The Andorra of the 1930s had nothing to do with the one we know today. The country was then only a collection of small agricultural villages which lived practically in self-sufficiency, an activity often mixed with a little smuggling. The first question asked of the rare visitors who ventured there in winter was: “ How is the port? ? » The port being the pass. Is it snowy? Can we pass? The few inns there only served potatoes which constituted the diet of most of the inhabitants. Andorra could in no way guarantee a better future for its young people. This was the major problem of the 24 leaders who slept at the ” General council of the Valls d’Andorra”. Parliament then chaired by Pere Torras Ribas. It was into this poor and isolated country that on December 12, 1933, a certain Boris Mikhailovitx Skossirev-Masurov entered. Born in Vilnius in 1896, he fled the Russian Empire, driven out by the revolution of 1917. He called himself “Von”, a noble title obtained by his family in the service of the Tsar. First lie. He also plans to study at the Lycée Louis Legrand in Paris and at Magdalen College in Oxford. No trace of him in these two prestigious institutions. He also calls himself Count of Orange, a title which would have rewarded his services to Her Majesty Queen Guillermine I of the Netherlands. Just as imaginary. Polyglot, he will enlist in the service of the Foreign Office for secret missions which will take him to Siberia, Japan and the United States. On the other hand, he was very recently expelled from the Island of Mallorca for disturbing public order. If the Andorran authorities have no plans to get their small country out of the doldrums, Boris is bubbling with ideas. Why would Monaco, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein be so rich and not the community of Andorra? What he demands in return is to become Duke of Andorra. He proposes, above all, that the Principate enter the Council of Nations and above all, that it become a tax haven. He immediately meets with these young people deprived of hope and promises them a radiant future. With him, wealth is within reach. And it works!
If the future Boris I was able to seduce part of the population, he is making a serious error by neglecting the legitimate authorities of our small valleys. Always deprived of the slightest project, they nevertheless only asked to be seduced, like their youth. But for now, Boris is expelled from Andorra and ordered to stop interfering in its affairs. The President of France, Albert Lebrun, co-prince of Andorra warned by the Andorran authorities, very officially asked him to leave the territory. On May 22, 1934, he took refuge in the nearby Seu d’Urgell where the bishop was the second co-prince of the small mountainous territory. This first failure did not in any way dampen the ardor of the future monarch. From his hotel exile, he multiplies posters, distributes leaflets and, above all, speaks to the media. The latter taking him for an oddball, opened columns and microphones for him. Just to laugh a little. In Andorra, its slogan is “Andorra for the Andorrans” and in Spain, it claims to defend the rights of Spaniards upset by the neighboring Republic. On the other hand, our still commoner Boris is preparing with enthusiasm his monarchical future. He said he was sponsored by the illustrious pretender to the French throne Jean d’Orléans, Duke of Guise. In fact, the aspirant to the throne of France does not ask for that much and remains cold to the requests of the one who now describes himself as lieutenant of the King of France. Boris is demanding nothing more and nothing less for the dismissal of the French president who, in his eyes, is a usurper. The co-prince can only be a descendant of the King of France and not a Republican president!
The worst never disappoints: it works!
He printed ten thousand copies of his new constitution and sent it to all French and Spanish personalities. Not wanting to make the same mistake, he proposed to the Andorran authorities a progressive and ultraliberal program. Incredibly, he manages to seduce them and in the process, the president of the Valleys of Andorra summons the chamber on July 8. As surprising as it may seem, he proposes to vote the establishment of a kingdom and to enthrone our Boris 1st at its head. All councilors vote for! Only one still resists the occupier. It is the mayor of the town of Encamp, known as Cinto, who will be the only one of the 24 deputies to vote against him. His opposition will not stop there and it will be decisive! Our freshly ground monarch is beginning to form the embryo of a court. In an inn in Sant Julià de Lòria, he installs his mistress and an enigmatic English millionaire, Florence Marmon, a former lover who sponsors his monarchical ambitions. The brand new Boris I, with the enthusiastic support of the President of the Consell, will give himself the title of “Prince of the valleys of Andorra, Count of Orange and Baron of Skossyreff”. Sorry! Because the more, the merrier, on this same July 8, 1834, the President of the French Republic Jean Lebrun accepted the vote. Further proof of the little interest he shows for this very distant territory. The Spanish authorities, too, are completely disinterested in the Andorran future and seem ready to accept the vote. Was that without counting on the fiery opponent mayor of Encamp? Cinto runs to tell everything to the Bishop of La Seu. We suspect the arguments used because the “bisbe” will be horrified by the promised prospects of a free right to choose one’s religion. On July 17, the brand new Constitution of the Free State of Andorra was put to the vote again and once again received unanimous support except one, that of the mayor of Encamp. It should be noted that if the French co-prince only manifests, most often, an ignorance bordering on contempt for his Andorran citizens, his religious equivalent, Monsenyor Justí Guitard makes an almost inquisitorial moral order reign there! For him, it’s too much!
Armed invasion
On July 21, 34, the impetuous Bishop of Urgell, at the head of a powerful army composed of four Guardias Civiles and a sergeant, invaded the principality without encountering resistance. They went to the capital of Sant Julià, seat of the emerging kingdom, handcuffed our king and took him away from his throne. The monarchy in Andorra lasted 13 days. Presented before a court in Barcelona then in Madrid, Boris I will be deported to Portugal. His exile took him to Gibraltar, Tangier then Aix-en-Provence where he still presented himself as king of Andorra in exile. The Republic will lock him up in Rieucros then in Vernet in Ariège, two camps reserved for “undesirable foreigners”. The arrival of the Germans will free him. A Russian translator, he agreed to collaborate with Nazi Germany, which kept him under control. It could be useful for a future occupation of Andorra. Captured by the Russians and sentenced to 25 years of forced labor, he left for Siberia. He was released in 1956 after the Khrushchev report against Stalinism, he returned to his final home in Boopard in western Germany. He died there in 1989, the year of the bicentenary of the French Revolution.
