The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke [Hardcover]

Timothy Snyder (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2, 2008

Wilhelm Von Habsburg wore the uniform of the Austrian officer, the court regalia of a Habsburg archduke, the simple suit of a Parisian exile, the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and, every so often, a dress. He could handle a saber, a pistol, a rudder, or a golf club; he handled women by necessity and men for pleasure. He spoke the Italian of his archduchess mother, the German of his archduke father, the English of his British royal friends, the Polish of the country his father wished to rule, and the Ukrainian of the land Wilhelm wished to rule himself. In this exhilarating narrative history, prize-winning historian Timothy D. Snyder offers an indelible portrait of an aristocrat whose life personifies the wrenching upheavals of the first half of the twentieth century, as the rule of empire gave way to the new politics of nationalism. Coming of age during the First World War, Wilhelm repudiated his family to fight alongside Ukrainian peasants in hopes that he would become their king. When this dream collapsed he became, by turns, an ally of German imperialists, a notorious French lover, an angry Austrian monarchist, a calm opponent of Hitler, and a British spy against Stalin. Played out in Europe’s glittering capitals and bloody battlefields, in extravagant ski resorts and dank prison cells, The Red Prince captures an extraordinary moment in the history of Europe, in which the old order of the past was giving way to an undefined future-and in which everything, including identity itself, seemed up for grabs.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Part of the family that ruled much of central Europe since 1273, Wilhelm von Habsburg (1895–1949) came of age during the last 23 years of the dynasty's rule. Von Habsburg lived a nomadic and tragic life; he was a bisexual and a political chameleon (including a brief pro-Nazi period) who was implicated in a major financial scandal in Paris during the 1930s. But during WWI, he had become a fervent Ukrainian nationalist, and this became his life's one constant, culminating with efforts to help formerly pro-German Ukraine turn to the West at the end of WWII. As Yale historian Snyder (Sketches from a Secret War) shows, his efforts were futile; he was charged by the Soviets with spying and died in prison. Snyder hews closely to his subject, so that the complexities of 20th-century Ukrainian history sometimes get short shrift, e.g., he devotes only two sentences to the 1933 terror famine that killed three million peasants. Generally, though, this is an interesting biography of a man whose colorful life embodied many of the tensions that plagued Europe in the early 20th century. Illus., maps. (June)
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From Booklist

The dissolution of the Austrian and Russian empires and their replacement with new nation-states after World War I scattered an interesting cast of characters across the landscape of Europe for several decades, including more than a few drifting aristocrats. One of the more intriguing ones was Wilhelm von Habsburg,  the so-called Red Prince. As a scion of the Austrian imperial family, he had many of the predictable aristocratic attributes, including a grasp of several languages, skill at swordplay, and a sense that he was entitled to command and rule others. Yet he turned his back on his family and a life of comfortable exile to engage in a series of dangerous escapades until his death, in a Soviet prison hospital in 1948. Along the way, von Habsburg led Ukrainian nationalists in a futile fight to establish an independent state, fought the Nazis, plotted against the Soviets, and managed to acquire a diverse collection of sexual conquests. Snyder portrays him as a restless spirit with dreams of grandeur who was attractive, even charismatic, without being particularly admirable. --Jay Freeman

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; First Edition edition (June 2, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465002374
• ISBN-13: 978-0465002375
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #857,003 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Biography Of A Man, A Country, And A Continent, June 21, 2008

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John D. Cofield - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke (Hardcover)

The Red Prince is subtitled The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke, but this is a biography of far more than one individual. This able work by Timothy Snyder does much to illuminate the history of Ukraine and Central and Eastern Europe during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

