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Wahrend in Westeuropa weibliche Herrscherinnen stets eine Ausnahmeerscheinung geblieben sind, fuhrten im 18. Jahrhundert vier russische Kaiserinnen die Reformen Peters des Groen fort. Eva Daniela Seibel legt mit diesem Buch die erste zusammenhangende Studie vor, die den zeitgenossischen Meinungsspiegel im Alten Reich zur russischen Frauenherrschaft im 18. Jahrhundert untersucht. Vor dem Hintergrund der zeitgenossischen Diskurse zu Herrschaft, dem Russischen Reich und den Geschlechterkonzepten analysiert die Autorin, wie die russischen Kaiserinnen zu einer Projektionsflache der eigenen Vorstellungen, Hoffnungen und Angste wurden. Die Entwicklung von der Euphorie und dem Eurozentrismus der Aufklarung, die Russland als gelehrigen Schuler des Westens betrachtete, uber die mehrdeutige Rolle Russlands einerseits als Feind, andererseits als Bundnispartner deutscher Reichsterritorien im Siebenjahrigen Krieg bis zur gefurchteten europaischen Gromacht unter Katharina der Groen dauerte nur wenige Jahrzehnte. Die zahlreichen im Buch prasentierten pointierten Quellenzitate zeigen eindrucklich, dass sich Russland- sowie weibliche Geschlechterstereotypen wechselseitig verstarkten und ebenso unreflektiert wie widerspruchlich verwendet wurden. Seibels Studie leistet einen wichtigen Beitrag zum besseren Verstndnis darber, wie sich das ambivalente deutsche Russlandbild in seinen Polarisierungen entwickelt hat und warum dominierende Diskurse mchtigen Frauen bis in die Gegenwart immer wieder mit Abwehr, Geringschtzung und Spott begegnen.

Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1837-1898), wife of Habsburg Emperor Francis Joseph I, was celebrated as the most beautiful woman in Europe. Glamorous painted portraits by Franz Xaver Winterhalter and widely collected photographs spread news of her beauty, and the twentieth-century German-language film trilogy Sissi (1955-57) cemented this legacy. Despite the enduring fascination with the empress, art historians have never considered Elisabeth’s role in producing her public portraiture or the influence of her creation.  The Celebrity Monarch reveals how portraits of Elisabeth transformed monarchs from divinely appointed sovereigns to public personalities whose daily lives were consumed by spectators. With resources ranging from the paintings of Gustav Klimt and Elisabeth’s private collection of celebrity photography to twenty-first century collages and films by T. J. Wilcox, this book positions Elisabeth herself as the primary engineer of her public image and argues for the widespread influence of her construction on both modern art and the emerging phenomenon of celebrity.  

This Rebel Girl overthrew her emperor husband to become Russia’s longest-reigning female ruler. And put her country on the map as one of the greatest nations in Europe. We explore who Catherine the Great was. Based on the best-selling book series 'Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls'.

Challenging the established historiography that frames the French picturesque garden movement as an international style, this book contends that the French picturesque gardens from 1775 until 1867 functioned as liminal zones at the epicenter of court patronage systems.

Empress Catherine II produced a body of written material so vast and diverse that it seems impossible to provide a general characterization of the works contained in the authoritative twelve-volume collection assembled by A. N. Pypin from handwritten source material. This book does not attempt an all-embracing review of Catherine’s entire literary output, which consists of works in multiple genres and languages. The Russian empress’s writings have been the repeated subject of serious analysis for nineteenth- and twentieth-century researchers; all of these in one way or another demonstrate that across a variety of genres and formats, with a greater or lesser degree of independence and originality, the literary works of Catherine II always express her politics and ideology. These texts were carefully prepared, their publications and stage productions executed magnificently. As a rule, the most significant works were translated into French, German, and, in some cases, English. European readers, as well as the Russian public, were expected to be attentive witnesses to, and happy consumers of, the monarch’s compositions. Amongst rulers, the literary productivity of the Russian empress has no analogue in history. This volume is the first study in English of the vast literary output of Catherine the Great.

Marie-Antoinette's Legacy: The Politics of French Garden Patronage and Picturesque Design, 1775‒1867 unites four French consorts-queen Marie- Antoinette and empresses Joséphine, Marie-Louise, and Eugénie-to examine how each patron turned to garden patronage to demonstrate her empowerment, celebrity, and agency. The gardens at the Petit Trianon and Malmaison emerge as arenas of exceptional taste and emotivity at the epicenter of court societies. These gardens were liminal zones that profoundly influenced the evolution of French picturesque garden design. This reappraisal of royal and imperial patronage debunks one of the central tenets of garden historiography that casts each consort's gardens as sites of excessive ostentation and frivolity. Instead, consort-patrons privileged garden design precisely because they inscribed their agency onto the French territory and, in so doing, ensured the perennity of their actions. At the crossroads of Enlightenment discourses about corporeality and the senses, French colonial ambitions and plantation slavery, botanical acclimation and naturalism, these women materialized hotly contested issues of sovereignty, gender, and identity politics in their gardens.

While scholarly works often attribute the pronunciation of “卍” as “wan” to Empress Wu Zetian in 693, associating it with the meaning “auspicious myriad virtues”, a closer examination of the history of “卍” in Chinese Buddhist translations suggests otherwise. The more accurate transliterations and translations of svastika emerged much later than the term “Wanzi” and had very limited influence. The connection between “卍” and “Wanzi” more likely appeared during the early transmission of Buddhism to China, when people used the accepted cursive form of “萬” to approximate the shape of the svastika symbol. However, as this rationale gradually became obsolete over time, the legend that “Empress Wu Zetian decreed that ‘卍’ be pronounced as ‘wan’” arose during the Song dynasty and has persisted to this day.

The late Ming monk Hanshan Deqing forced his way into a Buddhist service held around Wanli 10 (1582) to pray for the birth of the imperial heir. His action has long been seen as a heroic act that challenged the Wanli Emperor for the benefit of the state, yet an act that would lead to his exile later. However, this paper demonstrates that it was Deqing's desperate but deliberate attempt to seek support from the inner court. This strategy helped Deqing to rise to a leading Buddhist master in late Ming China, but it asked him to pay a high price by getting him involved in court strife. This paper reveals the fragility of the late Ming Buddhist revival under the pressure of contemporary politics.

Discussion of the Empress Fausta, wife of Constantine, has in the past concentrated largely on theories about her death. This article follows current trends on Late Antique empresses by examining the clues about her life and activities. It demonstrates her role in helping Constantine assert his imperial legitimacy, and suggests an involvement in church affairs and patronage of buildings. In all, she had more visibility in the public sphere than she is often credited with.