My Song

The Theme from Mahogany which is a hit from the 1975 movie Mahogany starring Diana Ross is one of my all time favorite songs. I consider it my personal theme song, reflecting my own life.

An anecdote I would like to share concerning Diana Ross is this, my Russian friend Tanya told me about a reaction her late father once had. Her father had been a very serious man, not one to even say he found any woman outside his wife was attractive. One day the family had the television on, and Diana Ross appeared. Tanya said her father just stopped and said, “That is a very beautiful woman.” This was the first and only time that my friend and “big sister” ever heard her father say such a thing.

Enjoy MY song and please check out my other post for today below about Barack Obama, etc. Have a great remainder of the weekend. :)

Barack Obama in Germany and the Need for a New Black

There have been two monumental events that have meant so much to me as a person of color in the past nearly 2 decades. The second of these monumental events was on Thursday in Berlin when Barack Obama spoke before an estimated 200,000 people. The video of his speech there can be seen above. Barack Obama has such an aura of elegance, sophistication, and intellect which is so rare in today’s politicians in my country. For the last 8 years I and those in the world who has a sense of good taste have seen too much crudeness, fearmongering, brutishness, and vulgarity coming out of Washington. Money does not always take the peasant out of a person. Then there are poor peasants who display class and integrity. The world is strange to me at times, frustrating, and exciting. Thursday was one of those exciting times. February 11, 1990 was another day of excitement when a tall, elegant, but long imprisoned man of color left his prison cell with courage and dignity in South Africa. That day was immensely inspiring to me. Read about his day of release here.

July 24, 2008 is a date that should show young African-Americans everywhere in this country that they can aspire to more than being a thug, a ballplayer, an entertainer, a “ho” (slang for whore), a rapper, a jailbird, a drug dealer, a welfare queen, a crack head, an unwed teenage mother, a ghetto queen, food for the worms in a cemetery at a young age. July 24th should show them that they can stop placing so many limitations on their lives.

I hate labels and restricting myself to just a tiny corner of the world. My blog shows this. Yes, I am African-American. I am a citizen of this country, and I know its’ faults first hands and its’ triumphs. But for me, I am first and foremost a Christian which is not a restriction to me on exploring this world and others; in fact it helps me to aspire to reach more than mediocrity in behavior and outlook that so many people set for their lives. My faith comes before even my citizenship. Due to my faith, I keep trying to aspire to more than just a gut level of living. It helps me to try and love the most difficult and trying of my fellow men and women.

As blogger I do not restrict myself to one or two categories to write about. My outlook is global. I refuse as an African-American blogger to have every blog listed on my blogroll those that are authored only by blacks. My blog includes bloggers from every continent. We only have one short life on earth, why should I restrict myself to my own box? I get out of my box from time to time and go over to other people's boxes.

Barack Obama is the son of a Kenyan who was a goat herder. He mentions this in the video of the speech he gave in Germany on Thursday and which can be viewed above. Barack Obama, Sr. came to America and earned a doctorate. He had the courage to look at Barack’s mother who was a white girl from Kansas and only see another human being to be loved. She obviously reciprocated his feelings because they married. The love did not last, but just the act of a white woman and an African man to marry here in 1961 was a big challenge to the system and an act of courage. Their act showed that we can all be heroic rebels if we desire to. We do not have to settle for the status quo in any area of our lives. It was not until 1967 that interracial marriages were declared legal here in the US. On Thursday, the world saw the proud product of this union.

Here in the states there was a lot of hemming and hawing about Barack Obama’s tour de force in Germany coming from poor, old John McCain and others in the government and the media who feel so threatened by anything that does not continue to follow the usual business as usual mentality. I was not surprised an iota by Obama’s reception in Germany. I expected it. As a black person who has lived abroad, I know about the receptiveness to blacks of many Europeans and others. In Turkey, the positive attention I got was almost overwhelming at times. Obama’s skin color may be an issue with some here, but many abroad look back at the last 8 years and feel that their and the world’s plight might have a sympathizer in a person of color like Obama. He is a handsome and gallant figure unlike the cartoonish roughness of an Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. There are some of us in the African American community who strongly long for refinement like that which is seen in an Obama or a Denzel Washington or a Dr. King.

