Emperor Franz Joseph I

Franz Joseph became an Austrian emperor in 1848, when revolutionary events forced the abdication of his father and uncle to renounce. The reign of this monarch is a whole epoch in the life of the peoples of Central Europe, part of the multinational Austro-Hungarian Empire. The monarch ascetic, in whose character good-nature was combined with love for army discipline, called himself "the senior official of the empire." From his youth he devoted himself entirely to the affairs of a vast state. Franz Joseph was an erudite man, he knew French, English, Italian, he could speak Polish, Hungarian and Czech.

In his personal life, the monarch was a deeply unhappy man. Fell in love, Franz Joseph 1 married Elizabeth of Bavaria, daughter of King Maximilian I. Their marriage could be happy, but the interference of the sovereign Sophia, the mother of the emperor, gradually alienated the spouses from each other. Her mother-in-law took Sissi's children (the young empress in the family circle called this name) and limited their meetings with her mother. This could not but affect the attitude of Elizabeth to her husband. Sissi had never loved court etiquette, so she preferred to live away from the court. Elizabeth was the first beauty of the empire, her portraits in Austria and Hungary can still be found in the most unexpected places. The Empress was engaged in gymnastics, horse riding, hunting, loved to travel, she kept diaries and wrote poetry. Franz Joseph granted his beloved wife a relative freedom, although he often lacked the presence of Elizabeth. The troubles of the imperial couple began in their younger years when they buried their two-year-old daughter Sophia. In 1889, a new grief came to the family - their son Rudolph reduced his life. Elizabeth has since abandoned the clothes of light colors and has become even more self-conscious. After 9 years the empress was gone. The heart of the beloved wife of Franz Josef stopped beating, pierced by a file - the tool of an anarchist killer.

The head of the dual monarchy (the Emperor of Austria-Hungary since 1867) pursued a successful domestic policy, thanks to which Austria-Hungary in the second half of the XIX - early XX centuries became one of the developed European states. At the same time, in foreign policy, Emperor Franz Joseph sometimes made fatal mistakes, which led to very serious consequences. He refused to provide assistance to Russia in the Crimean campaign, thereby deprived of a reliable ally that could strengthen the position of Austria-Hungary in the international arena. The monarch, who has done a lot for his country, is to some extent responsible for the collapse of the once great power. It is hard to imagine how the fate of the peoples of the empire would have developed if Franz Joseph had not allowed himself to be drawn into a conflict with Serbia in 1914, which led to World War I. The emperor, who died in 1916, did not see how the power that he ruled for 68 years had ceased to exist.

In Vienna, Franz Josef, this great personality, has only one monument installed. It is located in the Burggarten garden and is made in the form of a lonely figure immersed in the painful meditation of a man walking sadly along the paths of the garden