#Brigitte Hamann

[quietflorilegium]

"I implore you, give up this life at once and sleep during the night, which nature intended for sleep and not for reading and writing."

Kaiser Franz Joseph I to his wife, Elisabeth

[alessandro55]

L'album di Sissi

A cura di Brigitte Hamann

Longanesi & C, Milano 1986, 176 pagine, 23x27,5cm, ISBN 978-8830406452

euro 45,00

email if you want to buy booksinprogressmiilano@yahoo.it

Brigitte Hamann è riuscita, grazie a laboriose ricerche, a ricomporre un ideale album per immagini dell'imperatrice e a ricostruire le varie tappe della tormentata esistenza. Con oltre trecento immagini di fotografie rarissime e riproduzioni di dipinti, incisioni, disegni e documenti e documenti, l'album rende un postumo omaggio alla bellezza e all'infelicità di Elisabetta Amalia Eugenia duchessa in Baviera, imperatrice d'Austria e regina d'Ungheria,detta semplicemente "Sissi"

07/10/24

[archduchessofnowhere]

Family life actually existed only at Christmas time, when Grandmother Sophie gathered the family around her, including all her grandchildren. In her diary, Archduchess Sophie captured in her diary the “governing” game of the little archdukes during Christmas 1868: Rudolf appoints the five-year-old Franz Ferdinand, who is sitting in a big comfortable chair, to be King. He and all the others are the ministers. Now the Crown Prince approaches and asks: ‘What representatives do you wish to elect?’ Franz Ferdinand wants to get up, but he proceeds rather clumsily and falls down. Great merriment, but Rudolf says thoughtfully: ‘It is not a good omen when a king falls from the throne.’

Hamann, Brigitte (2017). Rudolf. Crown Prince and Rebel (translation by Edith Borchardt)

[Pictured: Archduchess Maria Annunziata with her sons, Franz Ferdinand and Otto, circa 1866 (left); Crown Prince Rudolf, circa 1867 (right). Via ÖNB.]

[fitzrove]

Started watching a "problem with greek myth retellings" video and it began with a blurb montage like "Condemned by the misogynist guys of history, this is the true girlboss feminist story of [A WOMAN]" and like. brb writing one of those about crown prince rudolf. It's ok he's like a misunderstood girlboss to me<3

[nesiacha]

Archives of the site dialogus

The site was created in 1999 by Sinclair Dumontais and René Pibroch. It disappeared in 2019. It was a public forum that supposedly allowed visitors to communicate with individuals they wouldn't otherwise be able to contact: deceased historical figures or prominent characters from universal fiction (thanks to Wikipedia for this copy-paste).

In reality, it was run by a large of moderators who tried to take on the personas of these characters and respond to questions as accurately as possible while attempting to embody the figure. However, as you will see, there were instances of anachronisms or unreliable answers, whether intentional or not, such as in the message sent to Robespierre regarding the case of Lucile Desmoulins.

The site covered a wide range of characters, from literary figures (like Sherlock Holmes or Inspector Javert, for instance) to real-life personalities, politicians, stars, musicians, or philosophers from various eras and backgrounds. It also featured some horrific figures from totalitarian regimes, but always with a historical purpose and not to glorify them. There were also profiles of victims of totalitarianism.

While reading, I felt that despite their efforts, some moderators struggled to fully immerse themselves in their characters when answering questions, whereas others responded so well that it genuinely felt like the historical figure was speaking (I’m particularly thinking of the one who portrayed Lenin. Even though I don’t like Lenin as a historical figure, the correspondence was quite good).

Unfortunately, this site has been shut down recently, and the responses can only be found in archives.

However, there are three drawbacks regarding the links I'm sending you. The first one is manageable: you won’t immediately have access to the full correspondence. You need to click on the word "captures" next to the profile (specifically beside the words "Internet Archive Wayback Machine"). You’ll be directed to a sort of calendar where you can click on the link for the most recent snapshot.

Another problem is that it's in French.

