Archduchess Regina is dead (1925-2010)

08:40 o’clock this morning Archduchess Regina of Austria, wife of emperor son Archduke Otto von Habsburg of Austria, the country’s former crown prince, died at the age of 85 in the couple’s home Villa Austria in Pöcking in Bavaria. Regina received the last rites before she peacefully left this world in the circle of several close family members.

- My mother was the model for all of us, with her we lose a great personality who was influenced us all with her unwavering faith and her positive outlook on life, eldest son Karl said in a brief written statement. (more…)

Remembering großmama, Empress Zita

Walburga Habsburg Douglas is the daughter of the head of the Habsburg family, Otto von Habsburg and his wife Regina. She is married to the Swedish Count Archibald Douglas since 1992 and lives at the Ekensholm Castle estate in Flen, Södermanland County. In 2006 Walburga was elected to the Swedish Parliament (Riksdag) for the conservative party (Moderaterna), she is right now campaigning for a seat in the European Parliament in the election in 2009. Her title if the Habsburg family were still ruling would be Her Imperial and Royal Highness, Princess Imperial of Austria, Princess Royal of Hungary and Bohemia.

Walburga wrote this as a chronicle for the second 2008 issue of Swedish magazine Queen, here I have translated it.

My grandmother Zita was the last Empress of Austria-Hungary

Many people think that if one has grown up in a family with kings and queens then one has lives at palaces and received an upbringing which is totally different from everyone else’s.

I myself have often pondered about if I and my siblings received a normal upbringing.

On one hand we had a “normal” upbringing, went to municipal schools, and had normal worries with grades and homework. On the other hand, Austria’s and Danube’s history is our family’s history. Our relatives are spread all over Europe and we have family ties with many well-known families in different countries.

From childhood I and my six siblings got with us an enormous interest for history through our upbringing and through my father’s, Otto von Habsburg’s, stories at the bedside. He told us about how he as a child thought it was a little scary to be in a large castle like Hofburg in Vienna and skilfully managed to imbed the stories in a long tale about seven children who all had names that started with the same letter that mine and my siblings’ names.

In the evenings we sat on the floor of his office and waited for him to finish his work. When he was done we always wanted to play games with him. It could be quizzes, different board games, card games and similar things. At bedtime he sat down at our beds, read the evening prayer and sang lullabies.

Austria came to play an important role during my upbringing both by tradition and geographic proximity. Both my parents spoke so warmly and positively of the people and the country that we literally loved Austria. We didn’t think, strangely enough, that it was the least strange or unusual that we had a sharp annotation in our Austrian passports which forbade us entry into the country. (Austria had a law up until 1970 which meant that we in the Habsburg family were not allowed to travel into our old homeland because the Austrians thought that we would like to take back the imperial crown). This annotation luckily disappeared later, outplayed by the unification of Europe and Austria’s then current politics.

Now, when we no longer have any travelling restrictions we can travel unhindered, but our family trips demand a whole bus these days. It is needed when my parents, my six siblings, all brother-in-laws and sister-in-laws and the 22 grandchildren are meeting and transport us.

Earlier we usually met three times a year at larger family gatherings at my grandmother’s, Empress Zita. She lived in Switzerland, in the small village Zizers. Grandmother was a warm-hearted woman who took time for all her grandchildren and offered delicious Swiss chocolate. She was never strict, but gave us very clear conceptions of what the family had as its task: to be humble but at the same time try to render the family what one had received during the upbringing. For us she was our beloved “grossmama”, but we understood very well that she was an empress and had had to endure difficult events in life.

The family gatherings became somewhat like a summer camp: my father with his seven siblings, my grandmother’s 33 grandchildren ad a large amount of friends. It felt like endless days with games and heart-to-heart conversations. But above all days were we realised that it is important with friends and invaluable with a family. Still today we cousins meet a lot during summer holidays and organise joint parties. Someone commented our family a little jokingly: “You are not a family, you are an ethnic group”. And perhaps that isn’t completely wrong when thinking about it!

WALBURGA HABSBURG DOUGLAS

Age: 49
Profession: Member of Parliament
Who was Zita? Zita of Bourbon-Parma (1892-1989) was Walburga’s grandmother and married with Karl I of Austria-Hungary. She was the last empress in the double-monarchy between 1916-18. Zita became a widow at age 28 and alone with her and Karl’s eight children. After her husband’s death she always wore black and sought great consolation within the church. During her whole life she was the central figure of the Habsburg family. Today she is buried in the imperial crypt in the Kapuzinerkirche in Vienna.