Maria Theresa BARBARA STOLLBERG-RILINGER
01/2022
eBook
A major new biography of the iconic Austrian empress
that challenges the many myths about her life and rule
Maria Theresa (1717-1780) was once the most powerful woman in
Europe. At the age of ...twenty-three, she ascended to the throne of
the Habsburg Empire, a far-flung realm composed of diverse
ethnicities and languages, beset on all sides by enemies and
rivals. Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger provides the definitive
biography of Maria Theresa, situating this exceptional empress
within her time while dispelling the myths surrounding her. Drawing
on a wealth of archival evidence, Stollberg-Rilinger examines all
facets of eighteenth-century society, from piety and patronage to
sexuality and childcare, ceremonial life at court, diplomacy, and
the everyday indignities of warfare. She challenges the idealized
image of Maria Theresa as an enlightened reformer and mother of her
lands who embodied both feminine beauty and virile bellicosity,
showing how she despised the ideas of the Enlightenment, treated
her children with relentless austerity, and mercilessly persecuted
Protestants and Jews. Work, consistent physical and mental
discipline, and fear of God were the principles Maria Theresa lived
by, and she demanded the same from her family, her court, and her
subjects. A panoramic work of scholarship that brings Europe's age
of empire spectacularly to life, Maria Theresa paints an
unforgettable portrait of the uncompromising yet singularly
charismatic woman who left her enduring mark on the era in which
she lived and reigned.
For many years, scholars struggled to write the history of the constitution and political structure of the Holy Roman Empire. This book argues that this was because the political and social order ...could not be understood without considering the rituals and symbols that held the Empire together. What determined the rules (and whether they were followed) depended on complex symbolic-ritual actions.By examining key moments in the political history of the Empire, the author shows that it was a vocabulary of symbols, not the actual written laws, that formed a political language indispensable in maintaining the common order.
Maria Theresa Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger
2022, 2022-01-18
eBook
A major new biography of the iconic Austrian empress that challenges the many myths about her life and rule Maria Theresa (1717–1780) was once the most powerful woman in Europe. At the age of ...twenty-three, she ascended to the throne of the Habsburg Empire, a far-flung realm composed of diverse ethnicities and languages, beset on all sides by enemies and rivals. Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger provides the definitive biography of Maria Theresa, situating this exceptional empress within her time while dispelling the myths surrounding her.Drawing on a wealth of archival evidence, Stollberg-Rilinger examines all facets of eighteenth-century society, from piety and patronage to sexuality and childcare, ceremonial life at court, diplomacy, and the everyday indignities of warfare. She challenges the idealized image of Maria Theresa as an enlightened reformer and mother of her lands who embodied both feminine beauty and virile bellicosity, showing how she despised the ideas of the Enlightenment, treated her children with relentless austerity, and mercilessly persecuted Protestants and Jews. Work, consistent physical and mental discipline, and fear of God were the principles Maria Theresa lived by, and she demanded the same from her family, her court, and her subjects.A panoramic work of scholarship that brings Europe's age of empire spectacularly to life, Maria Theresa paints an unforgettable portrait of the uncompromising yet singularly charismatic woman who left her enduring mark on the era in which she lived and reigned.
The Holy Roman Empire Stollberg-Rilinger, Barbara; Mintzker, Yair
2018, 20181023, 2018-10-23
eBook
A new interpretation of the Holy Roman Empire that reveals why it was not a failed state as many historians believe
The Holy Roman Empire emerged in the Middle Ages as a loosely integrated union of ...German states and city-states under the supreme rule of an emperor. Around 1500, it took on a more formal structure with the establishment of powerful institutions-such as the Reichstag and Imperial Chamber Court-that would endure more or less intact until the empire's dissolution by Napoleon in 1806. Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger provides a concise history of the Holy Roman Empire, presenting an entirely new interpretation of the empire's political culture and remarkably durable institutions.
Rather than comparing the empire to modern states or associations like the European Union, Stollberg-Rilinger shows how it was a political body unlike any other-it had no standing army, no clear boundaries, no general taxation or bureaucracy. She describes a heterogeneous association based on tradition and shared purpose, bound together by personal loyalty and reciprocity, and constantly reenacted by solemn rituals. In a narrative spanning three turbulent centuries, she takes readers from the reform era at the dawn of the sixteenth century to the crisis of the Reformation, from the consolidation of the Peace of Augsburg to the destructive fury of the Thirty Years' War, from the conflict between Austria and Prussia to the empire's downfall in the age of the French Revolution.
Authoritative and accessible,The Holy Roman Empireis an incomparable introduction to this momentous period in the history of Europe.
