Alexander I Karageorgevich, born on December 4, 1888, and died on October 9, 1934, was the king of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes from 1921 to 1929, and then king of Yugoslavia until his death in 1934. He was assassinated in Marseille.

Educated at the Page Corps, Alexander Karageorgevich was well acquainted with Russian culture and actively supported the Russian emigration after the 1917 revolution. He provided pensions and special allowances to prominent figures such as Ivan Bunin, Konstantin Balmont, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, and Zinaida Gippius, despite them not residing in Yugoslavia. Alexander considered it his duty to provide financial assistance to Russian scholars who, despite working in various places, lived quite modestly. These scholars, being far from Russia and its archives, filled in gaps using resources from Balkan countries, as well as collections from universities and libraries in Vienna, Berlin, and Paris. This allowed for the introduction of a significant amount of data into scientific circulation that was inaccessible to Soviet science. Among the Russian scholars working in Belgrade were academicians G.A. Ostrogorsky, V.A. Moshin, and Professor A.V. Solovyov.

On October 9, 1934, Alexander Karageorgevich and French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou were shot in Marseille by Vlado Chernozemski, a member of a Macedonian nationalist organization.