Previous Concert Factoids:

Factoids for THE KAISER'S JUBILEE:

III) Military Recruitment and the dance Verbunk

Impressment gangs in the Hungarian Kingdom often used folk dance as a means to recruit young village men into the army. In a practice that dates from the 18th century, Hussars arriving in villages would dance what was known as verbunk (from the German word "werben," meaning "to recruit, to enroll"), and many of the young village men that joined the dancing found themselves suddenly whisked off ("enrolled!") into the army. Thus we incorporated the following verse of a folk song into our Dunantuli suite:

I won't be marrying you this summer/
Because Franz Josef called me in to be a soldier/
If Franz Josef hadn't enlisted me/
I would have been your partner, my dear, so soon

Click to watch video of Ethnic Dance Theatre's Dunantuli suite.

II)Archduke Wilhelm von Habsburg, aka, "Vasyl Vyshyvanyj"

The Archduke Wilhelm von Habsburg, potential heir to the Habsburg thrown, wore a Hutsul-style embroidered shirt under his officer's coat when commissioned to lead a corps of Ukrainian soldiers in the Kaiser's army during the Great War (WWI). Wilhelm had become passionate about Ukrainian culture after a trip to the Hutsul region of the Carpathian Mountains, and had already mastered the Ukrainian language by the time of his commission. Wilhelm wished to see the creation of a Ukrainian Kingdom within the Habsburg monarchy, and aspired to be its first King (as a regent of the Habsburg Emperor). The idea had some support in Ukraine, and the Habsburg prince became a folk hero among many of the Kaiser's Ruthenian (Ukrainian) subjects, who knew him by the name Vasyl Vyshyvanyj (Wilhelm the Embroidered). He was also known as "The Red Prince" for his belief in combining monarchical rule and social justice.

 

I) The official title of Emperor Franz Joseph I von Habsburg was:

His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty,

Franz Joseph I,

By the Grace of God, Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia,

King of Lombardy-Venetia, of Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia, Lodomeria and Illyria; King of Jerusalem etc., Archduke of Austria; Grand Duke of Tuscany and Cracow, Duke of Lorraine, of Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and of the Bukovina; Grand Prince of Transylvania; Margrave of Moravia; Duke of Upper and Lower Silesia, of Modena, Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla, of Auschwitz, Zator and Teschen, Friuli, Ragusa (Dubrovnik) and Zara (Zadar); Princely Count of Habsburg and Tyrol, of Kyburg, Gorizia and Gradisca; Prince of Trent (Trento) and Brixen; Margrave of Upper and Lower Lusatia and in Istria; Count of Hohenems, Feldkirch, Bregenz, Sonnenberg, etc.; Lord of Trieste, of Cattaro (Kotor), and in the Windic march; Grand Voivode of the Voivodeship of Serbia etc.