Princess Hteik Su Phaya Gyi ( my, ထိပ်စုဘုရားကြီး ; 5 April 1923 – 31 December 2021), also known as Su Su Khin or Pwar May or Princess Tessie, was a Burmese princess and the final surviving royal of the

Konbaung dynasty The Konbaung dynasty ( my, ကုန်းဘောင်ခေတ်, ), also known as Third Burmese Empire (တတိယမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်) and formerly known as the Alompra dynasty (အလောင်းဘ ...

. Daughter of Princess

Myat Phaya Galay Princess Myat Phaya Galay ( my, မြတ်ဖုရားကလေး; 25 April 1887 – 3 March 1936) was a Burmese royal princess and senior member of the Royal House of Konbaung. She was the fourth daughter of the last ruling king of Burma, ...

, a daughter of the last king of Burma, she was a senior member of the Royal House of Konbaung. Upon the death of her younger brother

Taw Phaya Prince Edward Taw Phaya ( my, တော်ဘုရား; also known as Tun Aung, 22 March 1924 – 12 January 2019) was the Pretender to the Throne of Burma (abolished in 1885). He was the second son of Princess Myat Phaya Galay, the fourth daugh ...

in 2019, she became the last living grandchild of King Thibaw.

Life

Hteik Su Phaya Gyi was born on 5 April 1923 in

Rangoon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

British Burma British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

, to Ko Ko Naing and Princess Myat Phaya Galay, the fourth daughter of King Thibaw and Queen

Supayalat , image = Queen Supayalat of Burma.jpg , image_size = , caption = , succession = Chief queen consort of Burma , reign = 12 April 1879 – 29 November 1885 , predecessor ...

. She went to a Catholic school in

Moulmein Mawlamyine (also spelled Mawlamyaing; , ; th, เมาะลำเลิง ; mnw, မတ်မလီု, ), formerly Moulmein, is the fourth-largest city in Myanmar (Burma), ''World Gazetteer'' south east of Yangon and south of Thaton, at th ...

and was employed at the U.S. and Australian embassies in Rangoon. In 1936, Hteik Su Phaya Gyi received an offer of engagement to King

Ananda Mahidol Ananda Mahidol ( th, พระบาทสมเด็จพระปรเมนทรมหาอานันทมหิดล; ; 20 September 1925 – 9 June 1946), posthumous reigning title Phra Athamaramathibodin ( th, พระอั� ...

of Thailand, elder brother of the late King

Bhumibol Adulyadej Bhumibol Adulyadej ( th, ภูมิพลอดุลยเดช; ; ; (Sanskrit: ''bhūmi·bala atulya·teja'' - "might of the land, unparalleled brilliance"); 5 December 192713 October 2016), conferred with the title King Bhumibol the Great ...

, leading to widespread expectations that she would be the future queen consort. She sought to bring King Thibaw's body back to Myanmar as part of her family's mission. In 1943, she married Maung Maung Khin, a descendant of the Mon royal family, who was a nephew of the Premier

Ba Maw Ba Maw ( my, ဘမော်, ; 8 February 1893 – 29 May 1977) was a Burmese lawyer and political leader, active during the interwar and World War II periods. Dr. Ba Maw is a descendant of the Mon Dynasty. He was the first Burma Premier ...

and a brother of Khin Kyi, wife of her younger brother Taw Phaya Gyi. Maung Maung Khin died at Rangoon in 1984. She died on 31 December 2021 at a

Buddhist monastery Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...

in Yangon, at the age of 98. Her funeral was held at Yayway Cemetery in Yangon on 2 January 2022. She was survived by twenty grandchildren and seventeen great-grandchildren.

Documentary film

In 2017, Hteik Su Phaya Gyi and her younger brother Taw Phaya, her nephew Soe Win, and her niece

Devi Thant Sin Devi Thant Sin ( my, ဒေဝီသန့်စင်, also spelt Devi Thant Cin; born 2 January 1947) is a Burmese environmentalist, writer, and senior member of the Royal House of Konbaung. She is the leader of the environmental movement in M ...

appeared as the main characters of ''We Were Kings'', a

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

Alex Bescoby Alex Bescoby is an English documentary film maker. Early life and career Alex attended Altrincham Grammar School for Boys in Greater Manchester from 1999 to 2006. He graduated from Cambridge University. In 2013, Alex came to Myanmar to work w ...

and Max Jones. The film premiered in

Mandalay Mandalay ( or ; ) is the second-largest city in Myanmar, after Yangon. Located on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, 631km (392 miles) (Road Distance) north of Yangon, the city has a population of 1,225,553 (2014 census). Mandalay was fo ...

on 4 November 2017 at the Irrawaddy Literary Festival and also screened in Thailand at the

Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand (FCCT) was founded in the 1957 in Bangkok's Patpong area. It is considered the oldest and largest press club in Southeast Asia. After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam were m ...

. The film is about Myanmar's history, but also about the descendants of the last kings of Burma who lived unassuming lives in modern Myanmar, unrecognized and unknown.

Family

She had three sons and two daughters: Win Khin (b. 1945), Kyaw Khin (b. 1948), Aung Khin (1953 – October 2008), Cho Cho Khin (b. 1943), and Devi Khin (b. 1951).

Ancestry

Source:

References

External links

Myanmar Royals Through Sudha Shah's Book: ''The King in Exile''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hteik Su Phaya Gyi 1923 births 2021 deaths Burmese princesses Konbaung dynasty People from Yangon Region