Today, inspired by a photo downloaded from Wikipedia, I added two new pages to my website about the 1935 wedding of King Frederik IX of Denmark (1899-1972), whose 50th death anniversary was January 14, and Princess Ingrid of Sweden (1910-2000), parents of the present Queen Margrethe II (as well as Princess Benedikte and Queen Anne-Marie of Greece). Here is the rather splendid photo of all the guests, with identifications and links to their Wikipedia articles, so that viewers can learn a bit about almost every person depicted, and here is a chart of European monarchies at the time. (I recommend viewing the former page on a computer, with the browser extended to full screen; otherwise it is unlikely to display properly.)
I find it fascinating to contemplate how many stories and how much history a photograph like this represents. In 1935, the old continental European empires were already gone; yet unlike today, many people, royals and commoners, still lived who had been formed by the pre-1914 monarchical Old Order and remembered it well. Modernism (especially in its forms of Communism, Fascism, and Nazism) was already frighteningly ascendant, and yet more vestiges of tradition remained than do today; a unique juxtaposition in history. Countries still monarchical in 1935 that no longer are included Italy, Ireland, Iceland, Bulgaria, Hungary (albeit without a King), Albania, Romania, and Yugoslavia. (The Spanish monarchy had only recently fallen and the Greek one would be restored later that year.)
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