The Danube-Aegean waterway project, a paper by Prince Lazarovich-Hrebelianovich. Arranged and edited by Mara de Czernucki-Lazarovich-Hrebelianovich

Front matter

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Table Of Contents

Part Page

INTRODUCTION by the Editor. 6

I. DANUBE-AEGEAN WATERWAY PROJECT. 17

Introduction

BY THE EDITOR.

In 1920 my father presented to the American Society of Civil Engi¬ neers a paper entitled the “Danube-Aegean Waterway,” giving a description of the work, the general project and the interesting history of its inception. 1 2 * * * * * *

That project was first brought to the attention of the English-speak¬ ing public through a report made by the American Consul General at Constantinople, and published in the number of July 7, 1909, of the “U. S. Consular and Trade Reports.” Since then many notices and references regarding it have found their way into print, 9 but a complete descriptive story of that project had not yet been published in printed form. It was * for a long time my desire to make this, my father’s work the subject of a book. A desire rather hard to realize as the paper in the form he presented it to the American Society of Civil Engineers required ampli¬ fication taken from his political correspondence, and my father had several years ago refused an offer to publish his recollections together with his correspondence covering the last thirty years. Now, there appeared dur¬ ing the last few months in Jugoslav papers various reports stating that the Jugoslav Government decided to undertake regulation and canaliza¬ tion works on the Morava River; works that formed integral parts of my father’s Danube-Aegean Waterway project. The book seemed timely. The newspaper reports were convenient excuses, and a compromise was finally arrived at, and that compromise is the present book.

My father, Eugen (Lazar) de Czernucki-Lazarovich, Prince Hrebelianovich, was born in Croatia, Jugoslavia, as the son of Francis de Czernucki, an officer in the Austrian army, who came from a family of Serb origin, which in the sixteenth century settled in Hapsburg lands and

1 Proceedings of the American Society of Civil Engineers for 1920: “Danube- Aegean Waterway,” by Prince Lazarovich-Hrebelianovich, N. Y. Typewritten manuscript, 80 pp. maps, illust. tab. 12x9 (presented by the author). The plan for constructing the proposed Danube-Aegean Waterway from the Danube in Serbia, using the Morava and Vardar rivers, to Salonika on the Aegean Sea, was initiated by the author and presented by him to the Serbian and Turkish Governments in 1909. In this book the author has presented the history of the project, together with its political, economic, financial and engineering aspects.

2 “Servie an de Senders,” by Gos de Voogt, published Rotterdam, Holland, 1913,

under the auspices of the Royal Serbian Ministry of Agriculture, Commerce and

Industry (pp. 73-4).

U. S. Consular Reports, Nov. 10, 1919, p. 786, reports of U. S. Trade Commis¬

sioner to Greece

“Belgrade Economic and Financial Review,” November, 1923, article by Chief 4

of Department of Waterworks, Ministry of Agriculture, pp. 13, etc., etc. fl''

there obtained in 1583 a patent of nobility from King Rudolph of Bohemia and Hungary (Emperor Rudolph II, 1552-1612). My father’s mother was Odilia Lazarovich, Princess Hrebelianovich, whose father had been a cabinet member in the autonomous Croat Government. Aside from Slav blood—Serb, Polish, Russian and Czech, with an admixture of French, German and Magyar,—my father has also inherited Spanish blood through his maternal grandmother, who was Dona Maria de Guzman, of the line of the Dukes of Olivarez, Grandees of Spain.

Most girls are by nature hero-worshippers, and I am one of them. My hero up to now at least is my father. As a girl in writing about her hero is liable to transgress the canons of writing history, I think it best to have my father tell himself the story of his life. Two papers may accomplish the purpose. In deleting all matters of secondary interest in those papers a readable connected whole was obtained which I think may give a clear outline sketch.

The first of those papers is a statement given by my father in 1904, by request, to Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, Privy Councillor, Member of Parliament, former British Ambassador, etc., and reads as follows:

.... Shortly after the Hungarian Revolution of 1848-49, my grandfather Lazarovich settled in Croatia, where in 1868 he entered as head of department the newly created autonomous Croat Gov¬ ernment. . . . The death of his only relative, a cousin, in 1869, in the United States, left my grandfather the last direct male rep¬ resentative of his family. His only son had died in Hungary in 1848, and of his daughters only my mother had survived. My mother Odilia Lazarovich Hrebelianovich, married in 1863 to Francis de Czernucki, captain afterward colonel in the Austrian army, had two sons, myself and my younger brother, who later died in 1876. To insure continuity of name and tradition of the family, my grandfather decided to transmit name and titles, with all other rights to us, his grandsons. . . . The principal of those titles, the title of “Dux Sancti Sabae,” Duke of St. Sava, or in Serb, “Herceg Sv. Save,” 2 * had for more than two hundred years, up into the eighteenth century been worn by the head of the family in Croatia, Hungary, Poland (Lithuania), and Russia after the “Hercegovina” (Dukedom of St. Sava) had in 1483 been con¬ quered by the Turks. Several members of the family had held in Hungary the great State Dignity of “Baronis Regni.”

