Royal Majesty. The Habsburgs as Bohemian Kings in the 17th and 18th Centuries

The authors of this publication have posed the basic question of how and with what tools royal power was exercised in Bohemia in the 17th and 18th centuries, at a time when the Habsburgs held the position of Bohemian kings and at the same time resided in Vienna for many decades. So what did their administration of the Czech lands look like at a „distance“? And in the early modern period, was the physical presence of the monarch actually necessary for the exercise of his power? How was the „awareness“ of the Bohemian king ensured among the subjects and how was his power legitimized? A team of historians is trying to answer these and other questions connected with the sovereign majesty after more than six years of intensive research in Czech and foreign archives, museums and libraries. The result of many years of research is a remarkable journey from general to concrete, from the general principles on which the political power of the Bohemian king was built in the early modern period, through his representation in works of art (fine arts, music) to the details of his everyday life. In the eyes of readers, there may be a gradual „materialization“ of the king, who was not only the abstract pinnacle of the political system, but also a physical being of flesh and bones.