When Wilhelm von Habsburg was born in 1895 he was a minor member of a minor branch of the Habsburg Dynasty, which had been a dominating force in European politics for 500 years. Wilhelm's immediate family were not in the main line of succession and thus lived out of the public eye as much as was possible for people known as Imperial and Royal Archdukes and Archduchesses. Wilhelm's father seems to have originated a family streak of rebelliousness, when he apparently began to make plans to establish himself as King of Poland before that country had even regained its independence. Wilhelm, as his father's youngest son, had to go further afield to rebel, and he chose the province of Ukraine, a region divided between Russia and Austria-Hungary. Before and during World War I Wilhelm was an advocate for Ukrainian independence and for some surprisingly left wing politics, and during the tumultuous period after World War I at one point seemed poised to become the country's King. Conflict between Poland and the Soviet Union put an end to hopes for Ukrainian independence, and Wilhelm was relegated to the life of a playboy in Paris, enjoying love affairs with both sexes until a financial scandal forced him to return to Austria. Then during the 1930s and 1940s Wilhelm dabbled in right wing politics, switched to anti-Nazi activities during World War II, and then in the early years of the Cold War apparently worked with Western countries spying on the Soviet Union. This led to his arrest and imprisonment by the Soviets, and he died in prison in 1948.

However colorful his life, Wilhelm von Hapsburg would not have merited a biography solely on his own account. He apparently left few letters or other written records, and there seem to be very few photographs as well. What makes The Red Prince so important is the good coverage Snyder provides of the complicated history of Ukraine. The region slipped back and forth between Austria-Hungary, Poland, and the Soviet Union until finally gaining independence in 1991. Snyder draws many excellent parallels between the nationalist politics pre- and post- World Wars I and II, the political turmoil that has plagued the former Soviet Union and its satellites since the end of the Cold War, and the kind of universal supra-nationalistic politics practiced by the Habsburgs and now by the European Union. The coverage of the Orange Revolution of 2004, when Ukraine took a decisive turn away from dictatorship towards democracy, is especially interesting.

Although Wilhelm himself seems to have left few written records, so that readers will not feel they know much about him personally, Snyder was able to recreate the lives of his parents, siblings, nieces and nephews and other relations. He reveals them to have been interesting and intelligent people with independent views, a far cry from the habitual stereotype of the Habsburgs as insufferably inbred mediocrities. Snyder also gives some fascinating portraits of some of Wilhelm's associates like Trebitsch Lincoln, who deserves a biography of his own, though it would probably be considered too bizarre to be true.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful Introduction to Central European History, August 17, 2008

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Eric F. Facer "E. Facer" (Centreville, VA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke (Hardcover)

This is one of those books that you pick up on a whim and then the next day wonder why on earth you bought it, and then, once you begin to read it, realize that you got lucky. The Red Prince, in actuality, is several books in one: a biography of the eccentric Archduke Wilhelm von Hapsburg and members of his family, a brief history of the evolution of the country we know today as Ukraine, a eulogy for the Hapsburg Empire, and a survey of the changes wrought in Europe during the 19th and 20th Centuries as nations became states and continental war gave way to European union. Professor Snyder has a fascinating story to tell and he tells it well. His prose is engaging, his analysis insightful, and his arguments persuasive. At times, his metaphors are a bit over wrought and strained. For example, his reference on p. 272 to the impact that global warming and rising water levels in the Adriatic Sea will have on old Hapsburg sea charts seems pointless, other than perhaps satisfying the author's desire to display his awareness of the environmental fad du jour. But this is a minor quibble. If you want to fill a gap in your education and learn a little something about Central Europe, buy this book.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Habsburg nostalgia with a twist, July 23, 2008

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N. Ravitch (Savannah, GA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke (Hardcover)

Many of us are nostalgic about the Hababurgs, especially when we have considered the awful consequences of the decline of a multinational empire which kept squabbling nationalities and would-be-nationalities from murdering one another for many decades. Of course the Habsburgs also bear resp0nsibility for a policy of divide and conquer which made nationalistic rivalries even worse. But still better a Habsburg ruler than a Fascist or a Communist.

Prof. Snyder, an expert on the nationalities question in the lands of central Europe and the Old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, is the perfect man to write a book on a wayward Habsburg archduke, Wilhelm, and his involvement for several decades in pro-Ukrainian national projects, all of which came to nothing until long after his death with the demise of the Soviet Union in 1989-91.

Snyder writes with a literary verve which makes it hard to put this book down, even for people who wouldn't know the difference between a Slovak and a Slovene if their lives depended on it.