Tajný život císařovny Sisi – Unterreiner Katrin (2024)

Katrin Unterreiner's new book tells the story of a strong woman who always knew what she wanted and relentlessly pursued her goals. However, she was also a woman of many faces. The paradox of her life was that she could do everything she wanted, had everything she desired, yet none of it made her happy. The author focuses mainly on the period between her thirtieth year, when the empress began to detach herself more and more from life at the Viennese court, and the year of her untimely 61st birthday. The empress traveled extensively, pursued her interests, did not retreat into the background, and did not live modestly; on the contrary, she was always accompanied by a large entourage. Sisi's relationship with her family was reserved to the point of being cold, with the exception of an almost exaggerated maternal love for her youngest daughter, Marie Valerie. Therefore, new insights into the empress's warm relationship with her granddaughter Ella are particularly interesting. Although many believe that nothing new can be written about Sisi, the book provides new information that offers a glimpse into this previously unknown private life that the empress could shape completely freely.