On the day of her birth, she was given the name Giovanna Elisabetta Antonia Romana Maria of Savoy. She was born on November 13, 1907, in Rome, as the daughter of Italy’s King Victor Emmanuel III and Queen Elena of Montenegro. One hundred and nineteen years later, her name remains associated with one of the most dramatic periods in Bulgarian history.
Giovanna first met her future husband, King Boris III, in 1927. Three years later, the two married in Assisi. The differences between the princess’s Catholic faith and the Bulgarian monarch’s Orthodox Christianity turned the wedding into a diplomatic and ecclesiastical issue. The Catholic ceremony at the Basilica of “Saint Francis” in Assisi was followed by an Orthodox wedding at the “Saint Alexander Nevsky” Memorial Church in Sofia. It was then that Giovanna adopted the Bulgarian name Yoanna.
The Queen of Mercy
In Bulgaria, Giovanna of Savoy devoted a significant part of her public work to the sick, children and medical education. Her wedding gift of 5 million leva was donated for the construction of the children’s sanatorium in Tryavna. She also supported the construction of the hospital that today bears the name University Hospital “Queen Yoanna – ISUL,” and became patron of the School for Nurses.
King Boris III and she had two children – Princess Marie Louise, born in 1933, and Crown Prince Simeon, born in 1937. Following the king’s sudden death in August 1943, Giovanna was widowed at the age of 35. In the months that followed, Sofia came under heavy bombardment, while the country’s political situation changed radically.
The Years of Exile
After the coup of September 9, 1944, the royal family was placed under pressure. In September 1946, following the referendum on abolishing the monarchy and declaring Bulgaria a republic, Giovanna left the country with her children. The family initially departed for Alexandria and later settled in Spain. After Simeon’s wedding in 1962, Giovanna moved to Estoril, Portugal.
She returned to Bulgaria in 1993, when King Boris III’s heart was reburied in his grave at the Rila Monastery. It was her first visit to the country after decades of exile. Giovanna died on February 26, 2000, in Estoril, and at her request was buried in Assisi – the city where her family story with the Bulgarian king began.
When presenting a biographical book about his mother in 2003, Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha described her with the words:
“She taught me everything that any mother would say based on her life experience.”Sources: archives.bnr.bg, 24chasa.bg, utroruse.com