Emperor Iyasu V (Lij Iyasu)
1895 — 1935 · Wollo-born uncrowned Emperor of Ethiopia from 1913 to 1916; grandson of Menelik II through his mother; deposed by the Solomonic nobility in 1916 for his Islamic sympathies
Iyasu Mikael was born on the fourth of February 1895 at Dessie, in the Wollo province, the son of Negus Mikael of Wollo — a powerful Muslim-born Wollo prince converted to Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity at his elevation — and Princess Shewarega Menelik, the daughter of Emperor Menelik II and Woizero Abechi of Wollo. He was raised partly at the Wollo court of his father and partly at the imperial palace at Addis Ababa.
He was educated at the Menelik II School at Addis Ababa under the French Jesuit instructors brought by Menelik for the children of the imperial house. He read French, Italian, and English, and the classical Ge'ez of the imperial chronicles.
He was designated heir to the Solomonic throne by Menelik II on the eighteenth of May 1909 — at the conclusion of the formal succession debate at the imperial palace — through the marriage of Menelik's daughter Shewarega to Negus Mikael of Wollo.
He became the de facto Emperor on the twelfth of December 1913 at the death of Menelik II — without coronation. He held the imperial authority for three years.
He travelled openly through the Muslim provinces of Harar and the Ogaden during 1915 and 1916 — and was photographed wearing the green turban of the Muslim faith. The Solomonic nobility, led by Ras Tessema and Fitawrari Habte Giyorgis, gathered at Addis Ababa in September 1916 to demand his deposition on grounds of conversion to Islam.
He was deposed on the twenty-seventh of September 1916 by a council of the Solomonic nobility and the Ethiopian Orthodox episcopate — and the imperial authority transferred to his aunt, Empress Zewditu (placed in this archive), with Ras Tafari Makonnen as regent.
He was captured by the imperial forces at Magdala in January 1921 after a five-year armed resistance from the Afar lowlands — and confined at Fiche.
He died at Garamulata under imperial custody on the twenty-fifth of November 1935 of poisoning during the Italian invasion, at forty.
He is honored here as the uncrowned Emperor of the Wollo line.
Curated with honor.
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Placed in the archive by the Honored Ancestors editorial team.