I love it that Obama can take the jabs and all the mud slung at him and still hold on to his dignity with a tenaciousness that many African-Americans cannot do. Maybe it is his African heritage. I have noticed that when Africans can get out of the treacherous limitations that some of their societies impose on them, they shine as brightly as the sun. Nothing seems to stop them. They have an amazing tenaciousness and focus on whatever meaningful prize they seek. Few give Africans credit for this, but I am doing it here. Obama has this ability in withstanding his critics, his own type of tenaciousness. He refuses to stoop to their uncouth level. People cannot understand and they try to over look that he even offered to pay the campaign debts of his opponent Hillary Clinton. Hence the accusation that Obama is too good to be true. Many here want to think of America as a Christian nation, but have we forgotten a basic Christian tenet of turn the other cheek? Surprisingly a supporter of President Bush is going to publish a book about Obama’s faith, and he is not claiming Obama is a Muslin either to the surprise of the Christian fundamentalist Taliban types. Now I am sounding mean:) I do believe that Barack Obama will display more of the qualities of a true Christian if he is elected president than George Bush has in the nearly 8 years that he and his clique have nearly single-handedly wrecked our country and destroyed another.

In conclusion, despite the whining about Obama acting like he is already president and poor, old John McCain’s little, lame statements, Obama showed his greatness and his ability to transcend “race,” color, nationality, religion, and all the petty things that keep us humans so often degraded and defeated.

As an aside, CNN has been running a series this week about the challenges facing blacks in America. The African-American community is in a huge crisis which the outside world does not know about. I know some of these challenges first hand by being an educated black female. I have long knew that there are “brothas” out there who feel as uncomfortable and threaten by an educated and cosmopolitan black woman as a Taliban member would about an educated and cosmopolitan Afghan woman. This is rarely revealed outside the African-American community, but it is a reality, just as being intellectual is perceived by many blacks as being white. However, America in general does not look favorably on those who are too intellectual. That is why we have words like “geek” or “nerd.” Nevertheless, please take a look at the CNN website about the program called Black in America.

Also I am posting here the Barack Obama video of his Father’s Day speech. (In America, 80% of African-American children are illegitimate. 50% of black students drop out of high school. In my city, 60% of black students drop out of high school!) This was the speech that prompted Jesse Jackson to make his horrific and tasteless comment without realizing that there was an open microphone to catch his comments.

There is a desperate need for a new kind of black in America. I hope Barack Obama whether he wins or loses has opened up some eyes so that we as a people can get on a new, more dignified path.

Sergei Bodrov's Mongol

Russian movie poster for the movie Mongol

No! I flat refuse to write about The Dark Knight even though I have an intuition that it is probably quite good despite all the brouhaha about it in the media. Being the eccentric, eclectic individual I am, this post will be about a movie I saw a week ago entitled Mongol.

Going to see Mongol last Friday night was a treat for me. Back in the olden days when I was a university student, my alma mater The University of Georgia regularly showed foreign films at the university’s movie theater inside the student center. Prior to those days before I went there, UGA had its’ own television station which aired once a week a program called simply The Foreign Film. Because of this program’s featured movies I learned the patient technique of reading subtitles. Years of watching international films prepared me for Mongol last week along with years of watching historical films.

Mongol was actually nominated this year for Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards. It also won best picture in the Nika Awards this year. The Nika is Russia’s equivalent to our Academy Awards.

Mongol is Russian director Sergei Bodrov’s vision of the life of Temudjin, better known to us today as Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan means “universal ruler.” It was his title, not his given name. Bodrov’s portrait shows a Genghis Khan who is not a medieval Hitler of the steppes, but an individual who suffers much and who rises above his suffering and humiliation to become a great military leader.

Mongol has both masculine and feminine elements to it which makes it appealing to both men and women. Like the great epics of Samuel Bronston or William Wyler’s Ben Hur, there is action, violence, great dialogue, and a timeless love story. Mongol tells the story of the early years of Genghis Khan before his massive conquests. The story even has moments of humor. It is not all blood and swords.

I especially loved the photography and setting of Mongol which was shot in Kazakhstan. Some of the settings which were chosen for the filming were so remote that Bodrov’s crew actually had to build roads to access some of the areas.

The film’s dialogue is in Mongolian, but the actors are a mix of Mongolians, Chinese, and Kazakhs, and the actor who plays the adult Temudjin is played by a Japanese actor, Tadanobu Asano who is considered to be a cross between Johnny Depp and the great Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune. I also enjoyed the various looks of the Asian actors some of which were quite attractive. It is not often that a western audience is able to see an all East Asian cast.

The clothing of the characters, everything took me back over 800 years ago, and the story of love and loss and love again between Temudjin and his beloved wife Borte was especially moving to me in a personal way.

