Milan I of Serbia family House of Obrenović
Early years
Birth and infancy in exile
Milan Obrenović was born in 1854 in Mărășești, Moldavia where his family had lived in exile ever since the 1842 return of the rival House of Karađorđević to the Serbian throne when they managed to depose Milan's cousin Prince Mihailo Obrenović III.
Milan was the son of Miloš Obrenović (1829–1861) and his Moldavian wife Marija Obrenović, née Elena Maria 
Catargiu (1831-1879). Milan's paternal grandfather (Miloš's father) was Jevrem Obrenović (1790–1856), brother of Miloš Obrenović I, Prince of Serbia. Milan was therefore Prince Miloš's grandnephew. He had only one sibling — sister Tomanija.
Shortly after Milan's birth, his parents divorced. Several years later on 20 November 1861, at the age of seven, Milan's father Miloš died fighting the Turks near Bucharest as a foreign mercenary in the Romanian Army, meaning that his mother Marija got a legal custody. Marija, however, lived a lavish aristocratic lifestyle, soon becoming Romanian ruler Alexandru Ioan Cuza's mistress and bearing him two sons — Alexandru Al. Ioan Cuza (nicknamed Sașa) and Dimitrie. As a result, she showed little interest in her children from the previous marriage with Miloš. Therefore, an agreement was reached for young Milan to get legally adopted by his cousin Mihailo Obrenović, who in the meantime, following the 1858 expulsion of the Karađorđevićs, had returned to Serbia where he became the ruling prince in 1860.
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