Kossamak (r. 1955–1960)

Queen of Cambodia who reigned with her husband Prince Norodom Suramarit. Born Kossamak Nearirath also seen as Nearyreath, Nearrireak, or Nearirat;daughter of Sisowath, king of Cambodia; sister of Monivong, king of Cambodia (died April 23, 1941); married Prince Norodom Suramarit, later king of Cambodia (died 1960); children: one son, Prince Norodom Sihanouk (b. 1922), prime minister and king of Cambodia.

Born into royalty, Kossamak Nearirath was the daughter of King Sisowath, who ruled Cambodia from 1904 to 1927, and the sister of King Monivong, who succeeded his father in 1927 and ruled until 1941. She married Prince Norodom Suramarit, and they had a son Prince Norodom Sihanouk, born in 1922. When her brother King Monivong died in 1941, Kossamak's son Sihanouk was appointed to the throne by Jean Decoux, then the French governor-general of Indochina. Sihanouk ruled until 1952, when, in an act designed to dramatize Cambodian demands for independence from France, he dissolved the government and fled into voluntary exile. After Cambodian independence was declared in 1954, Sihanouk was restored as king but abdicated in favor of his father, Prince Suramarit, serving instead as prime minister. Queen Kossamak ruled jointly with her husband from 1955 until his death in 1960, both having survived a bomb attack in an enclosure in the Royal Palace blamed on the Khmer Serei. In 1960, her son Sihanouk reclaimed his position as king. Ten years later, he was overthrown with the rise of the Khmer Rouge. Cambodia entered its darkest period, and Kossamak fled to Beijing (Peking) with the royal family on November 5, 1973.