|
|
|
|
THE PSEUDO LASCARIS PRINCES AND THEIR FANTASTIC CLAIMS In two articles published in Hidalguia in 1954 the late Dr
Jose-Maria de Palacio y de Palacio, Marques de Villarreal de Alava, examined the
claims of the soi-disant Prince Lascaris to be a descendant of the
ancient Emperors of Byzantium, and to be Grand Master of a variety of Orders of
Knighthood. At the time that the first of these Princes emerged
publicly in the early 1920s there was a real question over the future of the
Greek Monarchy. The pseudo Prince Lascaris was apparently hopeful that he might
somehow successfully promote his cause as a candidate for that throne. The Marques de Villarreal de Alava examined the claims to
Byzantine Imperial with care, and came to the conclusion that they were without
any merit and, indeed, deliberate inventions. He discovered that the
“Prince” Eugene Lascaris Comnenus Paleologus, Duke of Athens (as he styled
himself in 1943) was actually a Spaniard, a lawyer and former Prosecutor, named
Eugenio Lascorz y Labastida. The name Lascorz was originally of Euskérico
(Basque) origin and there were ancient Counts of Ribargorza who were Lords of
Lascorz in the 10th century. Although this family lost its
territorial possessions in the 14th and 15th centuries,
various male lines continued to flourish. Unfortunately, it has not proved possible to link the
earliest proven ancestor of the would-be Prince Lascaris with this ancient
family, which, while it would not give them any claim to Byzantium, would be
evidence of ancient male line nobility. The earliest proven ancestor discovered
was Alonso Lascorz y Cerdan, from Plan, Huescar, the father of Victorian Lascorz
y Abad, a laborer, who died in 1886, and was father of Manuel Lascorz y Serveto
(baptized as such 17 Feb 1849, died 1906), who was father of Eugenio Lascorz,
first “Prince” Lascaris, born in Zaragoza 26 March 1886 and baptized in the
Church of Our Lady of Pilar, Zaragoza, 28 March 1886. Eugenio’s original
baptismal records are recorded in the Church of Our Lady of Pilar, Book 19 of
baptisms, folio 338, while his birth record is noted in the Zaragoza Municipal
records number 2, 26 March 1886, Book 38, folio 104. Eugenio, discontented with his modest origins, decided that Lascorz was a Spanish corruption of Lascaris, and on 16 March 1917 he obtained a “certification” and rectification of his father’s birth records substituting the name Lascaris for that of Lascorz. When Eugenio married on 17 Jan 1920 Nicasia Justa Micolau y Traver Blasco y Margell, the Church register still recorded him as Eugenio Lascorz. The civil register, however, described him as the son of “Manuel Lascorz (o Lascaris) y Serveto,” The sons and daughters of this marriage were given the splendid names of Teodoro (now “Grand Master of the Imperial Orders of Constantine the Great and of St Helena”, see http://www.new-byzantium.org/orderof.html), Constantino, Alejandro, Juan Arcadio (now “Grand Master” of the Order of St Eugene of Trebizond, see http://www.new-byzantium.org/trebizon.html)
, Elena and Eugenio
Lascorz was transformed into “Principe Eugenio Lascaris Comneno, heredero de
los Emperadores de Byzancio y Pretendiente al Trono de Grecia” and in 1923
issued a manifesto to the Greek people. On 2 Aug 1935, now a lawyer and a
public prosecutor under the Republic, Eugenio Lascorz (alias Lascaris) solicited
the correction of the records of his sister’s birth and the marriage of his
grandparents so that Lascorz would be substituted by Lascaris. On the 21st
August 1935 he succeeded in this petition before the court, to which there was
no 3rd party challenge and of which court he was of course an
officer. Thus the records were amended (although the earlier ones not
obliterated) to reflect the transformation of the new dynasty. Nonetheless, documents still exist which served to
contradict these records. These relate to Eugenio’s deceased brother, Lorenzo
Lascorz y Labastida, a medical student who was born and died with that name (his
death is recorded in the Zaragoza records as occurring on 17 Feb 1900), in which
his father and grandfather are named as Lascorz. Likewise the acts concerning
various in-laws in which the names Lascorz are recorded provides further
documentary evidence of the true identity of Manuel and Eugenio Lascorz.
Villarreal de Alava in his analysis goes on to demonstrate several failings in
the legal requirements for such rectifications. Lacking a coherent explanation
for the mystery of why an obscure laborer from Plan, near Huescar, should have
been descended from the Emperors of Byzantium, a genealogy has been presented or
invented, giving Manuel Lascorz a differently named father and grandfather –
Alonso Lascorz became “Principe Teodoro Lascaris, Porfyrogenito” (1761-1819)
and Victoriano became “Principe Andronico Teodoro Lascaris,” alias Victorio
(sic) (born 1801), who allegedly came from Greece and on settling in Italy
supposedly took the name Victorio. The publication of this genealogy, circa 1935, was
contradicted and augmented by another published in 1947 – this one now
substituted a wife for Victoriano (now rebaptised as alias Pofyrogenito Teodoro
Manuel Lascaris Comneno) who had in reality married Raimunda Serveto y Ballaran,
but who was, in this latest reinvention of history, described as Irene Comnena
Cantacuzena, supposedly born in Salonika the daughter of an army officer
Demetrio Esteban (Dmitiri Stephen) Comneno, and Maria Cantacuzena. Still unsatisfied with this, yet another genealogy was
produced in 1952, in which Alonso Lascorz, alias Prince Theodor Lascaris, was
given a father, Andronicus Lascaris Comneno (1730-1797) supposedly married to
Sofia Racowitza. Eugenio’s father, now named as Porfyrogenito and Prince
Imperial, was described as heir to some 70 large estates, cities and castles
that he had abandoned in order to settle in Zaragoza and marry “Maria,
Princess Lascaris Comnena”. Their son, now styled “Eugenio II Lascaris
Comneno, Principe Porfyrogenito, Duque de Atenas” claimed to be Grand Master
of the Constantinian Order of St George, the Order of St Eugene of Trebizond,
and Empress Saint Helena. These heroic essays in genealogical invention have now been
augmented by a new version, which may be viewed on the web site of the family at
http://www.new-byzantium.org/houseof.html.
