by Scott Mehl
© Unofficial Royalty 2021

In 1928, then Albanian President Ahmet Zogu (born Ahmet Muhtar Zogolli) declared Albania a Kingdom and became King Zog I. He reigned until April 1939 when Albania was taken over by the Italian regime and made a protectorate under Italian King Vittorio Emanuele III.

Upon the death of his mother, Queen Mother Sadije Toptani, in 1934, King Zog ordered the construction of a mausoleum in Tirara, intended to be the final resting place for the Albanian Royal Family. The mausoleum was completed the following year, and the Queen Mother’s remains interred.

The Mausoleum was badly damaged by communist forces in 1944 and eventually demolished by the communist regime in the 1950s. In 2012, a new mausoleum – mirroring the original one – was built by the Albanian Government, and inaugurated on November 17, 2012. At that time, the remains of King Zog – having been exhumed from the cemetery in Paris – were reinterred, along with those of his mother, wife, son and daughter-in-law.

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King Zog I of the Albanians
reigned 1928-1939

King Zog was born Ahmed Muhtar Zogolli (later taking the name Ahmet Zogu) on October 8, 1895, the son of Xhemal Pasha Zogolli and his second wife, Sadije Toptani. He served as Prime Minister from December 1922 to February 1924, and then as President from February 1925 until September 1928. On September 1, 1928, he declared the country to be the Kingdom of Albania and became King Zog I.

He married Geraldine Apponyi de Nagy-Appony on April 27, 1938, and they had one son, Crown Prince Leka I on April 5, 1939. Two days after Leka’s birth, the King and his family were forced into exile when Italian forces invaded and took control of Albania, declaring the Kingdom a protectorate under Italy’s King Vittorio Emanuele III. In 1946, he was formally deposed and banned from ever returning to his home country.

King Zog died in France on April 9, 1961, and was initially buried in the Thiais Cemetery in the southern suburbs of Paris. In November 2012, his remains were exhumed and returned to Albania where they were reinterred in the newly rebuilt Royal Mausoleum in Tirana, Albania.

Unofficial Royalty: King Zog I of the Albanians

Geraldine Apponyi de Nagy-Appony
Queen of the Albanians

Geraldine Apponyi de Nagy-Appony was born in Budapest, Hungary on August 6, 1915, to Count Gyula Apponyi de Nagy-Apponyi and Gladys Steuart, the daughter of an American diplomat. She first met King Zog in December 1937 and the couple was engaged within days. They married on April 27, 1938 in Tirana, and had one son, Crown Prince Leka I, the following year. The family was forced into exile just days after she gave birth, settling in several countries in Europe before King Zog died in 1961. Along with her son and his family, Geraldine then settled in Spain, Rhodesia and South Africa, before being permitted to return to Albania in June 2002.

Just five months after returning to Albania, Queen Geraldine died in a military hospital in Tirana, Albania, on October 22, 2002. Following a state funeral, she was buried in the Sharra Cemetery in Tirana. In 2012, her remains were moved to the Royal Mausoleum in Tirana, alongside those of her husband.

Unofficial Royalty: Queen Geraldine of the Albanians

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Leka I, Crown Prince of the Albanians

Crown Prince Leka was born April 5, 1939 in Tirana, Albania, the only child of King Zog and Queen Geraldine. Two days after his birth, the family was forced into exile. After his primary education in England, Egypt and Switzerland, Leka attended the Sorbonne in Paris and the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, earning a commission as Second Lieutenant in the British Army. He went on to become a successful businessman. He became pretender to the Albanian throne upon his father’s death in 1961.

In 1975, he married Susan Cullen-Ward, eventually settling in South Africa where their only son, Crown Prince Leka II, was born in 1982. Having returned to Albania in 1993, he challenged a failed referendum in 1997 about the restoration of the monarchy.

Widowed in 2004, Crown Prince Leka I, self-styled King Leka I of the Albanians, died in Tirana, Albania on November 30, 2001. After being initially buried in the Sharra Cemetery, his remains were moved to the Royal Mausoleum in 2012.

Unofficial Royalty: Leka I, Crown Prince of the Albanians

Susan Cullen-Ward
Crown Princess of the Albanians

Susan Cullen-Ward was born in Australia on January 28, 1941. She studied at Presbyterian Ladies’ College and Sydney Technical College and became an art instructor in her own studio. Previously married and divorced, she married Crown Prince Leka I in 1975 and then had one son.

Crown Princess Susan died in Tirana, Albania, on July 17, 2004. Initially buried in the Sharra Cemetery, her remains were moved to the Royal Mausoleum in November 2012.

Unofficial Royalty: Crown Princess Susan of the Albanians

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