Room "The Sisi Myth"
The Sisi Myth
It is clear from accounts in contemporary newspapers that during her lifetime Elisabeth was not the popularly-acclaimed and beautiful empress who filled the front pages with reports of her activities. In actual fact, very few reports were published of Elisabeth, who withdrew at an early stage from her official duties as empress and during the last few years of her life was seldom in Vienna.
It was not until after her death that the opportunity of marketing the figure of a beautiful and unhappy empress who had met a tragic fate were realised and exploited: there was soon a plethora of memorial images, commemorative coins and other memorabilia commemorating the empress. Elisabeth became stylised as a venerated, good and selfless empress, thus ensuring that a false image was handed down. Still widespread even today, this image was reinforced by numerous films – above all by the "Sissi" trilogy by Ernst Marischka starring Romy Schneider.