This extraordinary work of fiction now records that the unfortunate Lorenzo,
medical student from Zaragoza, was actually “Lavrentios Emmanuel” and that
he and Eugenio’s parents were not Manuel Lascorz y Serveto and Francisca
Carmen Labastida y Pascual (married 1875) as the actual records show, but
Alexios VI Emmanouil, born in Kutchuk-Levens in 1847 (instead of his actual
place of birth, the village of Plan, Huescar, in 1849), who allegedly moved to
Italy and then to Spain in 1870. This latest version does not explain his
transformation from Manuel Lascorz y Serveto, then to Prince Manouil (Manuel)
Lascaris (circa 1935), then Prince Manuel Teodoro Andronico Lascaris Comneno
(1947), then Manouil Lascaris Comneno, Porfyrogenito and Prince Imperial (each
born in 1849) to Prince Alexios VI born two years earlier. The unfortunate
Francisca Carmen Labastida was airbrushed out of history on each of these
genealogical trees, perhaps to deter someone from looking at the actual marriage
records that would disclose the fraud. The father of Manuel (Manouil, or Alexis VI) is now given a
number, as Andronikos IV Theodor, and the birthplace of Rasch-Serai in 1801
instead of the less exotic village of Plan where he toiled as a laborer, and a
death in 1872 in Constantinople. This great city is of course far removed from
the small village where he lived his life, and died after dispersing his
possessions among his children in 1876. From
humble laborer he is transformed into the “Chief of the Etaireia and hero of
the Greek War of Independence” while his own father, the equally humble Alonso
Lascorz y Cerdan, husband of Victoria Manuela Abad, is reborn on the web as
“Theodoro VIII Alexios, Porfyrogenitos (1761-1819), born in Tasch-Serai, Fanar
of Constantinople”. Eugenio consigns an aunt (whom he marries off to
Anagnostis Mouselle) to the flames of Constantinople in 1871, but fails to find
an explanation for the other Lascorz relations left behind in Plan and Zaragoza.
One can regret that no explanation has been offered for the life and
achievements of Victorian Lascorz y Serveto, brother of “Prince Alexios VI
Emmanouil” (to whose marriage to Maria Morillo y Fortuno no lesser person than
the Porfyrogenito had appeared as a witness, but under the name Lascorz), or
another brother Antonio Lascorz y Serveto, born in 1838 who rose to be a
municipal judge and had several children by his two marriages, one of whom,
Mariano Lascorz y Bielsa, became Secretary of the Municipal Jurisdiction of Plan
in 1892. Why is there no mention of Ramona Lascorz y Serveto, who married José
Castillo, or Maria, her sister, who married Benito Lalueza and another sister,
Teresa, who in 1862 married Joaquin Semper? What is the explanation of the
signature of Manuel as witness to various family acts in the village of Plan if,
indeed, he was the claimant to the throne of Greece and Byzantium? If Manuel was
indeed heir to the Greek and Byzantine thrones, why did he begin studies for the
Roman Catholic priesthood at Barbastro in the years 1860-61? He was supposed to
have been in either Tasch-Serai or Italy at that time! The rest of this fictional genealogy can be dismissed
either as invention or as having no connection with the modest family of Lascorz
from Plan, Huescar, in the region of Boltana. What is extraordinary about this
blatant fantasy is that the latest claims contradict even the genealogy that
“Prince” Eugenio sought to rectify through the Spanish courts in the 1920s
and 1930s. The Marques de Villarreal de Alava published articles on
this fantasy not only in Hidalguia, but also in the Madrid daily “Informaciones”.
The soi-disant Prince Teodoro in his ample replies, merely denounced the Marques
as his persecutor, but made no attempt to provide any documentary evidence to
support the preposterous claims to Greek ancestry and to the alleged role these
ancestors played in the history of modern Greece. The exchange between the
Marques and the “Prince” continued from March through May without one
document being cited to authenticate the “Lascaris” version of the 19th
century genealogy of this family. Today, this farcical invention is perpetuated,
still without any actual documentary support for these preposterous claims other
than long listings of the names of those who have purportedly “recognized”
these gentlemen and their families as “Princes”. Judgments of the Italian
Courts (whose total lack of worth has been well-proven in such cases as the
MacCarthy Mor fantasy), are cited - Tribunal
of Avezzano, June 18, 1914, Pretura of Naples, August 7, 1929, Pretura of
Naples, December 28, 1938, Tribunal of Rome, October 23, 1939, Pretura of
Naples, July 11, 1941, Pretura of Naples, February 2, 1942, Pretura of Bari,
June 26, 1945, Pretura of Casoria, June 5, 1945, Pretura of Bari, March 1, 1946,
and the Pretura of Rome, September 10, 1948, but not one of these is actually of
any relevance at all, since these courts neither had, nor claimed, any
competence to determine the actual legitimacy of a claim to the throne of Greece
or Byzantium, nor did they investigate any of the genealogical claims to which
these “Princes” pretend. That a leading proponent of this fantasy is a certain “HRH Prince de Koppany Santa Pinter J Guyula, of the line of Szenc Istvan, of the ancient Hungarian House of Arpad, Duke of Somogy, Count of Arga, Grand Colla S.C.G. (St Constantine the Great) gives the measure of the worth of these pretensions. |
