#also Sisi didn't cause the collapse of the empire ffs | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kaiserin-erzsebet · 10 days

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I got a video recommended to me on YouTube that was effectively saying "stop romanticizing Sisi. She wasn't a good empress."

And I have to ask: Do people sincerely think that those of us who like Elisabeth think she was a good empress? I think most of us find her compelling because her personality was so ill-suited for such a structured and confining role. We know she was absent, that she tried to escape it, and that her mental health suffered because of it. These are not knocks against her; they're part of why her story resonates with people.

It feels a bit like saying "Marilyn Monroe wasn't a good actress" or "Princess Diana wasn't good at following royal protocols" because sure, that might be true, but it isn't really the point of why people find these figures interesting.

#historian consumes content #to be clear I bailed on the video pretty quickly when it was clear that it was going to be bad #also Sisi didn't cause the collapse of the empire ffs #World War One did and she had been dead for a while by then #some day I'm going to take my advisor's suggestion and write an article about the inherent sexism of blaming bad decisions on royal women

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