| |
Some real events and people are fictitiously used in The Red Cliffs Chronicles—the 1621 Battle of Khotyn, the 1588 Battle of Gravelines, the 1793-1794 Reign of Terror; the fifteenth century Turkish cartographer Piri Reis, Voltaire, Alexander Dumas, Victor Hugo and so on. I like throwing bits and pieces of history into my novels and then tweaking them to fit my narrative purposes.
One historical figure, however, has his cameo appearance in all my stories—Holy Roman Emperor Josef II, a statesman I deeply admire.
Along with Catherine the Great and Frederic the Great, Josef II has been considered one of the three greatest Enlightenment rulers.
History doesn’t call him “Josef the Great”, but to me—and I’m not alone—he is the greatest among the three of them. His vision was broader, more modern, more humane. More idealistic. He didn’t possess the ruthlessness of the other two and, unlike Catherine and Frederick, didn’t eradicate his powerful opponents to enforce his reforms and thus give them a chance to consolidate.
As someone said, he wanted too much, too fast, too early.
There isn’t better proof of this statement than Josef II’s reformation of the legal system: in 1787, he abolished brutal punishment and death sentence.
The radical changes Josef II initiated didn’t take root during his lifetime. His triumph, however, although postponed, was ultimate—his reforms became the bedrock for modernization of the Austrian Monarchy and its pathway to democracy.