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In Our Time: Maria Theresa

22/10/2020

Maria Theresa

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Maria Theresa

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the woman who ruled Austria, shaking up the European order

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the reign of the Empress who upended the European order while strengthening Austria through reforms, alliances and strategic marriages.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Maria Theresa (1717-1780) who inherited the Austrian throne in 1740 at the age of 23.  Her neighbours circled like wolves and, within two months, Frederick the Great had seized one of her most prized lands, Silesia, exploiting her vulnerability.  Yet over the next forty years through political reforms, alliances and marriages, she built Austria up into a formidable power, and she would do whatever it took to save the souls of her Catholic subjects, with a rigidity and intolerance that Joseph II, her son and heir, could not wait to challenge. 

With

Catriona Seth
Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature at the University of Oxford

Martyn Rady
Professor of Central European History at University College London

And

Thomas Biskup
Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Hull

Producer: Simon Tillotson

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