A few years ago I had the pleasure of meeting an actual Mongolian. She was a Christian and was here with a group of young Mongolian converts to sell costume jewelry in order to raise money for a school that was being built back in Mongolia. I had just returned from my second trip to Turkey where I had learned that some Turks have the name Cengiz which is pronounced “Jing-giz” just like Genghis. Some of my Turkish students told me that the Mongolians were their cousins and saw Genghis Khan as an ancestor of the Turks. When I told the young Mongolian woman this, she was astonished and said that Genghis Khan was the father of HER country. Well, I did read somewhere that the early Turks had slanted eyes, which many of their cousins do in parts of Central Asia. One Romanian lady I met implied to me that Genghis Khan’s Mongolian horsemen were actually Turkic. One of the spirits of the Mongols looked like a wolf. One of the symbols of Turkic/Altaic mythology is the wolf.

In Mongol, Temudjin and others refer to their god as Tengri. I could not miss the slight similarity of the spelling of Tengri with the Turkish name for god which is Tanri, which in the Turkish alphabet ends with an un-dotted “I”. In the film there were characters with names like Targutai and Altan which looks like Turkish male names. Targutai reminded me of Turgay. Since beginning this, I actually found Altan in a list of Turkish names for males.

Sergei Bodrov’s Mongol is certainly worth seeing. Some of its scenes and music reminded me of a number of things: barbarians, Native Americans, the old American west. But at the same time it takes you to a time and place which are unfamiliar to most movie audiences. The expansive steppes filmed in Mongol are some of the exact places where Temudjin and his people roamed centuries ago.

In Sergei Bodrov’s Mongol we see a different, more humane Genghis Khan to be, a man’s whose great suffering and alienation does not break him, but leads him to greatness. In the end, Mongol is a very inspiring story of how an individual with the right stuff inside can survive and even move towards greatness.

The following clip from Al Jazeera English from the Al Jazeera network is a very informative interview with Sergei Bodrov about the making of and his reasons for making a film about Genghis Khan, a man who even today is hated, feared, and revered in a number of cultures. The interview is a little over 7 minutes long. The second half of the clip is about German film maker
Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Though not on this post’s subject, the Fassbinder portion is worth seeing.


The official website for Mongol can be visited here.

In Closing for the Week

Asala Nasri (above)

Asala Nasri and Sezen Aksu are two of my favorite singers of Middle Eastern and Turkish music. Asala Nasri is from Syria and is highly popular in the Arab world. Sezen Aksu is a national icon of Turkish pop music. Even though she is over 50, almost every young Turk I met loved and admired her. In America she would have long been considered a relic of the past and forced into retirement. The last time I taught in a school in Turkey, some of my students presented me with a three CD collection of Ms. Aksu’s music as a parting gift.

I discovered Asala Nasri’s music completely by accident by roaming Arabic music websites. I discovered Sezen Aksu’s music on the KRAL video network on my first working trip to Turkey.

Sezen Aksu (above)

Music from the Middle East and Turkey can be a little difficult for the westerner ear. The style is more ornamented and complex than western music. While I love music from those regions, my mother finds the sound highly unpleasant. I don’t think it bothers my father half as much, but I may be wrong.

The translation for Asala Nasri’s song Mesheet Sineen (Years Go By) can be read

here.The video is below.


Sezen Aksu’s video for Perisanim Simdi (I’m Wretched Now) can be seen below. I have searched for an English translation of this song, but sadly I cannot find one.

On Becoming Jane

I love and relate highly to stories about writers, aspiring writers, and the writing life. Something about such stories, fact or fiction, makes my spirit feel like it is leaping around with supreme happiness.

When my former student, dear friend, and little "sister" Hanife who lives in Turkey told me about the movie Becoming Jane late last year while chatting online one night, I could feel the excitement rising. She told me that she had just bought, seen and loved it, and that the main character was a writer like me. I was anxious to see the film. Plus I was flattered that my friend saw me as more than just a teacher but also categorized me as a writer. Not long afterward this chat, I went to the one video rental store where I have membership and looked for the DVD. It had not come out. I was so disappointed.

The daily occurrences of life got in the way, and I quickly forgot about the film. It wasn’t until recently when I went to the video store to rent the first in the Indiana Jones series that I thought about Becoming Jane. Raiders of the Lost Ark was checked out, so Becoming Jane came to mind once again after many months.

I hate spoiling films by giving a complete synopsis of the plot, so I will only mention areas of Becoming Jane that really touched me.

