Madam Tussauds Works are inside the Wurstelprater in Vienna.
I was curious to see them and today was the big day of going inside after I let me being child again :-)
It is an interesting area, although somehow I had greater expectations.
At the end I just have had the feeling "a lot of other important people" are missing from this collection!
The saloons are in historical chronological order, so let's start with a short journey in time:
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| Maria Theresia von Österreich (1717-1780) and Franz I. Stephan (1708-1765) |
Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina (13 May 1717 – 29 November 1780) was the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions and the last of the House of Habsburg. She was the sovereign of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Mantua, Milan, Lodomeria and Galicia, the Austrian Netherlands and Parma. By marriage, she was Duchess of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany and Holy Roman Empress.
She started her 40-year reign when her father, Emperor Charles VI, died in October 1740. Charles VI paved the way for her accession with the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 and spent his entire reign securing it. Upon the death of her father, Saxony, Prussia, Bavaria, and France
all repudiated the sanction they had recognised during his lifetime.
Prussia proceeded to invade the affluent Habsburg province of Silesia, sparking a nine-year conflict known as the War of the Austrian Succession, and subsequently conquered it. Maria Theresa would later unsuccessfully try to reconquer Silesia during the Seven Years' War.
Maria Theresa and her husband, Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor, had sixteen children, including the Queen of France, the Queen of Naples and Sicily, the Duchess of Parma and two Holy Roman Emperors, Joseph II and Leopold II.
Though she was expected to cede power to Francis and Joseph, both of
whom were officially her co-rulers in Austria and Bohemia, Maria Theresa was the absolute sovereign who ruled by the counsel of her advisers.
She criticised and disapproved of many of Joseph's actions. Although
she is considered to have been intellectually inferior to both Joseph
and Leopold,
Maria Theresa understood the importance of her public persona and was
able to simultaneously evoke both esteem and affection from her
subjects.
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| Napoleon Bonaparte: 1769 - 1821 |
Napoléon Bonaparte , born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821) was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and its associated wars.
As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French
from 1804 until 1814, and again in 1815. Napoleon dominated European
affairs for nearly two decades while leading France against a series of
coalitions in the Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars.
He won several of these wars and the vast majority of his battles,
rapidly conquering most of continental Europe before his ultimate defeat
in 1815. One of the greatest commanders in history, his campaigns are
studied at military schools worldwide and he remains one of the most
celebrated and controversial political figures in Western history.
In civil affairs, Napoleon implemented several liberal reforms across Europe, including the abolition of feudalism, the establishment of legal equality and religious toleration, and the legalization of divorce. His lasting legal achievement, the Napoleonic Code, has been adopted by dozens of nations around the world.
Napoleon was born on the island of Corsica to a relatively modest family of noble Italian
ancestry. From 1789, Napoleon supported the Revolution and tried to
spread its ideals to Corsica, but he was banished from the island in
1793. In 1795, he saved the French government from collapse by firing on
the Parisian mobs with cannons, an event known as the 13 Vendémiaire. The Directory then appointed him as General of the Army of Italy at age 26. After marrying Joséphine de Beauharnais in March 1796, he started the Italian military campaign and scored a series of decisive victories that made him famous throughout Europe. In 1798 he launched a military expedition to Egypt, conquering the Ottoman province with a critical victory at the Battle of the Pyramids and facilitating the rise of modern Egyptology.
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| SISI - Elisabeth of Austria : 1837 - 10.09.1898 |
Elisabeth of Austria (24 December 1837 – 10 September 1898) was the wife of Emperor Franz Joseph I, and thus Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary.
Born into Bavarian royalty, Elisabeth (Sisi)
enjoyed an informal upbringing, before marrying Franz Joseph when she
was 16 years old. The marriage catapulted her into the much more formal Habsburg
court life, for which she was ill-prepared and which she found
uncongenial. Early in the marriage she was at odds with her
mother-in-law, Princess Sophie, who took over the rearing of Elisabeth's daughters, one of whom died in infancy. The birth of a male heir Rudolf
improved her standing at court, but her health suffered under the
strain, and she would often visit Hungary for its more relaxed
environment. She came to develop a deep kinship with Hungary, and helped
to bring about the dual monarchy of Austria–Hungary in 1867.
The 1889 death of her only son Rudolf, and his mistress Mary Vetsera, in a murder–suicide tragedy at his hunting lodge at Mayerling,
was a shock from which Elisabeth never recovered.
She withdrew from
court duties and traveled widely, unaccompanied by her family. She was
obsessively concerned with maintaining her youthful figure and beauty,
this obsession taking the form of, among other things, a requirement
that she be sewn into her leather corsets and spending two or three
hours a day on her coiffure.
While travelling in Geneva in 1898, she was
stabbed to death by an Italian anarchist who selected her because he had missed his chance to assassinate Prince Philippe, Duke of Orléans,
and wanted to kill the next member of royalty that he saw. Elisabeth
was the longest serving Empress-consort of Austria, at 44 years.
to be followed ....
