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Diana Mandache, “The Balcic of Queen Marie”, 204 pp, 201 ill. (Sepia & colour), Curtea Veche Publishing, 2014, hardback, dust jacket, 1st edition (Romanian language)

The text is structured over seven chapters:

  • “Overseas” (The Duke of Edinburgh, Marie at Osborne, Eastwell, Malta, Fabron. Heraldry and symbols);
  • “In search of Paradise” (The Marriage, Cotroceni Palace – The Image of a New Identity),
  • “Queen Marie’s Balchik (The Orient of Romania, Photographers. American delegation, Tenha Yuvah of the Sultana)
  • “From Paradise: letters, journal, photographs” (Roxo Weingartner. “Vahdah”, Regency, Visits, Eugen Zwiedinek, Ray Baker Harris, Madonna Stella Maris)
  • “The Queen’s Heart” (Funerals, Will, Mignon’s inquire in England, Stella Maris, Carol and Michael at Balchik)
  • “Tenha Yuvah after the Treaty of Craiova” (Royal Property, Romanian Urban Property, Holiday home for writers in communist Bulgaria, Cultural Center “Dvoretsa”);
  • “Diplomatic documents”

Sources of documents and photographs. Notes

This new book is based on new sources which bring to light a novel understanding of the vision of the Romanian Queen for the creation of her Fool’s Paradise, as she called the new residence on the Black Sea shore in the interwar period. The text is accompanied by photographs from various sources, mainly from Queen Marie’s diary. The Balchik of Queen Marie thus becomes an imago mundi whilst her marine royal residence “Tenha Yuvah” (The Solitary Nest) stands as the center of the world, being the home reuniting important personalities from her inner circle and also from royal history (King Ferdinand of Romania, Victoria Melita, Sandra of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Beatrice Infanta of Spain, Queen Maria of Yugoslavia, King Alexander II of Yugoslavia, King Peter II of Yugoslavia, Ileana, Princess of Romania and Archduchess of Austria, Anton Archduke of Austria, King Carol II of Romania, Crown Prince Michael of Romania, Princess Helen of Romania). I also found information about King George V, Queen Mary,  King George VI, or about the Edinburghs at Eastwell, Osborne, Fabron, in Malta, etc. Past times, royalty and politics, the magnificent royal gardens of the Balchick royal estate, all of these recall a glorious period from this part of the world, the Queen’s views on international politics and events in the 1930s. Marie asked in her will to have her heart interred at Stella Maris chapel on the grounds of her Black Sea estate. As a consequence of the changing of the frontieres in 1940 and loss of that territory by Romania, a new destiny started for her former sea shore domain. The diplomatic documents that I unearthed, from the tumultuous period 1940-1948 also reveal the evolution on the property, a fate that was in the end decided by the communist regimes of Romania and Bulgaria. This volume is a book about royal destinies, royal heritage, historic architecture and the beautiful riviera of interwar Romania, Balchik is now a part of Bulgaria after the Treaty of Craiova concluded in September 1940. Today the former royal estate is a Cultural Center in the neighbouring country, a magnet for Romanian tourists and also for many travellers all over the world fascinated by the multifaceted personality of Romania’s great queen.

***

http://www.curteaveche.ro/balcicul-reginei-maria-diana-mandache.html

see also http://royalbooknews.blogspot.ro/2015/02/balcicul-reginei-maria-by-diana-mandache.html