First of all, I recommend the movie for those who love period and slice of life dramas. Becoming Jane is a fictionalized account of the life of Jane Austen. It involves a possible romance she may have had when she was about age 20 with a young lawyer name Tom Lefroy. The characters of Jane and Tom Lefroy were both highly intelligent in the movie, but the comparisons halt there. Jane is artistic, sensible, and a little eccentric. Tom is wild, sensual, and rebellious whenever his guardian and uncle the unbending traditionalist Judge Langlois is not around.

When the two meet, Jane immediately dislikes Tom. His sexuality and his sexual innuendos disturb her. Jane is rebelling against the system in her own way by engaging in the writing life which few respectable ladies did in her day and by also refusing to marry only for money. Her family is in finance straits, and so her only route, according to her mother, is to marry money. Jane comes up with the notion that she can support herself through writing, which her mother thinks is outlandish, but her father does not discourage her. Through Tom she is able to meet one of the literary stars of the day, a lady named Mrs. Radcliffe. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is the meeting between young Jane and Ann Radcliffe. Mrs. Radcliffe lets Jane know that though the writing life has its’ rewards, it also is a challenge to a woman. Fame also has become a burden to her and her husband, according to Mrs. Radcliffe. Actually, in real life, Jane Austen and Ann Radcliffe probably never met. I thought it gave a nice touch to the movie, the older published writer willingly giving advice to the novice.

Besides Becoming Jane being my favorite type of movie, I also loved the costumes, especially that of Jane. Becoming Jane is set in late 1700s. Feminine fashions with the high or empire waist had just come out. The wearing of corsets, etc., all the restraining fashions of most of the century were dying out and being replaced by freer clothing that was simpler, romantic, and less flamboyant. Powdered wigs and big hair with locks were going extinct, replaced by short haircuts and sideburns for men and Grecian and Roman styled hairstyles for women. The old order of aristocracy was being uprooted and destroyed in France with the French Revolution. Jane and Tom’s generation were moving in a way the old folks like her mother and Tom’s uncle could not understand. One particularly fascinating character is Jane’s cousin Eliza who is recently back from France. She is a refugee from the French Revolution. Her husband, a French count, had been guillotined. Though Eliza still dresses in the attire of the ancien regime, she proves also to be a rebel. She has fallen in love with Jane’s brother Henry who is much younger and poorer than her. She loves him and he reciprocates. Jane too has gotten over her dislike of Tom Lefroy and now loves him.

I will not give away the rest of the plot. I will let you discover the film for yourself. To end, I will say that because of Jane, Tom Lefroy becomes a better person. If he had not met this remarkable young woman, his life of whoring and boozing probably would have brought him down. Jane also shows that being ahead of your own time, as she undoubtedly was, does not mean you have to become selfish and lose your humanity. Jane knew when it was good time to rebel and when not to. I think in the end both Jane and Tom realized it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.

Out of Jane Austen's tendency to be wise and observant of human nature came her literary gifts that even today the world still enjoys.

In the following video, a middle aged Jane Austen with her brother Henry and his wife Eliza, the former countess, meets Tom Lefroy again after 20 years and recalls their romance.

Words from One of the Wise

Whew! For those of you who have been following my posts on the Hapsburgs, I finally completed the series this morning. Writing the posts was fun and a little exhausting. Nevertheless, I really appreciate the responses I have received about the series both on and off my blog. My final post in the series is just below.

Now I want to present some words from one of the wise, a person from my culture. Zora Neale Hurston was one of America’s greatest writers. Some of her novels are standard reading fare in high school and university literature courses. She was one of those unique mixes that I love: female, African-American, writer, folklorist, and anthropologist. The times she lived in restricted her, but she did not allow her mind to be restricted. She was also living proof that no matter what your circumstances are, you can be positive. Positivity/hope like negativity/hopelessness is a choice.

The following words in boldface are hers. In a time such as this when people are willing to kill with guns, bombs, missiles, or words, Hurston’s words are relevant to all “races,” religions, political and ethnic groups. She had plenty to be bitter and hostile about since she was a black woman in America before the Civil Rights Movement had picked up momentum and before Women’s Rights, but she kept on moving and smiling. What an example for us all!

The Sum of Life

I have no race prejudice of any kind. My kinfolks and my skinfolks are dearly loved. But I see their same virtues and vices everywhere I look, so I give you all my right hand of fellowship of love and hope the same for you. In my eyesight, you lose nothing by not looking just like me. I will remember you in all my good thoughts, and I ask you kindly to do the same for me. I have touched the four corners of the horizon. From hard searching it seems to me tears and laughter, love and hate, make up the sum of life.

