The Commission for monuments and street names of the city of Belgrade has decided that one of the Belgrade’s streets will soon be named after the last Yugoslav King Peter II. The initiative that one street is named after HM King Peter II came from the Kingdom of Serbia Association.
Our demand was sent to the Commission in January 2015. The Association’s preposition was that the Maksim Gorki Street should be renamed to the King Peter II Street, because this particular street carried the name “The Street of Crown Prince Peter” since the beginning of the WWII. However, the City Commission decided not to change the name of Maksim Gorki Street, but to give the name of King Peter II to some other street in Belgrade. The decision will be made in the next few months.
King Peter II was the last King of Yugoslavia. He came to the throne in October 1934, after the brutal murder of his father HM King Alexander I. Since King Peter II was 11 years old and underage at the time of his father’s assassination, regency was formed consisting of three regents: HRH Prince Paul Karadjordjevic, Mr. Ivo Perovic and Mr. Radenko Stankovic.
He formally became King on March 27th, 1941, after the coup d’état by Yugoslav officers. As a result of the coup, King Peter II was proclaimed of age.
After the German invasion, King Peter II was forced to leave the country along with the Yugoslav Government – initially to Greece, Palestine and then to Egypt. King Peter II joined other monarchs and leaders of German occupied Europe in London in June 1941. There King Peter was regarded by the people of Yugoslavia as the symbol of resistance against Nazism.
In November 1945, the monarchy was illegally abolished without a referendum and Yugoslavia remained a totalitarian single party state under the League of Communists for more than four decades. HM King Peter II was proclaimed to be “Public enemy No 1” by the communists and he was forbidden to come back to his Fatherland.
Peter II died on November 3rd, 1970 in Denver Hospital Colorado, and he was buried at the St. Sava Monastery Church in Libertyville Illinois. He was the only king buried in the United States. The King’s remains were transferred to Royal Palace Chapel in Belgrade on January 22nd, 2013 and a State Funeral took place on May 26th, 2013 at the Royal Family Mausoleum of St. George in Oplenac, Serbia where His Majesty joined other members of The Royal Family interned the Royal Mausoleum.
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