October 7
|
8:30 pm
Maria Theresa was the single most powerful woman in eighteenth-century Europe. At the age of just twenty-three she succeeded to the Habsburg domains only to find them contested by almost every European power. Over the next forty years she became a fierce leader and opponent, as well as a devoted wife and mother to sixteen children.
Her radical reforms transformed central Europe and her lasting legacy continues to reverberate to this day.
Ticket price includes a glass of wine.
Richard Bassett, former
Times correspondent in Eastern Europe and author of the widely acclaimed
Last Days in Old Europe first travelled to Prague as an architectural historian. He later spent nearly ten years covering events in communist Czechoslovakia including the Velvet Revolution. An expert on Central Europe, he taught at many European universities and is a Bye-Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge. His latest book is
Maria Theresa: Empress, Yale University Press, £25.
EVENT ORGANISED WITH THE COOPERATION OF THE EMBASSY OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC
All proceeds raised go towards the care and conservation of Czech heritage.
Image: Empress Maria Theresa by Martin van Meytens (1759), Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna via Creative Commons Wikimedia