Hapsburg Tragedy Part III: "Sisi"

This is my third and final post on the Hapsburgs. This installment is about the mother of Crown Prince Rudolf, who was the subject of the previous post. The Crown Prince’s mother was the beautiful, lonely, and tragic Empress Elizabeth of Austria, Queen of Hungary. She was known in her lifetime and now by the nickname “Sisi.”

Elizabeth Amalie Eugenie was born in Bavaria on Christmas Eve 1837. She was a duchess and a princess of the house of Wittelsbach. Sisi grew up with her parents and siblings in Possenhofen Castle. Her parents, Duke Maximilian Joseph and Princess Maria Ludovika allowed their children to be carefree and not conduct themselves like the children of the aristocracy. Her parent’s permissive attitude helped to transform Sisi into an independent spirit with a very humanitarian and democratic outlook on life. In our era, one of the royals of Europe who was similar to her in temperament but not in intellect was Diana, Princess of Wales.

At age 15, Sisi journeyed with her mother and her 18 year old sister Helene to the spa resort town of Bad Ischl in Austria. It was Sisi’s mother Maria Ludovika’s intention that she might put Helene in the path of the young emperor Franz Josef of Austria and that he would ask for Helene’s hand in marriage. Franz Josef was 23 and a cousin of the family. His mother was also very favorable about a match between her son and Helene. Maria Ludovika succeeded in meeting with the young emperor, but he was immediately enamored with Sisi instead. Determined to have her as his wife, Franz Josef was willing to defy his very strong-willed mother Sophie. In April 1854, the couple was married.

From the beginning, Sisi’s upbringing was to her disadvantage at the Austrian court, which was a place of rigid protocol ruled over with an iron hand by her mother-in-law. Also being a sensitive, romantic type, Sisi may have been frightened by the passion of her husband on their wedding night. Despite possibly being frigid, Sisi had her first child Sophie the year following her marriage. The following year she gave birth to a second daughter Gisela, and two years later Crown Prince Rudolf was born. During this period in 1857 tragedy struck. Sisi’s first child, little Sophie, died either of typhus or scarlet fever during a trip Sisi and Franz Josef had made to Budapest, Hungary. The death of Sophie threw Sisi into a deep depression. To make matters worse, her mother-in-law seemed to blame Sisi for the toddler’s death. She often referred to Sisi as her grandchildren’s “silly young mother.” Sophie promptly took charge of Gisela and later Rudolf right after he was born the following year. Completely unhappy with her life at the suffocating Austrian court and dissatisfied with her marriage, Sisi retreated into isolation and illness. After Rudolf was born she was determined to never get pregnant again. She would, however, have one more child, a daughter named Valerie a decade after Rudolf’s birth, but probably the only reason she allowed the emperor to get close to her was so she could get him to loosen his stance on the Hungarians, whom she supported. Her support of the Hungarian cause would help lead to the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867. Sisi’s input on the matter of Hungary was the first and only time that she would get deeply involved in politics. Her ideas were liberal and quite ahead of her time. They were also in opposition to those of her husband who was a staunch conservative. Even today, Sisi is still a beloved icon in Hungarian society.

Frustrated with court life Sisi began a life of travel which would take her from Madeira in the Atlantic to the site of ancient Troy in Turkey . Sisi’s obsessions were with horseback riding, hunting, travel, ancient Greek culture and mythology, exercise and the preservation of her beauty which was legendary even in her own day. She became such an outstanding equestrian that she could almost conduct herself on horseback like a circus acrobat. Sisi developed such a love for the ancient Greeks that she was determined to learn how to speak Greek. She became fluent in both Modern Greek and Hungarian along with several other languages. Her fascination with ancient Greek civilization led her to commission that a palace be built on the Greek isle of Corfu. This palace she named after the mythical Greek warrior Achilles was called Achillion.

In her own way, Sisi strove to make herself like some of the immortals she read about and pondered. She was a fanatic about exercise. Her diet which consisted of little more than milk, raw steak, and orange juice kept her waistline below 20 inches. She was model thin and tall at 5’8”. When she finally abandoned horseback riding because of gout, she threw herself headlong into hiking. Sisi’s hikes could sometimes reach up to 20 miles in one day. Her ladies in waiting and bodyguards could barely keep up with her pace. Sisi also had what amounted to a primitive gym in the Hofburg Palace. Her equipment included weights and parallel bars. When she was not on her nearly continuous excursions throughout the Mediterranean and the Aegean, she would spend hours in her gym exercising. She even had some of her equipment shipped with her throughout her travels.

