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LECTURE 07.10.25: 'Maria Theresa in Bohemia'
Our event by Richard Bassett on Tuesday 7th October 2025 in the Czech Embassy London brought in a full house for a very absorbing talk on a vast subject. This was followed by a long and interesting discussion. Maria Theresa was supremely successful in surrounding herself with the best people and advisers available to achieve her lasting legacy in Central Europe.
At the age of just twenty-three she succeeded to the Habsburg domains only to find them contested by almost every European power. Over the next forty years she became a fierce leader and opponent, as well as a devoted wife and mother to sixteen children. Her radical reforms transformed central Europe and her lasting legacy continues to reverberate to this day.
Richard Bassett, former Times correspondent in Eastern Europe and author of the widely acclaimed Last Days in Old Europe first travelled to Prague as an architectural historian. He later spent nearly ten years covering events in communist Czechoslovakia including the Velvet Revolution. An expert on Central Europe, he taught at many European universities and is a Bye-Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge. His latest book is Maria Theresa: Empress, Yale University Press, £25.
Image: Empress Maria Theresa by Martin van Meytens (1759) Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna via Creative Commons Wikimedia. Image of Richard Bassett © T. Sommerlad
EVENT ORGANISED WITH THE COOPERATION OF THE EMBASSY OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC
All proceeds raised go towards the care and conservation of Czech heritage
