Szkic do portretu księcia Jerzego Karadziordziewicia (1887–1972), którego nazwano szaleńcem
A Sketch for a Portrait of Crown Prince George Karađorđević (1887–1972), Called Insane

Summary/Abstract: This article, entitled ‘A Sketch for a Portrait of Crown Prince George Karađorđević (1887–1972), Called Insane’, aims to outline the biography of Crown Prince George of Serbia. For many years, his biography was distorted and misrepresented due to political pressures in the various political forms of the states of which Serbia was a part.Prince George went down in history as an insane man. However, contemporary sources indicate that the would-be king of Serbia was the victim of a conspiracy organised against him by Serbian political decision-makers. The plot at this level of state power was possible because Prince George, due to his impulsive nature, gave his opponents a pretext that finally led to his downfall.Deprived of power and forcibly confined in a psychiatric asylum from 1925, the first-born of King Peter I regained freedom during World War II, in 1941. He refused to cooperate with the Nazis. After the war, in the reality of communist Yugoslavia, he withdrew from public life, remaining in the mass perception as an unbalanced, insane man, disregarding the standards of etiquette binding in the famous Karađorđević dynasty.The article discusses the most critical events in the biography of Crown Prince George Karađorđević, describes the genuine, non-political contexts of the turning points in his life, and attempts to contribute to the discussion on the fall of the heir to the throne of the King- dom of Serbia. At the same time, this is the first thorough presentation of Prince George’s biography in Polish literature.

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