Sisi treated her body like a temple that had to be preserved. She was a devotee of a number of intense beauty treatments such as bathing in water containing milk and honey and heated to a little over 100 degrees! Glycerin, gelatin, and rose oil were massaged into her skin to keep her body and face looking youthful. Sisi’s auburn hair reached almost to her ankles, and was fantastically beautiful and wavy. She nurtured it with a concoction of henna, milk, and egg yolks which her hairdresser left on for 20 minutes. With her hair being luxuriantly long, it took up to three hours to have it styled. Her hairdresser would comb it out religiously each night dressed in a white garment and with a white sheet on the floor to catch all stray strands of hair that would inevitably be pulled out. Sisi was so obsessed with her hair that she had all the strands collected and she would count them. If the number of hairs pulled out were more than she expected, she would become depressed. A couple of beauty recipes for Sisi can be seen here.

Sisi was often reported to be suffering from illnesses, including tuberculosis. It is believed that many of her ailments were psychosomatic because as soon as she was able to escape from the rigors of court life, she would come energetic. Many also saw her as even being hyperactive at times.

Three more tragedies would strike and leave Sisi even more depressed and withdrawn from the realities of the world. Her brother-in-law the Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico would be executed in 1867. Her cousin and very close friend King Ludwig II of Bavaria drowned mysteriously in 1885, a day after being deposed. In February blogger Basje/19thcentury did a very good post about Ludwig. Finally in 1889, the biggest blow came for Sisi when her only son, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was found dead from a possible suicide pact with his mistress at Mayerling. Her marriage could not stand the trauma, so she and the emperor rarely saw each other in the final years of her life. They did remain friends on a platonic level. The emperor finally got the love and attention he desired in his wife instead from an actress named Katharina Schratt. In fact, Sisi even encouraged the affair. Though she was rumored to have lovers, it is often believed that since she was probably sexually frigid, Sisi had an attitude towards men of “you may look a little, but do not touch.” In her later years, Sisi became more and more camera shy. She wanted only to be left alone to roam as she pleased. Also she had started to rapidly lose her beauty once she got past 30 despite all of her fanatical attempts to preserve it. This may also have made her camera shy.

In Geneva on September 10, 1898, Sisi was walking along the promenade to board a steamship to Montreux when she was stabbed in the chest with a nail file by a young anarchist named Luigi Lucheni. Lucheni had reportedly been on the prowl to assassinate a prince of the house of Orleans. Poor Sisi just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, and Lucheni attacked her instead. Briefly Sisi was not even aware that she had been stabbed. She was knocked down, but managed to get up and walk a short distance before she collapsed on boarding the steamer. Her last words were, “What happened to me?” Her corsets had stopped the stab wound from being quickly fatal. When they were removed, it was seen that she had been stabbed in the heart. Sisi died that day in Geneva at age 60.

Emperor Franz Josef never fully recovered from shock over the assassination of Sisi. It is mentioned in some sources that he said, "She will never know how much I loved her."

Sisi continues to be the subject of television, film, theater, ballet and literature. There has even been a children’s series called Princess Sissi. American actress of the Golden Age of Hollywood, Ava Gardner, gave her interpretation of Sisi in the 1968 movie Mayerling. The Austrian actress Romy Schneider was the most famous Sisi of them all playing the empress in a trilogy of romantic films in the 1950s. Here is a video from all three movies with Schneider. I don’t care much for Avril Lavigne’s rock sound, but the video and the song captures the spirit of Sisi.

Like some view Diana, Princess of Wales as the “Queen of Hearts,” Sisi is still so to many over a century after her tragic death.

More photos and paintings of Sisi can be seen here.

In conclusion, here is a video about Sisi with a song from the musical “Elizabeth.”

Hapsburg Tragedy Part II: The Mayerling Mystery

The tragedy prone Hapsburgs of Austria-Hungary would be hit hard again 22 years after the Emperor Maximilian’s tragic death in Mexico. In 1889, marriages and lives of the principle members of the Hapsburgs would be battered. The dynasty would be shattered by an event so terrible and mysterious that even now, over a century later, historians still do not know fully what happened at a place called Mayerling.

The Mayerling Mystery’s main characters are Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia and his teenage mistress, Baroness Maria Vetsera. More later about Vetsera.