2® The title as transcribed from old documents reads in its latin form (doc. of 1455) : “dei gratia dux Sancti Sabae, dominus terrae Huminis maritimarunque partium, comes Drine,” etc., in the Serb form (doc. of 1453) : “Herceg od Svetoga Save, Gospodar Humski i Primorski, Knez Drinski . . . which both Latin and Serb text read in English translation: “By the Grace of God, Duke of Saint Sava, Lord of Hume and the Coastlands, Count of the land of the Drina,” etc.

An old friend of my grandfather, a judge of the “Court of Seven Judges” (Supreme Court of Croatia), Septemvir Velitchkovich, a Serb by nationality, took charge of this matter—trans¬ mission of name and titles to us children, and of obtaining the necessary confirmation from the Hungarian King, who also was King of Croatia, Francis Josef, and the Hungarian Government. The answer of the Hungarian Government to the initial steps taken in this matter by Septemvir Velitchkovich, was negative and at the same time it was intimated that neither the Government nor the Hungarian Crown could permit any move towards claiming and reviving those titles in Hungary, as they, being territorial, had been incorporated into the titles claimed by the Crown of St. Stephen (Hungarian Crown) by an act of King Leopold I (Em¬ peror Leopold I, 1640-1705). . . . Under those circumstances any further endeavor in that direction had to be abandoned in Hungary and only in 1892, twelve years after my grandfather’s death my mother and I made another move toward obtaining per¬ mission to wear those old family titles in Austria. . . . That re¬ newed demand (in 1892) came to the knowledge of ex-King Milan of Serbia, then living in Paris, who, it seems, took alarm. . . . Already since my grandfather’s effort in 1870 to have the old family titles recognized in Hungary, the family was the object— off and on—of rather unwelcome attention from the Austrian as well as the Hungarian governments, but in 1893 that attention, pre¬ sumably under King Milan’s pressure became somewhat disagree¬ able. ... In November, 1893, I received a one-year leave of absence from the army, and a few months later, in February, 1894, I resigned my commission in the army, which was accepted and my demand to be released from Austrian and Hungarian citizen¬ ship was granted. It would appear that this incident was the cause of an exchange of diplomatic notes between the Austro-Hungarian and the Serb governments. It is said that in its notes the Austro- Hungarian Government pointed to the action taken against me— resignation from the army, etc.—as acts of particular friendship towards the Dynasty Obrenovich in Serbia. 8

8 Excerpts from letters (translations) :

Dear Monsieur de Czemucki-Lazarovich:

.... Today I received your letter in which you express your desire for me to be your witness at your marriage with Comtesse Marie Serurier, and that if I could not myself attend I should be at least represented. If I were not in official position I should not hesitate a moment, but should consider it as the greatest honor and pleasure to be your best man at your marriage with the Countess. However, in my position as Serbian Minister in London it is absolutely impossible for me to do so.

It may perhaps be interesting to mention that during the same months of February, 1894, by a coup d’etat King Alexander (Obrenovich) replaced the liberal constitution of 1888 by the restricted one of 1869, and that ex-King Milan, his father, returned to Belgrade from Paris, and assumed the supreme command of the Serb army. ... In May of that year (1894) I left Austria- Hungary and a few months later, in summer I was elected fully empowered delegate of the Central Revolutionary Committee for the autonomy of Macedonia and Albania. . . .

The name Lazarovich (spelled also “Lazartowicz” in some documents written in Poland in the eighteenth century) was as¬ sumed about two hundred years ago .... and retained later as the general family name. . . . The name Hrebelianovich came into use towards the end of the fifteenth century as the family name of the descendants of “Hrebelian,” grandfather of Lazar Pribtchevich Hrebelianovich, known to history as the last ruler of the Serb Empire, who lost life and crown in the battle of Kossovo in 1389, and who is the center figure of the great epic cycle of Serb national songs around that ill-fated battle. . . . Those two names represent two strains of descent from the great Serb ruler, which were united, some three hundred years ago, through the mar¬ riage of the heirs of the two families representing those strains. .... Descent of the family from that great Serb ruler through his daughter is genealogically established and a matter of history.

It is not unknown to the Royal Serbian Government that certain theories exist, representing as possible and probable your descent from the Old Serbian Dynasty. These theories have already caused the known action of the Austrian Government against you, which action was notified to the Royal Serbian Government by the Im¬ perial Austrian Government as being a special act of consideration toward the Royal Serbian Dynasty. I know perfectly that personally you make no pretensions. . . . The most probable consequence of my acting as your best man would be my imme¬ diate dismissal from my post as Serbian Minister in London. This consideration makes it necessary to my greatest and truest regret, as well as that of my wife, to refuse you. I wired you this morning to that effect I beg you to accept this declara¬ tion and my excuses in a friendly spirit and further to believe in the truest sym¬ pathies of my wife and yours hastily, Tchedo Mijatovich,

Serbian Minister at London.