Forgotten Habsburg Women

… because everyone knows the famous ones! Explore the exciting lives of those Habsburg women who have been unjustly forgotten. Whether by marriage or born into the imperial family – Julia Meister has set herself the goal of recalling important personalities to the collective consciousness in the mirror of female social history.

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Julia Meister

Julia Meister, who studied German and English in Berlin, researches female social history of the 18th/19th centuries, from the nobility to the bourgeoisie. Although she is an enthusiastic connoisseur of Empress Elisabeth, she does not lose sight of lesser-known Habsburg personalities.

Her main occupation to date has been to look after the Marienfließ monastery in Brandenburg as a historian and in marketing matters. There she created a bilingual audio guide and led interested groups around the monastery grounds.

She can be booked as a copywriter and editor via her website.

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Even before Sisi there was an Empress Elisabeth: she founded the so-called Königinkloster at Dorotheergasse 18.

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Emperor Franz II/I had four wives, that makes four empresses in 47 years!

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Leopoldine, daughter of Franz II/I from his second marriage, was married off to Brazil – and became a dying, unhappy empress in faraway lands.

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In later years Maria Theresa’s daughter Maria Elisabeth was also known as kropferte Liesl – at table she liked to shock people with her three goiters, which she usually hid under a cloth.

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Empress Elisabeth Christine, Maria Theresa’s mother, was fattened up to such an extent in order to increase her fertility that she eventually had to rely on a wheelchair.

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Empress Eleonore, pious wife of Leopold I, offered a prayer in a chapel – and subsequently died of a sudden onset of paralysis.

all images Public Domain CC0, ©Rijksmuseum

Definitely worth seeing!

Sights around the topic

Achilleion (Korfu)

The palace built by Empress Elisabeth (Sissi) on Corfu.

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Hameau de la Reine

The “Queen’s Hamlet” was built for the French Queen Marie Antoinette.

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Wawel Cathedral

Elisabeth of Habsburg, who died in 1505, is buried here.

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Tordesillas

In the Convento de Santa Clara, a former palace that had been converted into a convent, Joan the Mad was imprisoned.

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Forgotten Habsburg Women