Hugo II Logothetti

Hugo Count Logothetti (2 October 1852 in Klausenburg – 3 Augustus 1918 in Teheran) was an Austrian-Hungarian diplomat of Greek ancestry and the last emissary of the Habsburg monarchy in Teheran. Descent Hugo II Count Logothetti originated from an old Byzantine lineage which claimed its origin in the Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros I Logothetes (reigned 802–811) and settled on the Ionian island of Zante (Zakynthos) after the fall of Constantinople (1453). In the 18th century a descendant, an officer of the Venetian Republic, Giacomo (James) Conte Logothetti (1741–1802) went to the principality of Moldavia. After the annexation of the Bukovina he became an Austrian citizen. His descendants played an important role in the defence of this most eastern Austrian province and were counted among the honorables of its capital Czernowitz (nowadays: Chernivtsi, Чернівці, Ukraine). In 1830, after his marriage with Pauline Baroness Bartenstein, a direct offspring of the chancellor of the Empress Maria-Theresa, Johann Christoph von Bartenstein, Hugo's grandfather Hugo I Logothetti (1801–1861) bought the manors Bilovice and Březolupy near the South Moravian town of Uherské Hradiště. He was known as Maecenas of the Czech painter Josef Mánes (1820–1871) from whom he commissioned a portrait of Veruna Čudová. This painting is nowadays the best known genre piece of Mánes. Hugo II was born 2 October 1852 in Klausenburg (the present Cluj-Napoca in Rumania) where his father Vladimir Count Logothetti (1822–1892) was serving as an officer in the army. Because his mother descended from high Transylvanian nobility (Nemes de Hidvég) with a palace and houses in Klausenburg, Hugo was baptized in the Roman Catholic cathedral of Klausenburg. In 1858 the family returned to Bilovice. Career After secondary school in Uherské Hradiště, Hugo II entered the 54th Regiment of the Line in Olomouc as a volunteer, but had to quit service due to poor health in 1871. He then went to Vienna to study (1872–1877) at the Oriental Academy, the forerunner of the present Diplomatic Academy, founded by the Empress Maria Theresa. Logothetti had an aptitude for languages and learned Arabic, Persian and Turkish. His first foreign post after his study was in Constantinople, then one of the most important foreign missions of Austria-Hungary.