Elizabeth McFarland and Dr. Michelle Stott James, Germanic and Slavic Languages

As one of the most powerful and charismatic leaders of Enlightenment-era Europe, Maria Theresia von Habsburg is well-known for her widespread political and social reforms and for her skillful political maneuvering which centralized the disintegrating Austrian Empire and led to a golden age of education, commerce, art, and science. Despite Maria Theresia’s influential position vis-à-vis European philosophy, political theory and aesthetics, this amazing woman is known only through second-hand histories of the Habsburgs. Her own writings – volumes of printed works and a huge amount of correspondence – compromise a body of important cultural artifacts which helped to create European culture as we know it. When correspondence survived only in European Archives and Libraries, Cultural historians largely ignored this body of literature and historical documents. While revered as an important historical figure, Maria Theresia has remained voiceless far too long. Through the process gathering and digitizing a part of this forgotten body of writings, Maria Theresia’s own voice has been brought into the studies of her era.

Maria Theresia was a woman of faith and determination, characteristics I found invaluable in my search for her letters. My first overly enthusiastic expectations for my project were quickly shattered in the first few weeks of research. I would walk from my apartment in the Vienna to the National Bibliothek in a wing of the old palace and sit in front of a computer piling through an electronic database and card catalog. It seemed that there simply were no German translations of what I had found to be volumes of Maria Theresia’s French letters. The day did come, however when the hard work paid off. Hidden away in some electronic file that simply did not want to be found, was a series of books written by Sir Alfred von Arneth in the early 1900’s. This member of the Austrian aristocracy had begun a historical collection of Maria Theresia’s writings, and had translated and published a wide variety of letters selected from the vast supply. He choose letters that best expressed her personality and character as revealed through her pen to family and friends. Through these volumes of letters left from this brief surge of historical interest in Maria Theresia, I was able to assemble a collection of over one hundred pages of her letters. I have digitized, glossed, and edited these texts. In December of 2002, the one hundred and fifty pages of letters will be published on the Sophie Digital Library (http://humanities.byu.edu/sophie/home.htm), and made available to germanists and historians worldwide. This will be the first time that many of these letters will be available to the public in nearly one hundred years.

What will having these letters mean to the scholarly community? For the first time scholars will not need to rely on reference books written about her. Through my critical research focusing on the influence of her correspondence with her friends and family, this legendary empress has once again been given a voice, a voice that influenced gender and power roles of women in the eighteenth century as well as those in centuries to come. The importance of her own voice is exemplified in one letter written to her best friend Gräfin Rosalie von Edling, Maria Theresia introduces us to the woman behind the crown writing:
Pray for me, it is extremely needed, for God requires much of me; but then, I probably deserve it all. I will try nothing more than to be of honor and use to Him, my country, and my children, as long as He allows it, no matter how sad it seems now or may be in the future. His Grace is all I required, without which man is nothing, and I am less than anyone else.

This is quintessential Maria Theresia. She was humble, but was not about to back down from the challenges of leadership. She was a woman who rose above what was expected of her sex and yet did so by exhausting the very traits that made her woman. Maria Theresia was the sovereign empress of the Austro-Hungarian empire while still excelling as wife, mother, and friend.

I found that Maria Theresia is remembered in Austrian minds as a mother-figure, and not only because of her sixteen children. Maria Theresia saw herself as the mother of her country and looked after them with all the maternal care she could. During one of the many military campaigns against her arch-enemy Frederick the Great from Prussia, Maria Theresia wrote a letter that expresses this maternal love:
My dear Son,Two sons and one son-in-law have been torn away from me. Oh, how often I think of the poor women who violently lose their children! Mine go voluntarily and more protected than could be imagined, and yet, it still pains me and I am left without my great champions. What a horrible business this war is, both against humanity and against happiness. . .

A later letter to her daughter Karoline before her marriage to King Ferdinand of Naples and Sicily, expresses a mother’s love and worry, and final advice for a new queen.
I had never attempted anything that has given me so much to ponder and that has busied and worried me as much as preparing this counsel for you in your future position. . .I speak of responsibilities both big and small and ask you to read this advice often; advice from a mother who lives for her children, who tenderly loves them, and wishes only for their happiness. . .

It was this unparalleled love for family and country that inspired Maria Theresia to fill her sixtythree years of life with devoted service and love. It is also what inspired me to provide a vehicle for her writings. The ORCA Research Grant that I received enabled me to travel to Vienna, Austria, visit the archives and Libraries Austria and rediscover the forgotten voice of this passionate woman. In the past Maria Theresia has been portrayed as an important historical figure. Now, thanks to this grant and the help of the Sophie Digital Library, the time has come that she will be allowed to speak for herself and thus become an integral part of the literary world.