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Sissi's incredible posthumous legacy (1890) to the prisoners of Nuremberg In 1885, Elisabeth of Austria, known as “Sissi” or “Sisi,” as she sometimes signs her name, approaching her fifties and becoming increasingly misanthropic, found refuge in writing. Until November 1888, she filled more than 900 pages with what she called her Poetic Diary. The first two notebooks, Songs of the North Sea and Winter Songs, were inspired by the poetic cycles of Heinrich Heine, whom she considered her role model. She arranges for her legacy to be made known to the Swiss government 60 years later! The third volume, unfinished, was interrupted in 1889 by the suicide of her son, Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria. In addition to poems, these pages contain intimate thoughts, anecdotes, and events. She reveals herself to be a republican, anti-clerical, and pacifist, and paints herself as Titania, the fairy queen from A Midsummer Night's Dream who falls in love with a donkey. Knowing that these subversive texts would inevitably be destroyed if they were discovered, she took every precaution to ensure their transmission to posterity. She had them copied and even printed in a few rare copies by a Viennese printer whom she made swear secrecy. In 1890, she placed the manuscripts and prints in a box and instructed her close friend to entrust the box to her brother Charles-Théodore in Bavaria after her death, with the task of passing it on to the President of the Swiss Confederation. Convinced that the Austrian monarchy was coming to an end, she chose democratic Switzerland as the heir to her most precious possession. A letter accompanied these documents, addressed to “A dear soul of the future.” The letter specified that in 60 years' time from 1890, these poems should be published for the benefit of political prisoners and their families. Duke Louis, son of Charles-Theodore and nephew of Elisabeth of Austria, honored her promise in July 1951. Poems should be published for the benefit of political prisoners and their familie But this imperial legacy is embarrassing for the Swiss Federal Council. After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and two world wars, with Austria still occupied by the Allies, how could beneficiaries be found? The question of publication was put on hold, especially since a Swiss archivist believed that the unconventional expressions and ideas could shock some people and only confirm what was already known about the empress's poor mental health... It was not until December 1980 that Switzerland and Austria signed a contract allowing these texts to be published. The Academy of Sciences in Vienna published these poems as a historical and scientific work, thus preserving the myth of Sissi. The manuscripts remain in the Federal Archives in Bern. They have now been digitized and are available online. Source: Passé Simple. No. 87 – September 2023 Empress Sissi in Switzerland The end of Elisabeth of Austria in Geneva by Sylvie Savary Luigi Lucheni and the anarchist plot by Sylvie Savary A legacy that embarrasses the Federal Council by Sylvie Savary https://passesimple.ch/edition/n87-septembre-2023/ #Sissi #Switzerland #Geneva