Crown Prince Rudolf, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire was the son of the Emperor Franz Joseph I and his wife Empress Elizabeth, who was one of the most fascinating and beautiful women of her day. The Crown Prince was also the nephew of Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico. Rudolf was born near Vienna on August 21, 1858 . His father made sure that his son was taught by the best tutors of the empire. As a child, Rudolf showed an aptitude for natural science, starting a mineral collection at a young age. Portions of this collection became the property of the University for Agriculture in Vienna following his death. As an adult, Rudolf even wrote scientific articles to leading scientific journals in the empire.

Rudolf’s family was a classic dysfunctional family. He felt that neither his father nor mother truly loved him. Though his political ideas were liberal and very similar to that of his beautiful and eccentric mother, his father’s views were as different from his as night and day. Franz Josef was a reactionary conservative. He despised and feared his son’s new ideas and saw them as a threat to the empire and the dynasty. Being this kind of person, I am sure he feared for the future of the empire after his death, and envisioned his son placating socialists, anarchists, just about every type he saw as a threat to long held traditions. Indeed, Rudolf’s ideas were very advanced for his time. He once wrote:

"The principle of nationalism rests on the most base of human instincts. It is a victory of primitivism over the noble ideals of equality. The national and racial animosities are a step backward. It is characteristic that these principles are most often used by the most divisive elements of our society. As the science is cosmopolitan, so should be the just societies."

Rudolf obviously could see where the winds were blowing, and that if the imperial family did not start changing, it would be swept away. Like his uncle Maximilian’s toying with liberalism, Rudolf’s toying became a constant irritant to his father.

Rudolf did not clash completely with his mother on political principles, however. The problem was that the empress just did not have time for her son. The empress Elizabeth had developed highly erratic behavior for someone in her position. She traveled extensively and was away from her son and her husband for long periods of time. Rudolf naturally felt neglected.

One area of solace in his childhood had been his relationship with his elder sister Gisela. Both Gisela and Rudolf were raised by their maternal grandmother Sophie. The two little children loved each other dearly. Even when they were separated when Rudolf was 6 so he could begin training to be the next ruler of the empire, the two remained close. They stayed so until Gisela married and left Vienna.

Rudolf married Princess Stephanie of Belgium in 1881. In the beginning, Rudolf seemed to love his new wife, but his mother had only distaste for her. It is said Empress Elizabeth referred to her daughter-in-law as “a clumsy oaf’ and “a dull-witted prude.” Rudolf and Stephanie had one child, a daughter. Eventually, the marriage started to crumble, and the couple drifted apart. Looking for comfort and attention, Rudolf turned to women and drink.

During this swirl of womanizing, Rudolf met a young woman who may or may not have been the love of his life. The details on whether the liaison was one of real passionate love are disputed. Nevertheless, the affair of Crown Prince Rudolf and Baroness Maria Vetsera would determine the fate of an empire.

Baroness Maria Vetsera was either 17 or 18 when she met Rudolf who was 30. They met at the Prater which is a large amusement park in Vienna. Another story says that Maria contacted him by letter telling him how much she admired him, and that the letter led to a first meeting. Maria was the daughter of Baron Albin Vetsera and his wife Helene. Baron Vetsera was a diploma at the Austro-Hungarian court. Maria at the time of her meeting Rudolf appeared to be much older than her age. She was attractive and highly sensual. Whether Rudolf passionately loved Maria has been disputed by some. However, there has been no doubt about Maria’s feelings for Rudolf. She absolutely adored and worshipped the Crown Prince, and was willing to do whatever he asked her.

As the affair heated up, Rudolf’s cousin Countess Marie Larisch became the go-between of the two. Countess Larisch was the niece and confidante of Rudolf’s mother Empress Elizabeth. She was the daughter of Elizabeth’s brother Duke Ludwig Wilhelm and an actress named Henriette Mendel. Born illegitimate, the countess’s father had renounced his rights as the first born in his family to marry his lover. With such a background, Countess Larisch was a prime candidate for such an intrigue. Her father had rebelled again the norm, so she would too even letting Maria into the Hofburg Palace so she could meet secretly with Rudolf.

Rudolf decided to purchase a hunting lodge at Mayerling. By this time his father the emperor had learned about the affair. According to official reports Emperor Franz Josef had demanded that his son end the affair. This was typical of the cold hypocrisy of Franz Josef. He had mistresses, so if he did try to force his son to end the affair, his attitude was of the utmost hypocrisy. But something deeper and more political may have led to the way everything happened next. Angry and defiant, Rudolf left Vienna and took Maria with him to Mayerling on January 29, 1889. The next morning, one of Rudolf’s servants found the couple in their bedroom of the lodge dead. They had been shot. The legend of Mayerling has long been that since Rudolf and Maria realized they would never be allowed to marry, they decided to make a suicide pact. Rudolf is said to have shot and killed Maria, and later he shot himself in the head with his pistol.

