,
President of the National Assembly of Serbia, also known as the
Prince of Danube ot the
Danube Rotschild ,
Paris,
France Prince Bojidar belonged to the senior line of the
Karađorđević dynasty (his older brother was
Prince Alexis Karađorđević). He was the second son of Prince George Karađorđević (1827–1884) and his wife Sara Anastasijević (1836-1931), daughter of
Miša Anastasijević, Serbian
Senator and one of the richest people in
Serbia. Prince Bojidars' paternal grandparents were Prince Alexis Karageorgevitch (1801–1829), the eldest son of
Karađorđe Petrović and his wealthy wife, Maria Nikolaevna Trohin (1806-1827) from
Bessarabia, the daughter of Nicolae Konstantinovich Trohin, the
Marshal of the Nobility of
Khotyn (1828-1831) and his wife, Victoria Konstantinovna Buzny (d. 1824), the daughter of
Boyar Konstantin Ilyich Buzny (b. circa 1750), who held the title of
Armaș; both of their families belonged to the
Nobility of Moldavia and Wallachia. He also had one younger sister (1862-1867), born ten months after him, who died in infancy, but there is no record of her name. Prince Bojidar lived in France for most of his life as the members of the Karađorđević dynasty were in exile after
Prince Alexander Karađorđević lost the Serbian throne in 1858. Bojidar traveled a lot and went on a number of trips around the world. He served in the
French Army and fought in the French campaign at
Tonking and was decorated with the Cross of the
Legion of Honour. To earn a living he gave singing and drawing lessons before becoming a translator and journalist. He visited Serbia twice at the turn of the century (1897 and either late 1899 or early 1900), both times semi-incognito, trying to evaluate the general feel in the population about a possible replacement of the
Obrenović dynasty with the
Karađorđevićs should King
Alexander Obrenović die childless, as was expected to happen at the time, due to the King's marriage with Queen
Draga of an age beyond childbirth years at the time. He also visited Serbia once after his second cousin once removed King
Peter I Karađorđević was enthroned but became disillusioned with the treatment he received (mostly ignored by his regal relative). During one of his trips abroad, he traveled extensively around
India, visiting thirty-eight cities. He wrote a book about his experiences called
Enchanted India in which he offered an account of the Indian people, their religious rites, and other ceremonies. He also provided detailed descriptions of the Indian landscape and buildings. He also translated works of
Tolstoy and Hungarian dramatist
Mór Jókai. Taking an interest in art, he visited
Munich,
Dresden, and
Berlin and spent some months in
Italy; afterward, he settled in
Paris. There he regularly contributed articles to the
Figaro,
La Revue de Paris, the
Magazine of Art (
Ilya Repin,
Jules Bastien-Lepage), including a biography of
Marie Bashkirtseff in the
Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th Edition, Vol. III. On November 8, 1889, he attended in
Rochefort, France, the orientalist feast given by French writer
Pierre Loti who has just returned from his diplomatic mission with Sultan
Hassan I of Morocco. His mother later claimed that Loti had ruined him by introducing him to
Greek love. In
Montmartre, he met and befriended French stage actress
Sarah Bernhardt, pioneer of modern dance
Loïe Fuller, French poet, novelist and noted orientalist
Judith Gautier, Suzanne Meyer-Zundel, Austrian composer
Hugo Wolf, painter and illustrator
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and founder of the Ballets Russes
Sergei Diaghilev. Biographer
Stevan K. Pavlowitch claims that the Prince was openly gay and had no relationship with women except purely platonic. In his later years Prince Karadjordjevitch turned his attention in decoration, and executed panels and medallions for a Paris
atelier as a designer, sculptor, painter and
silversmith, and often spent time with
Georges Lacombe,
Émile Bernard,
Édouard Vuillard,
Paul Sérusier and other members of
Les Nabis. Karageorgevitch's paintings, illustrations, watercolors and silversmith works were first exhibited in Belgrade in 1908. ==Death==