The third and more significant issue is that some messages have been deleted. For example, the profile of Archduchess Sophie of Austria now only has one response left out of several. This is unfortunate, as it could have provided balance with that of Elisabeth of Austria, and it unjustly reinforces the image of the wicked mother-in-law. But nothing beats a good biography by a serious historian on any character discussed on Dialogus, and the best one I’ve read about Elisabeth of Austria is by Brigitte Hamann.

Don't forget to have the links that are sent to you analyzed before opening them, it is a security measure that is essential and that includes the link on the post. I did not find any viruses concerning me but maybe on you. Here are the two links (some have included additional characters) https://web.archive.org/web/20031026090322/http://www.dialogus2.org/

https://web.archive.org/web/20060615020905/http://www.dialogus2.org/

P.S: For more links to the dialogus go to wikipedia

[royalsofhistory]

“Sisi suffered in silence, wept, composed melancholy verses.”

The Reluctant Empress: A Biography of Empress Elisabeth of Austria by Brigitte Hamann.

[himejoshi-phd]

I been reading The Reluctant Empress by Brigitte Hamann. It's a biography on Empress Sissi of Austria. The most recent chapter I finished was "Cult of Beauty" which detailed The Empress' obsession with her own beauty and that of others.

This chapter was just me going from "it's fun to read this through a sapphic lens" to "🤨" increasingly over the course of it.

[manuscripts-dontburn]

Stone Blind

Author: Natalie Haynes

First published: 2022

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

I am so, so sorry, but this one was a mess. The Gods ruin it, because they are, in fact, 21st century teenagers. The other thing that ruins it is a million points of view which chop the story up in a way that takes every exciting moment away, stretching it until you just do not care one bit. And Medusa? She is a minor character, to the point of being in the story for less than even half of it. Natalie Haynes can do better and has done better.

What Maisie Knew

Author: Henry James

First published: 1897

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Dear Lord... I think this was the most tedious and boring book I have read this year so far. If I was not listening to it on audio, I would have DNF-ed it halfway through. I was hoping for much, much more from a classic dealing with a child of a messy divorce and custody battle in times when divorce was still a dirty word. Sadly this is just a mix of awful people and a desperately naive kid in situations that are so repetitive I could have cried.

The Golden Enclaves

Author: Naomi Novik

First published: 2022

Rating: ★★★★☆

I cannot deny this whole series has issues, mainly it needed much, much more editing, and the info-dumps, so often taking a form of a stream of consciousness, can get tiring. And yet, this last book ties it together with a bow so well, I cannot help but applaud Naomi Novik for creating an original, interesting, and captivating version of the world. The finale left me positively breathless.

Elisabeth: portraits of an Empress

Author: Brigitte Hamann

First published: 1998

Rating: ★★★★★

A very nice, quite comprehensive gallery of official portraits, photographs and prints of the famous Empress, that would make a perfect companion to a full-blown biography. Perhaps the one by Brigitte Hamann herself.

The Seed Keeper

Author: Diane Wilson

First published: 2021

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Some parts of this book are extremely touching and well-written. Unfortunately, other parts bored me. I felt like the author needed to make the story tighter, and more focused. Much of what was happening seemed to only skim a surface of a situation, many of which could carry great importance within the story.

Off With Her Head: Three Thousand Years of Demonizing Women in Power

Author: Eleanor Herman

First published: 2022

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

(Wo)Maaan this was a MESS. I don´t even know where to start.There is really no logic in how the narrative is arranged. The history part is only about 25%, 10% talk about women in other places than US and the overwhelming majority of information is about Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris and Nanci Pelosi. Essentially, if you have even a tiny interest in US politics, there is nothing new or surprising (though of course, it can still make you angry). The only thing this book says is that there are awful double standards and women in power have always been treated much more harshly and cruelly than men - something we all know, cannot dispute and it could have been a Tumblr post. But frankly, Mary Beard said the same thing with fewer words and greater impact in her Women & Power: A Manifesto.I feel kinda bad about rating this book so low, considering the topic, but this was just too basic and not well put together.

