38 Facts About Eugenio Lascorz

Eugenio Lascorz y Labastida was a Spanish lawyer who claimed to be a descendant of the medieval Laskaris family, which had ruled the Byzantine Empire in Nicaea from 1204 to 1261.

In 1917 he legally changed his paternal surname from Lascorz to Lascaris, alleging that the former was a Hispanicization of the latter.

Eugenio Lascorz combined that legal career with historical and literary studies focused on Ancient and Byzantine Greece, publishing works of both fiction and non-fiction that explored what he regarded as the history of his ancestors.

In 1943, Eugenio Lascorz resigned his judgeship and moved to Madrid, where he dedicated himself full time to his dynastic claims and to the government of his orders of chivalry.

Eugenio Lascorz was baptised two days after his birth in the Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar.

Eugenio Lascorz's great-grandfather was a man named Alonso Lascorz y Cerdan.

The surname Eugenio Lascorz is not uncommon in High Aragon, and there is a village of that name in the province of Huesca.

The Eugenio Lascorz family emigrated from the village of Plan to Zaragoza in the third quarter of nineteenth century, part of the large influx of immigrants from rural Aragon to its capital at around that time.

The Eugenio Lascorz family enjoyed significant wealth and social status in Zaragoza.

Eugenio Lascorz's father, Manuel, was a lawyer as well as a doctor of philosophy and letters, who served as secretary of the local provincial council.

Manuel and Carmen had three children, Eugenio Lascorz being the youngest.

Eugenio Lascorz had an older brother, Lorenzo, and a sister, Josefina.

Eugenio Lascorz began his professional career as an attorney in 1917.

Eugenio Lascorz was a brilliant student, and he received his doctorate in law from the University of Zaragoza in 1911.

Eugenio Lascorz, possibly inspired by his father, believed that his last name was a corruption of Laskaris, the name of a medieval Greek dynasty that had ruled the Byzantine Empire in Nicaea from 1204 to 1261.

Explicitly proclaiming his desire to restore the ancient glory of the Byzantine Empire, Eugenio Lascorz was a proponent of the Greek Megali Idea: the Greek aspirations of conquering former Byzantine territory, including Constantinople, and restoring the borders of Byzantium.

Eugenio Lascorz embarked on a campaign attempting to secure recognition of his royal descent by changing his legal identity substituting "Lascorz" for "Lascaris" and seeking approval in Spanish courts.

Eugenio Lascorz believed his descent from the Laskarids could give him a claim to the throne of the Kingdom of Greece, an idea which he dedicated the rest of his life to.

In 1923, Eugenio Lascorz issued a manifesto to the Greek people, proclaiming himself "Prince Eugene Lascaris Comnenus, heir to the Emperors of Byzantium and Pretender to the Throne of Greece".

Eugenio Lascorz believed that his supposed Byzantine ancestry went well with Greek dreams of past glories such as the Megali Idea.

Eugenio Lascorz took advantage of this interregnum to try to push his claim to the Greek throne, writing to various influential Greek figures.

In 1920, Eugenio Lascorz married a woman named Nicasia Justa Micolau Traver, with whom he would go on to have six children.

In 1935, Eugenio Lascorz invented an elaborate genealogy for himself, which notably altered his own familial history.

Eugenio Lascorz served as a military judge under the Nationalist faction, and after the Nationalist victory of 1939 he was appointed as judge in San Sebastian under the terms of Franco's draconian Law of Political Responsibilities.

Eugenio Lascorz was devoted to the study of Ancient and Byzantine Greece, and he wrote several works on Greek history.

In 1956, Eugenio Lascorz published "Caliniki: Evocacion historica", a short story centering on a fictional Lacedaemonian girl named Cali Cabasileas who falls in love with Andronico, a courtier of Despot Manuel Kantakouzenos.

In 1946, Eugenio Lascorz attempted to expand his "Sovereign and Imperial Order of Constantine the Great" and his own order of Saint Helena into international organisations.

Eugenio Lascorz published new genealogies in 1947 and 1952, changing the names of some of his ancestors, adding more supposed princes, and altering their relationships relative to the original genealogy of 1935.

Eugenio Lascorz did obtain "recognition" from several courts in Italy.

Eugenio Lascorz was head of the "Sovereign and Imperial Order of Constantine the Great", which the official Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, listed among the false orders.

Eugenio Lascorz granted many noble titles to his family members, friends, and supporters.

Palacio alleged that Eugenio Lascorz had used his knowledge of the Spanish legal system and the complicity or ignorance of certain officials in order to alter his name and present himself as a descendant of the Laskaris dynasty and, consequently, as a legitimate claimant to the Greek throne.

Castro was very favourable to Eugenio Lascorz and did not mention episodes that might have caused controversy, such as Eugenio Lascorz's role as military judge under General Franco or the Hidalguia controversy that had taken place some years earlier.

Eugenio Lascorz had been closely associated with Carlism during the Civil War and its aftermath.

Several of Eugenio Lascorz's children emigrated to Hispanic America, where they continued to promote their family as heirs to the Byzantine throne.

Eugenio Lascorz is mentioned by the English travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor in his book Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese, published in 1958.

Eugenio Lascorz died in Madrid on 1 June 1962, at the age of 76.

Eugenio Lascorz' children continued to maintain his claims and his self-proclaimed chivalric orders.