Larry Wolff

When Austro-Hungarian Emperor Karl and Empress Zita embarked on their exile from Austria in 1919, it marked the conclusion of the Habsburg family's rule over Europe after several hundred years. In this episode, historian and author Larry Wolff joins Luke to underline the significance of this transition, and how Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Richard Strauss' fictitious opera, Die Frau Ohne Schatten (1919), reflected the sociopolitical changes that were rapidly reshaping Europe.In Wolff's new book, The Shadow of the Empress: Fairy-Tale Opera and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy (Stanford, 2023), he tactfully explains the importance of this period, highlighting the similarities of Hofmannsthal and Strauss's fictional empress with the final Habsburg Empress Zita. An emphasis is placed on the conceptual change of monarchs from political leaders, to figures more closely associated with fairy-tales and cultural symbolism.Larry Wolff is the Julius Silver Professor of European History at New York University, the executive director of the NYU Remarque Institute, and the co-director of NYU Florence at Villa La Pietra. His books include Disunion within the Union: The Uniate Church and the Partitions of Poland (HURI, 2019), Woodrow Wilson and the Reimagining of Eastern Europe (Stanford, 2019), The Idea of Galicia: History and Fantasy in Habsburg Political Culture (Stanford, 2010), and Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford, 1994). He is the longtime book review editor for Harvard Ukrainian Studies, and he is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.