Giovanna of Italy - Late Years

Late Years

Styles of
Queen Ioanna of The Bulgarians
Reference style Her Majesty
Spoken style Your Majesty
Alternative style Ma'am

In the dying days of World War II, Bulgaria was invaded by the Soviet Union. Prince Kyril was tried by a People's Court and subsequently executed. Giovanna and Simeon remained under home arrest at Vrana Palace, near Sofia until 1946, when the new Communist government gave them 48 hours to leave the country. After initially fleeing to Alexandria, Egypt, to be with her father, Vittorio Emmanuele III, they moved to Madrid. After the marriage of Simeon II to the Spanish noblewoman Margarita Gómez-Acebo y Cejuela (a distant relative of the present Spanish King's late brother-in-law) in 1962, Tsaritsa Ioanna moved to Estoril, Portugal, where she lived for the rest of her life, excepting a brief return to Bulgaria in 1993 when she visited Boris's grave. During this last visit to Bulgaria she received a most cordial welcome and thousands of people went on the streets to greet her.

She is buried in Assisi, Italy, where she married King Boris III in 1930.

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