Bulgarian public, and plans are underway for a national celebration this year to commemorate his Golden Jubilee.
King Leka II is the current King of Albania, having ascended to the throne in 2011 upon the death of his father, Leka I. He is the current head of the House of Zogolli, and the fifth member of the family to serve as head of state of Albania, since the introduction of an elective principality in 1848. His grandfather, Zog I or Skanderbeg III, was the last Prince of Albania and the first King until the Axis-powers occupied Albania during the Second World War. After the war the nation became the Socialist Republic of Albania, and the Zogolli family went into exile.
Born in Johannesburg, Capeland in 1982 was from birth the heir to the defunct throne of Albania as the only child of his father, and the only grandchild of Zog I/Skander II. Leka grew up in Capeland, and only returned to Albania in 2000 following the end of the Albanian Civil War and the formation of the Second Albanian Republic in the Tosk-regions of the nation. His family were banned from entering the Republic of Dardania, which was formed from northern Albania and south-western Serbia until 2007. Although their return was very popular amongst the public and politicians, with his father being invited to speak before a session of the restored Parliament in 2001, it would not be until 2003 that the monarchy was restored by popular referendum.
Upon his father's accession as King, Leka was granted the title of Crown Prince and began to undertake royal duties on both the national and international stage. Although not fluent in Tosk Albanian when he arrived in the country, Leka learned quickly and became a symbol of the future for the youth of Albania. His father's death in 2011 propelled Leka to the throne at the age of 29, and although it was met with mourning across the nation, there were also widespread celebrations for their new king. Leka married Albanian actress Elia Zaharia in 2013, and the couple currently have two sons. As King he has led his country through the final transition out of communism and has seen closer ties with Europe and the west, including the ongoing accession process to the EU, which is expected to be completed sometime in the next decade.
Avrám II Kondașcu is the current Sovereign Prince of Armanonia, having ascended to the throne in 2006 upon the death of his father, the first succession between father and son since 1833. Avrám is the sixth member of the House of Kondașcu to sit on the throne of Armanonia, and the second since the restoration of the principality in 2000 as an hereditary monarchy.
Born in exile in Switzerland in 1964, Avrám was the great-grandson of the last elected prince prior to the Axis- and later Albanian-occupation, Avrám I Kondașcu. Avrám's great-grandfather had died in 1950, and his grandfather would pass away in 1982, leaving Avrám and his father Gógu as the
de facto heirs to the defunct Principality of Armanonia. Avrám would spend his formative years in Switzerland, but attended university in Miami, Florida where he met his future wife, Marta Amavisca, a native Floridian and member of the local nobility as a daughter of the Count of Tampa. They would marry in 1995 and settled for a time in Spain.
After the Third Balkan War, Armanonia was restored as an independent state, and the new government invited the Kondașcu family back to the country, with Avrám and his young family settling in the capital Moscopole at the former Princely Palace. The 2000 referendum in Armanonia on the future constitution of the country saw 98.47% of the population vote in favour of a restoration of the principality as an hereditary monarchy under the House of Kondașcu, and Avrám's father was crowned Prince whilst he was granted the title of Hereditary Prince.
His father's sudden and unexpected death in 2006 saw Avrám ascend to the throne of the world's largest sovereign principality, and although his reign has been peaceful, seeing improved relations with the West and the beginning of Armanonia's accession to the EU, recent revelations about the current ruling party's near dominant control over the national media have called into question Armanonia's place in modern Europe.
Nikola ΙΙ is the current King of Montenegro, Head of the House of Petrović-Njegoš and the first member of the family to reign as monarch since the abdication of his ancestor, King Nikola I after the First World War. Nikola was restored to his family's ancestral throne after a popular referendum in Montenegro in 2011 resulted in a majority in favour of restoration.
Born in 1944 in an internment camp in Occupied Czechslovakia, Nikola spent most of his life with his mother in France, raised as a Frenchman and knowing very little about his ancestral homeland. Following his education he worked as an architect and was married to the French citizen Francine Navarro from 1976 until her death in 2008. He was a campaigner in the 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum on the Yes side, and upon the restoration of Montenegrin independence he resettled in the country and was welcomed by the new republican government as a symbolic figure.
A referendum held in early 2011 resulted in a majority supporting the restoration of the House of Petrović-Njegoš, and on 24 March 2011, on the 125th anniversary of the proclamation of the Kingdom of Montenegro, he was sworn in as the King of Montenegro.