Nightingales: The Extraordinary Upbringing and Curious Life of Miss Florence Nightingale

Author: Gillian Gill

First published: 2004

Rating: ★★★★☆

The amount of research done for this book and the included details that stem from it is simply astonishing. That can be seen as both an advantage and a disadvantage of the book, depending on what you want and how much of it you want. If you read this only to familiarize yourself with the remarkable Florence Nightingale, you will be probably swamped by the wealth of information about her extended family (and even some ancestors) and the almost tedious narration of her life before the Crimean mission. However, if you like family sagas, delving deep into Victorian daily life and attitudes, you will have your fill with this book. The title is indeed truthful to the content. One also must mention that even though dense, the book is very readable and easy to navigate (at least once you get over all those ancestors).

The Rules of Magic

Author: Alice Hoffman

First published: 2017

Rating: ★★★★★

Do you like - magical realism? - strong and believable family ties? - romance? - beautiful writing? Then pick up this book.

Triangle: The Fire That Changed America

Author: David von Drehle

First published: 2003

Rating: ★★★★☆

I had some problems following the opening chapters dealing with the hidden politics of New York in the early 1900s, and the frequent breaks in the narrative to introduce nearly everyone felt sometimes jarring, but all in all, this was a well-researched and sensitive tribute to those who lost their lives during this horrific event. It is also a loud call-out of greed and its favorite child, capitalism. What truly terrifies one is the fact, that things like this still happen and the underlying reasons are always the same.

The House is on Fire

Author: Rachel Beanland

First published: 2023

Rating: ★★★★☆

This is a solid piece of historical fiction that uses the same style that made books like Salt to the Sea and All the Light We Cannot See so very readable: short chapters that keep changing points of view. I liked the fact that the whole book is set during just three days, showing how quickly and unexpectedly lives can completely change. I was also glad to learn about this tragic event - the historian in me is always, always interested in learning.

The Corset

Author: Laura Purcell

First published: 2018

Rating: ★★★★★

Not gonna lie, this was pretty great! Sure, the story of Dorothea is not really as engaging as the story of Ruth, but Dorothea´s chapters provide a welcome breathing space from the suspense and horror of Ruth´s. The longer you read the more difficult the book is to put down. Excellent gothic novel.

Empty Theatre: or, The Lives of King Ludwig II of Bavaria and Empress Sisi of Austria (Queen of Hungary), Cousins, in Their Pursuit of Connection and Beauty...

Author: Jac Jemc

First published: 2023

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

I was stunned by how purposefully artless the writing was. I also believe a "satire" should be more than just being snarky about real historical people. The whole thing felt extremely pointless. Save your time for better books, all ya readers of historical fiction.

The Brontës: The Fantastically Feminist (and Totally True) Story of the Astonishing Authors

Author: Anna Doherty

First published: 2022

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Sweet and simple introduction to the magnificent Bronte sisters for little kids.

Little Fires Everywhere

Author: Ng Celeste

First published: 2017

Rating: ★★★☆☆

This is a very, very good book. It was, unfortunately, simply not for me, who gets easily bored by American middle-class drama. The most interesting parts dealt directly with the adoption case, which turned out to be a subplot rather than the main event.

[dearmintheclouds]

current reading: Sisi

Currently diving into the biography of the Empress Elisabeth of Austria - Sisi.

📖 The Reluctant Empress - a biography of Empress Elisabeth of Austria

by Brigitte Hamann

(https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1482274.Elisabeth)

I'm reading it in German so I can at the same time improve in that language.

I decided to read this biography after I finished watching Netflix's The Empress. I mean, we all know about Sisi, and her famous love story with the Emperor Franz Josef, and tbh I've never looked beyond what have been showed through the movies with Romy Schneider. I watched these movies when I was twelve or something and all I could remember was the portrait of a gracious and beautiful Empress.

This is me getting seriously curious about her life and her feelings, and discovering about the woman behind the Empress.

