{{Serbia held a funeral on Sunday for Yugoslavia’s last king, Peter II Karadjordjevic, who had fled the country at the start of World War II and died in the U.S. in 1970.}}<\/p>\n
The former king’s remains, and those of his wife, mother and brother, were interred in the family tomb at St. George church in Oplenac, central Serbia, in a ceremony aired live on the state television.<\/p>\n
The funeral was attended by top state officials, who described it as an act of reconciliation and unity.<\/p>\n
After fleeing Yugoslavia during its Nazi occupation, the former king never returned because Communists took over the country at the end of the war and abolished the monarchy.<\/p>\n
He died in exile at the age of 47 and was buried at a Serbian Orthodox Church monastery in Libertyville, Illinois \u2014 the only European monarch laid to rest on U.S. soil.<\/p>\n
“We can no longer afford any divisions and injustice,” President Tomislav Nikolic said in a speech at Sunday’s ceremony.<\/p>\n
Peter was born into a royal family, and his godfather was Britain’s King George VI, but his life was often tragic and chaotic.<\/p>\n
He was only 11 years old when his father, King Alexander I, was assassinated in 1934 in Marseilles, France. <\/p>\n
For the next six years the boy’s powers were in the hands of a three-man regency headed by his uncle, Prince Paul.<\/p>\n
In March 1941, Prince Paul was overthrown in a military coup after signing a pact with Germany.<\/p>\n
Peter, then 17, was made the king by the Serb anti-fascists. But when Germany invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941, Peter was forced to flee, first to Greece, then to Egypt, then to Britain, where he headed the government-in-exile. <\/p>\n
He later lived in France and ended up in the U.S.<\/p>\n
History books portray him as a figurehead leader and a victim of cunning politicians.<\/p>\n
AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{Serbia held a funeral on Sunday for Yugoslavia’s last king, Peter II Karadjordjevic, who had fled the country at the start of World War II and died in the U.S. in 1970.}} The former king’s remains, and those of his wife, mother and brother, were interred in the family tomb at St. George church in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-8061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8061\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8061"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=8061"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=8061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}