The Throw of the Dice Stollberg‐Rilinger, Barbara
German research : reports of the DFG,
December 2018, 2018-12-00, 20181201, Letnik:
40, Številka:
3
Journal Article
In early modern Europe, many things were decided by casting lots – from the distribution of assets to punishments and even elections to public office. When understood as a communicative process and a ...symbolic practice of a particular time, this method of decision‐making also forms part of the mosaic of political cultural history.
Schweres Los Stollberg‐Rilinger, Barbara
Forschung (Boppard),
April 2018, 2018-04-00, 20180401, Letnik:
43, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Güterverteilungen, Bestrafungen oder auch Wahlen in Ämter – im Europa der frühen Neuzeit wurde vieles nach dem Zufallsprinzip entschieden. Als kommunikativer Vorgang und zeitgebundene symbolische ...Praxis betrachtet, ist diese Art der Entscheidungsfindung auch ein Mosaikstein zur Kulturgeschichte des Politischen.
Loriot zum 100. Geburtstag Stollberg-Rilinger, Barbara
Zeitschrift für Ideengeschichte,
2023, Letnik:
17, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Auf die Frage, welche Kritiker er am meisten fürchte, antwortete Niklas Luhmann: «Die Dummen.» Auf die Frage: «Welche menschlichen Eigenschaften können Sie am wenigsten ausstehen?», antwortete ...Loriot: «Die Dummheit.» Es ist offensichtlich: Niklas Luhmann (Jahrgang 1927) und Loriot (Jahrgang 1923) verbindet mehr als nur die Zeitgenossenschaft. Beide stellen die elementare Frage, wie Gesellschaft überhaupt möglich ist; beide interessieren sich für die Paradoxien doppelter Kontingenz und die Dilemmata wechselseitiger Erwartungserwartungen; beide wissen um die Unwahrscheinlichkeit gelingender Kommunikation, besonders zwischen Mann und Frau. Denn beiden ist klar, dass «von der Person keine sicheren Erkenntniswege in die Tiefe des psychischen Systems führen, sondern dass alle Versuche, den anderen wirklich kennenzulernen, im Bodenlosen … versinken».
I
have been asked
to speak about the life of the Empress-Queen Maria Theresa. I would like to start by directing your attention to the cover pictures of three recent biographies (Figures 1‒3). If you ...look at these pictures you will find one astonishing commonality. I am sure that this is neither a coincidence, nor just a fad: on each of the three covers, you only see a part of the portrait. For me, this perfectly symbolizes a specific, skeptical view of biography writing. As a biographer, these cover pictures say, you never get the whole picture of a person. It's always up to the author not only to choose the material but also to establish a certain narrative structure. A life is not a story, and a biography does not simply tell itself. There is always more than one true life story of a person. As the Swiss historian Valentin Groebner recently put it: “The past is a big untidy cellar. It is a bit damp and dark and smells a bit strange there. We go down and get what we want.” What you choose and how you arrange it—which story you tell—depends on which perspective you take and in what you are interested.
Editorial Stollberg-Rilinger, Barbara
Der Staat,
01/2020, Letnik:
59, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Das Verhältnis von wissenschaftlicher Expertise, Politik und Recht erfährt – im Jahr I nach Corona – eine nie dagewesene Aufmerksamkeit. Aber schon bevor die aktuelle Krise alle anderen Themen in den ...Hintergrund gedrängt hat, beschäftigte ein anderer Fall die deutsche Öffentlichkeit, der ein nicht minder interessantes Schlaglicht auf die Rolle wissenschaftlichen Expertentums wirft.
Wir haben es mit einer Zeit beschleunigten Wandels zu tun. Die sozialen Unterschiede verschärfen sich; es gibt Gewinner und Verlierer dieses Wandels. Viele fühlen sich durch die Dynamik abgehängt und ...sehen ihre altvertrauten Selbstverständlichkeiten bedroht. Ein Thema beherrscht den gesellschaftlichen Diskurs und wirkt in einem bisher unbekannten Ausmaß polarisierend; es provoziert jeden Einzelnen zur eindeutigen Parteinahme. Der Zwang zum Bekenntnis der richtigen Gesinnung nimmt zu, das wechselseitige Misstrauen steigt. Die Spaltung verläuft quer durch jedes Land, jede soziale Schicht, mitunter sogar quer durch die Familien. Gemäßgte, vermittelnde Stimmen haben es immer schwerer, sich Gehör zu verschaffen. Die gemeinsame Basis an fraglos geteilten Überzeugungen und Verfahren, auf der man sich über die feindlichen Lager hinweg verständigen kann, wird immer schmaler.
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