[adridoesstuff]

One of my favorite stories involving Franz that very much gave me the same vibes as the above story with the mirror comes from the account of the American envoy when he dined with the Imperial couple in 1865:

"In the midst of dinner, while she [Elisabeth] was prattling away very amiably, she suddenly said, "I am so clumsy,"...She had upset a glass of Roman punch on the tablecloth; and the Emperor coming to the rescue, very heroically upset another, so that there was a great mess."

(Quoted from Brigitte Hamann's The Reluctant Empress, page 132)

Talk about saving the situation in an original way!

Was Franz Joseph as boring as he seems?

There are hudreds of different types of media dedicated to empress Elisabeth, including films, books, tv-shows and musical. And in most of them the figure of her husband Franz Joseph, who was much more important in historical and social context, is barely a piece of furniture in the backgroung. Even if his character is somehow developed, the central figure is always Elisabeth and never him. It is simply explained by the outstandind personality on the empress, that can have a lot of more or less romanticized interpretations. Compared to her, the emperor is just a boring and worthless normie, that noone would be interested in. But here are some facts about his young years showing that he also deserves some attention.

1. Just look at this twink.

I'm 100% sure that he wore corsets.

2. Franz Joseph had a fenomenal memory. He never forgot names and faces and could easily memorise large vocabulary, which allowed him to learn six languages (German, French, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Italian and a little of Latin and Greek). Also he was a really good dancer and had a talent for drawing. Here's his pencil drawing at the age of 13.

3. That little line from the musical "Feelings are forbidden for me" was actually a really big thing in his upbringing. His mentors literally didn't allow him to show any emotion, to make him elaborate an iron discipline and self-control. Eventually his character became highly reserved and devoid of compation and warmth. And when he was already 17 his mother Sophie *suddenly* realized, that it all went in a wrong direction. The best solution that she came up with was to force her son to play a comedy role in a private perfomance at the court, so that he could gain more easiness in communication. Franz hated the whole idea and hated every minute on stage. But, supposingly, it did actually help him to imrove his social skills, because after this contemporaries always described him as a totally amiable and charming lad.

4. Franz Joseph became an emperor when he was 18. At that point the country was on the edge of revolution and the previous emperor, his uncle Ferdinand, decided to simply run away from Vienna refusing from the crown and left the reins of government together with a political disaster to his young nephew. Rumour has it, that when Franz Joseph returned after the transfer of power ceremony he burst into tears.

5. Two weeks later, when it was known, that austrian troops entered Hungary to suppress the rebellion and the civilian war has actually started, there was one peculiar incident. During an evening ball FJ's youngest brother Lugwig Victor accidentally cracked a mirrored door and asked the emperor to protect him from punishment. Unexpectedly Franz Joseph asked his mother, if he could smash the door completely, when there's already a crack in it. And after getting a permition he frantically and furiously shattered the glass into pieces. I didn't find any information about did he do it with some object or with bare hands, but just imagine, if he did it with bare hands.

The craziest is that it wasn't even at the imperial palace, they were on a visit to some archbishop and the man was totally pissed off by this prank.

There will be no conclusion.

[archduchessofnowhere]

was there a reason why max didn't adopt an archduke to groom as a successor? not that i imagine any parent would have been happy to be separated from their child a whole ocean away in a shaky monarchy, but it seems like a better idea than showing favour to the previously deposed emperor's family.

He tried to do that too! Quoting Brigitte Hamann in her edition of the diary of Prince Carl Khevenhüller (an Austrian volunteer officer in Mexico):

Besides the Iturbide project there was, by the way, another effort to regulate the matter of the succession. In November of 1865 count Charles Bombelles addressed by order of Maximilian to his younger brother, archduke Karl Ludwig, who had three sons (Franz Ferdinand, Otto and Ferdinand), asking him if he would be willing to “give your approval to adopt one of your sons. The same prince would immediately travel, still in the course of the year 1866, to Mexico, as son and heir of the emperor and the empress of Mexico; and H.I.M the empress Charlotte would go to Vienna to collect him. Her Majesty would bring the necessary court so that from here only a nanny and a doctor should be sent over. In case the emperor Max still has a son, the prince would return to Austria endowed with an income worthy of his position”. Max exposed this wish to his brother “with the justificated hope of not allowing the House of Habsburg to lose the fruits of the gigantic work of an archduke of Austria” (1994, p. 144)

I must correct Hamann here though: in November of 1865 Karl Ludwig only had two sons, the not yet two-years-old Franz Ferdinand and six months-old baby Otto. Unsurprisingly, Karl Luwdig turned down his brother's proposal.