The deaths at Mayerling rocked the empire, Europe, and the world. Conspiracy theories began to spring up in the mouths of millions and in the newspapers of the time. Some were outlandish such as Maria castrating Rudolf in his sleep because if she could have his love and his manhood, no one would. The story goes that when Rudolf awakened, in shock and shame, he killed her and then himself. This seems like the impulsive behavior of a teenager, but this is not one of the top theories. Another theory is that Maria had been pregnant by Rudolf and had gotten an abortion. At Mayerling, she had hemorrhaged and died. Distraught, Rudolf had killed himself. Another theory says that two of Maria’s uncles went to Mayerling to confront the lovers. There, in a classic case of honoring killing, they murdered both Rudolf and Maria.

After the suicide pact, the next theory that was put forward came from two members of Rudolf’s family who both claimed they really knew the true story of what happened that night. These two were Countess Larisch and Empress Zita, who became the wife of the last emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Both the countess and the empress told the story of a plot to overthrow Emperor Franz Josef. Countess Larisch claims that Rudolf was complicit in the plot to overthrow his father and establish a more liberal government. An authentic article about her claim can be read online here from an article written in The New York Times in 1913. Another article from The New York Times Archive published in 1910 about how the Crown Prince and the Baroness met can be read here.

Empress Zita claims that Rudolf was approached by pro-French conspirators who wanted the overthrow of Franz Josef since he was pro-German. She stressed that Rudolf had adamantly refused, and had threaten to tell his father about the plot even though he disliked his father’s policies. To silence him, the plotters had gotten into the hunting lodge at Mayerling where they had beaten Maria Vetsera to death and then shot Rudolf six times. When Rudolf’s gun was examined, no one could explain that if he had shot himself, how he could he have shot himself more than one time in the head. The investigation showed that his pistol had been fired six times that night.

After the mysterious deaths at Mayerling, Maria’s body was taken out of the lodge in the middle of the night and secretly buried in cemetery of Holy Cross Abbey in Heiligenkreuz. In 1992 her remains were stolen. After the police finally located them, her skull was examined. There was no evidence that she had been shot in the head as the official story went. Instead it appeared that she had died from violent blows to the head.

Rudolf’s death was the event that finally tore his parents almost completely apart. The Empress Elizabeth had long been an avid traveler. After her son’s death, she never again spent much time at home with her husband.

The Hapsburgs were faced with a terrible dilemma after the death of Rudolf. How could the emperor allow his son be branded with the reputation of being a suicidal murderer? Also being a Catholic, Roman Catholicism does not allow a person who commits suicide to be buried in holy ground and receive holy rites at their burial.
The emperor wrote to the pope, and they came to some sort of agreement. Rudolf was given a Christian burial. What the emperor’s letter contains, no one now knows since to this day the letter is still locked away in the Papal Archive.

The Mayerling Mystery has captured the imaginations of authors and has been the subject of both films and plays. I first became aware of this tragedy when I saw the 1968 film Mayerling. It starred Omar Sharif as Rudolf, Catherine Deneuve as Maria Vetsera, James Mason as Emperor Franz Josef, and Ava Gardner as Empress Elizabeth. The movie was not perfectly put together, but it was highly romantic. Its’ theme song is the stirring Spartacus Suite by Aram Khachaturian which is one of my favorite classical themes.

In 1936, a French version of the story had also been produced. It too was entitled Mayerling, and it starred Charles Boyer as Crown Prince Rudolf. The film was an international success and opened doors to Hollywood for Boyer.






An irony of the entire sordidness of the Mayerling mystery is the fact that after the deaths of Crown Prince Rudolf and Baroness Maria Vetsera, the emperor Franz Josef had his sons’ hunting lodge at Mayerling converted into a convent for Carmelite nuns.


In 2006 the mini-series The Crown Prince was produced in Austria. The cast also included Omar Sharif again, but of course, not as Rudolf this time. A clip from the mini-series can be seen below. The entire production can be purchased on Amazon.com. I cannot give it a thumbs up or down because I have not seen it. Nevertheless, the preview does look interesting.


Was the Mayerling mystery the result of a tragic love affair or the kind of epic tragedy that only politics can bring?