2023-05-05 20:00:31
Issue of Saturday, May 6, 2023
Innsbruck (OTS) – That today is a holiday for royalists is understandable and undisputed. But the coronation of King Charles III. has a kind of appeal to Republicans, too. The monarchy, a fascination.
The funeral of Queen Elizabeth II became a global media event. The sympathy in the death of the popular monarch was gigantic. Today the crown will be placed on her firstborn son, the new King Charles III. And once more the world will be the godfather. The monarchy is and remains fascinating.
But where does the real hype regarding queens and kings, regarding empresses and emperors come from? One can and must assume that the semblance of the imperial world will also attract staunch Republicans on the island and on the mainland. There is much to suggest that the monarchy represents a parallel world to everyday life. Not just on the island. For some, the monarchy offers a change from the sadness of the present, for just as many, the pomp of the British royal family is simply an enormous attraction.
How do the king’s children react today, what kind of character does Camilla make? You remember Diana – and somehow you’re part of the royal family for a moment. Then a good deal of transfiguration plays a role. The longing for the supposedly better world of yesterday. There, tyranny in the name of the crown is excluded, as are the wars, oppression and exploitation of the masses for which it is responsible. It is the shine that reigns. Not just today in London. Austria also likes to reflect on the great tradition of the Habsburg Empire, even if that collapsed following the First World War.
In this country, April 1, 1989 became a state event. Zita von Bourbon-Parma, Austria’s last empress, was buried in the Capuchin crypt. There’s an obvious emotional bond and fondness for nostalgic traditions.
Anyone who strolls through the center of the old residential city can hardly escape the imperial world. Schönbrunn Palace is literally occupied by tourists from all over the world every day, new film productions regarding the life of Sisi fill cinemas. No, at least one shouldn’t read a crisis of the republic and democracy from this. It threatens from elsewhere, so you have to be careful here. What the world thinks regarding today with the coronation of Charles III. experienced is rather an expression of an ambivalence in which we live, which lives in all of us. Even if today’s mendacious world repels us, it still pulls us under its spell. The monarchy, a fascination.
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