1Daniela RichterProfessor Katherine ArensGerman 382N: Intellectual History: Made in AustriaDecember 10, 2002 “Die Leute wissen nicht, was sie mit mir beginnen sollen”: Differing Representations of the Lifeof Elisabeth, Empress of AustriaFor over a century, Elisabeth, Empress of Austria, has been a figure firmly enveloped in atight cocoon of myth and legend. As such, she became a bestseller on the book market and in movietheaters. One of the most widely known representations of her is the 50’s German movie trilogybased losely on her life. These movies, featuring a teenage Romy Schneider and Karlheinz Böhme asthe gentle, yet dashing young Franz Joseph, portrayed Elisabeth as a simple country girl who brings afresh breeze of naiveté and artlessness to the stifling empirical court in Vienna. This specific way ofpresenting Elisabeth is by no means unusual. Aside from these movies there are a host of bookswhich tend more towards fictional than historical accounts of her life. Even some of the biographies,which as a genre should be historically accurate, tend to lean towards a romanticizing portrayal of herlife.The subject of this paper is a contrast between two biographies written about Elisabeth ofAustria. The first one, Elisabeth-’Die seltsame Frau’, by Egon Caesar Conte Corti, dating back to1935, is written in the romanticizing style, which is echoed in the movies. The second one, TheReluctant Empress, written by Brigitte Hamann, is a historically more accurate biography, publishedin 1982. This paper focuses on some of the critical and problematic aspects of Elisabeth’s life, herengagement to Franz Joseph, which marks the beginning of her life as Empress, her excessivepreoccupation with sports and traveling, and finally, the Mayerling tragedy, in which Crown PrinceRudolf killed himself and his young companion Mary Vetsera. Another big issue in her life, isElisabeth’s involvement in the political issues of her time, especially the compromise with Hungary.2However, this is a very complex issue which would exceed the boundaries of this paper. Therefore letit suffice to say that Hamann emphasizes Elisabeth’s political influence and activities considerablymore than Corti does, who sees her generally as politically passive.The two biographies differ drastically in their style of narration. Corti’s biography reads likea fictional novel. There is hardly any direct reference to sources disrupting the flow of his narration,which gives the reader the sense that Corti is a kind of omniscient narrator, who seems moreover tohave directly witnessed some of these events, since he offers personal experiences of people living inclose proximity to the Empress, without pointing that out in the text as he goes. He uses a veryemotionally invested style of language, which enhances the sense that the author was personallywitnessing the events he describes. The biography is divided into 15 chapters, each with a host ofsmaller, often just one page long, subcategories. The chapter arrangement follows the chronologicalsequence of Elisabeth’s life, beginning with her engagement and ending with her death.Brigitte Hamann’s biography, on the other hand, reads strikingly different. She speaks withthe voice of the more distanced historian, who names her sources directly instead of weaving theminto a narrative net, which the reader cannot untangle anymore. Her fourteen chapters are arrangedaccording to topics rather than chronology, although she still maintains a general chronologicalsequence among those issues. She also begins with Elisabeth’s engagement and ends with her death,but in between there are chapters like “The Cult of Beauty” and “The Burdens of Public Appearance”(v). She draws more heavily from Elisabeth’s poems, even in the titles to her chapters, as a way ofcarefully arriving at the personal view of Elisabeth.The obvious differences in the approach of both historians become even more apparent intheir prefaces. Corti’s biography, titled Elisabeth - Die seltsame Frau, was the first officialbiography written about her. Previous to this work there was not much known about the private lifeof Elisabeth of Austria. The House of Habsburg was very skilled in keeping its family life a strictlyprivate matter. A good public relations machinery and strict censorship were the means ofcontrolling what became public and what did not. This secrecy partly contributed to the large amountof myths, rumors and gossip anecdotes surrounding the last Habsburg emperor and his family.3The structure of Corti’s preface already is indicative of his strategy as a biographer. He isemphasizing, even overly emphasizing, his historical credibility by quoting in the very firstparagraph, people closest to the Empress. These would be - interestingly enough it is not theEmperor who is quoted - her ladies in waiting, Landgräfin von Fürstenberg and Ida von Ferenczy.Both of these quotes suffice to set the figure of Elisabeth up. She is the kind of person who inspireslegends and she has recently come under attack together with the entire Habsburg Dynasty. Cortitakes a strongly defensive position to this unjustified slandering, and his biography has to be seen inthis light. He further declares that he wishes to clarify these misunderstandings by bringing hisreaders to a better understanding of Elisabeth and the circumstances of her life. She is to be mademore accessible as a normal person, who has good and bad sides like everybody else. This seemscontradictory, since he continually refers to her in a way that is denoting her as a monarch. Hemoreover claims that there is no need of criticism regarding any issue in Elisabeth’s life, although headmits that there are points in her life which are best described as precarious. Despite his professedobjectivity, Corti in the title of the book still described or even stamped Elisabeth as “seltsam”. Hedeems previous publications on Elisabeth’s life worthless. The authors of those works are dismissed ascompletely unknowledgeable on the issue at hand. The sources at his disposal are radically differentfrom the basis these people worked from. Corti, coming from an influential aristocratic family,which has had access to court circles for a long time, had direct access to original personal sources.Among those, listed proudly on the title page, are the personal effects of Elisabeth herself and thediaries of her daughter Marie Valerie. The