A Habsburg Tragedy

Fülszöveg

The author's maternal grandfather was a member of the Hungarian Upper House and knew the entourage of Crown Prince Rudolf both in Austria and in Hungary. In her biography of Crown Prince Rudolf she stresses the fact that he was a highly intelligent, well-educated and hard working prince, whereas he is too often depicted as a playboy, intent on amorous adventures. If he had been better understood by his parents he could have become an effective, imaginative and progressive reformer of the archaic Austro-Hungarian Empire. The stories about Rudolfs love for Mary Vecsera have been embroidered by numerous romantic writers. By 1889 a sick man, Crown Prince Rudolf used the passionate girl, who had thrown herself at him, to help him to commit suicide. In the nervous condition he was in by then, Rudolf feared that he would not have the moral courage to carry out his desperate intention alone. The author has done extensive research towards solving the mystery of Rudolf's actual death. The... Tovább

Fülszöveg

The author's maternal grandfather was a member of the Hungarian Upper House and knew the entourage of Crown Prince Rudolf both in Austria and in Hungary. In her biography of Crown Prince Rudolf she stresses the fact that he was a highly intelligent, well-educated and hard working prince, whereas he is too often depicted as a playboy, intent on amorous adventures. If he had been better understood by his parents he could have become an effective, imaginative and progressive reformer of the archaic Austro-Hungarian Empire. The stories about Rudolfs love for Mary Vecsera have been embroidered by numerous romantic writers. By 1889 a sick man, Crown Prince Rudolf used the passionate girl, who had thrown herself at him, to help him to commit suicide. In the nervous condition he was in by then, Rudolf feared that he would not have the moral courage to carry out his desperate intention alone. The author has done extensive research towards solving the mystery of Rudolf's actual death. The official evidence of what took place at Mayerling was contained in documents which on the Emperor Francis Joseph's orders are unavailable. To try and trace this evidence was a challenge she could not resist. That Rudolf had the idea of suicide is proved to the hilt; that he wrote farewell letters before he died is a fact. But whether he pulled the trigger of the revolver that extinguished his life is a far different matter. In her fascinating biography the author comes to certain interesting conclusions.
Judith Listowel was born in Hungary. The daughter of a diplomat, she had a European upbringing and developed an early interest in politics. She came to England on a scholarship, and chose to go to the London School of Economics where she took an honours degree in Economic History. She was the first woman political editorial writer in Hungary. After her marriage to the Earl of Listowel in 1933, she continued to write political articles for two leading Hungarian newspapers, the Nemzeti Ujsag and the Pester Lloyd. The latter, published in German, was a liberal paper of considerable standing, for which it is probable that Crown Prince Rudolf wrote anonymous articles. Her first book, This I have seen, a kind of autobiography, was published in 1943 and went into five editions. During World War II she was a civilian lecturer to H.M. Forces; then for ten years she published a weekly called East Europe and Soviet Russia. In 1954 she went on lecture tours to America. She first visited Tanganyika and Kenya in 1960 and has great affection for Africa, and writes and broadcasts with sympathy about the emerging countries of the Dark Continent. Recently she visited several Arab countries, including those of The Gulf. She has never forgotten her European roots, and this biography of Crown Prince Rudolf of AustriaHungary is the realisation of an old idea. Vissza