This was around the same time Max made the Iturbide boys princes, which likely means that his plan A was to adopt one of his nephews, and the Iturbides were more of a "backup" plan in case no Habsburg agreed to give his child in adoption. I don't know if he tried again later on; personally I think he may have had more luck had he asked one of his cousins instead.

SOURCE:

Hamann, Brigitte (1994). Con Maximiliano en México. Del diario del príncipe Carl Khevenhüller, 1864-1867 (translation by Angélica Scherp)

[fitzrove]

Omg turns out Brigitte Hamann and Fredrick Morton beefed over Rudolf's depiction in Affaire Mayerling (das Musical)

[royal-diaries-podcast]

Book used for research: The Reluctant Empress, A Biography of Empress Elisabeth of Austria by Brigitte Hamann

She was the romantic idol of her age, the extraordinarily beautiful and mysterious Empress Elisabeth of Austria whose exploits made her a legend in nineteenth-century Europe and beyond. This biography by Brigitte Hamann reveals the truth of a complex and touching, curiously modern personality, her refusals to conform, escaping to a life of her own, filled with literature, ideas and the new political passions of the age.

[fitzrove]

!! Actually, not to always bring history and specifically brigitte hamann's biography of rudolf into everything, but I think I have an explanation for this:

So I think it's a combination of two things - it's him being trained to shoot and kill from an excessively young age (even long after Gondrecourt's dismissal - it's just something he was Supposed To Do and almost everyone in court save for perhaps Elisabeth, who wasn't there agreed on it), as well as possibly another reason that makes sense with child logic, ie. maybe the cat was chasing or trying to kill a little bird. I do think the latter is implied in the Elisabeth lyrics, since Rudolf says "When I put myself to it, I can be a hero" - ie. there was some "heroic" reason in his mind for killing the cat.

So, in the musical context, he probably wouldn't be stopped, because he's the prince and that's what he's supposed to do to be a man (animal cruelty.....), and he probably also had some kind of motivation in mind for it. ++ I think with 1992 adult Rudolf (as with most of them, but especially with him because there's no father-son argument scene!) we're seeing his private innermost self that's already crumbling to bits, because Schatten and Spiegel are literally his lowest moments. We don't know what kind of public face Andreas!Rudolf puts up when he's not by himself (or, well, With His Good Friend Death) or begging his mother for help - and this is still a Rudolf that's capable of what happened in Mayerling.

So, mild thought

Baby rudolf says "yesterday I beat a cat to death" when telling Der Tod that he's perfectly capable of being cruel and strong like the world

My interpretation of this was that Sophie/his tutors made him do it to toughen him up?

Idk maybe it's just bc I watched the original 1992 production on YouTube, and grown rudolf is an absolute wet cat of a man,

But at no point does it strike me as a thing that rudolf would just, do? Like he's a prince so he's watched at like, all times, If he wasn't supposed to be killing cat he would be stopped presumably

[letcharlottedream]

Like her Uncle Ludwig, Sisi had no high opinion of impeccable aristocratic pedigrees when it came to beauty. Like Ludwig, she accepted women of all classes into her album, even total strangers. For example, she sent a request to her brother-in-law, Archduke Ludwig Viktor, "I happen to be assembling an album of beauties and am now collecting photographs for it, only of women. Please send me whatever pretty faces you run across at Angerer's and other photographers."

Brigitte Hamann - “The Reluctant Empress”

[kerstin-ibald]

“Alle tanzten mit dem Tod – doch niemand wie Elisabeth…” ➖ Todestag der Kaiserin Elisabeth (10. 09. 1898, Genf) . . . 📷https://www.pressreader.com/austria/geschichte/20150630/281505045610580

Insta: @ leiascupcake