Бразилия императрицасы және Португалия королевасы Мария Леопольдина

Empress of Brazil (1822–1826) and Queen of Portugal (1826)

the Holy Roman Empress

Dona Maria Leopoldina of Austria (22 January 1797 – 11 December 1826) was the first Empress of Brazil as the wife of Emperor Dom Pedro I from 12 October 1822 until her death. She was also Queen of Portugal during her husband's brief reign as King Dom Pedro IV from 10 March to 2 May 1826. She was born in Vienna, Austria, the daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Francis II, and his second wife, Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicily. Among her many siblings were Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria and Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma, the wife of Napoleon Bonaparte. The education Maria Leopoldina had received in childhood and adolescence was broad and eclectic, with a higher cultural level and more consistent political training. Such education of the little princes and princesses of the Habsburg family was based on the educational belief initiated by their grandfather Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, who believed "that children should be inspired from an early age to have high qualities, such as humanity, compassion and the desire to make people happy". With a deep Christian faith and a solid scientific and cultural background (which included international politics and notions of government) the Archduchess had been prepared from an early age to being a proper royal consort. In the 21st century, it has been proposed by some historians that she was one of the main articulators of the process of Independence of Brazil that took place in 1822. Her biographer, historian Paulo Rezzutti, maintains that it was largely thanks to her that Brazil became a nation. According to him, the wife of Dom Pedro "embraced Brazil as her country, Brazilians as her people and Independence as her cause". She was also adviser to Dom Pedro on important political decisions that reflected the future of the nation, such as the Dia do Fico and the subsequent opposition and disobedience to the Portuguese courts regarding the couple's return to Portugal. Consequently, for governing the country on Dom Pedro's trips through the Brazilian provinces, she is considered the first woman to become head of state in an independent American country.

Maria Leopoldina was born on 22 January 1797 at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Archduchy of Austria. She was the sixth (but third surviving) child of Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor (who from 1804, became Emperor of Austria with the title of Francis I, because Napoleon Bonaparte demanded that he renounce the title of Holy Roman Emperor when he was crowned Emperor of the French) but the fifth (third surviving) child and fourth (second surviving) daughter born from his second marriage with Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicily. Her paternal grandparents were Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor and Maria Luisa of Bourbon, Infanta of Spain and her maternal grandparents were King Ferdinand IV & III of Naples and Sicily (later King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies) and Archduchess Maria Carolina of Austria. Through both parents (who are double first cousins), Maria Leopoldina was descended from the House of Habsburg Lorraine (one of the oldest and most powerful dynasties in Europe, which reigned over Austria from 1282 to 1918, among other territories that reigned and was the oldest reigning house in Europe at the time of Maria Leopoldina's birth) and from the House of Bourbon (a royal dynasty who at the time of her birth reigned over Spain, Naples, Sicily and Parma; the main branch of the family, who reigned in France since 1589, was dethroned after the French Revolution in 1792 but briefly restored during 1814–1830). She was given the name Caroline Josepha Leopoldine Franziska Ferdinanda, according to her main biographer Carlos H. Oberacker Júnior in his work "A Imperatriz Leopoldina: Sua Vida e Sua Época", and confirmed by Bettina Kann in her work "Cartas de uma Imperatriz" and other authors. In one of the essays presented in his work, Oberacker Júnior showed an excerpt of the publication made by the Austrian newspaper Wiener Zeitung on 25 January 1797, who gave the news of the birth of the Archduchess three days before with her full name; he also mentioned that the name "Maria" wasn't present in the preserved baptismal record of the Archduchess, which is in fact true. According to Oberacker Júnior, the Archduchess started using it already on his trip to Brazil, when dealing with some private businesses. In Brazil, she started to sign only Leopoldina, or using the first name Maria, as can be seen in her oath to the Constitution of Brazil in 1822. According to another theory presented by Oberacker Júnior, the Archduchess probably began to use the name "Maria" due to her great devotion to the Virgin Mary and to invoke her protection, and also because all her sisters in law used this name. Maria Leopoldina was born during a turbulent period in European history. In 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte became First Consul of France, and later became Emperor. He then began a series of conflicts and established systems of alliances known as "Coalitions" over Europe that frequently redefined the continent's borders. Austria was an active participant in all of the Napoleonic Wars, against France, her historical enemy. Napoleon shook the old European royal institutions, and fierce battles began through the Holy Roman Empire. Her older sister, Archduchess Maria Ludovika, married Napoleon in 1810, seeking to strengthen the ties between France and Austria. This union was undoubtedly one of the most serious defeats of the House of Habsburg; their maternal grandmother, Queen Maria Carolina of Naples and Sicily (who deeply hated everything about France after execution of her beloved sister Queen Marie Antoinette in 1793), grunted with her son in law's attitude: "It was precisely what I lacked, to now become the devil's grandmother".

On 13 April 1807, the 10 year old Archduchess lost her mother after she suffered complications due to childbirth. A year later (6 January 1808), her father remarried to the woman Maria Leopoldina would later describe as the most important person in her life, Maria Ludovika of Austria Este. First cousin of her husband and granddaughter of Empress Maria Theresa, the new Empress was well educated and surpassed her predecessor in culture and intellectual brilliance. Muse and personal friend of the poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, she was responsible for the intellectual formation of her stepdaughter, developing in Maria Leopoldina a taste for literature, nature and music by Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven. Because she had no children of her own, she willingly adopted those of her predecessor; Maria Leopoldina always considered her stepmother to be her mother and she grew up with Empress Maria Ludovika as her "spiritual mother". The study program for Maria Leopoldina and her siblings included subjects such as reading, writing, dance, drawing, painting, piano, riding, hunting, history, geography and music; Prince Klemens von Metternich suggested that it should be Maria Leopoldina to go get married, as it was "her turn" to become a wife. The Marquis of Marialva played an enormous role in the wedding negotiations, the same one who had negotiated, advised by Alexander von Humboldt, the coming to Brazil of the French Artistic Mission. King John VI did everything to include the Infanta Dona Isabel Maria (who would be regent of the Kingdom of Portugal from 1826 to 1828 and would die unmarried) in the negotiations. The Marquis of Marialva made a guarantee that the Portuguese royal family was determined to return to the continent as soon as Brazil demonstrated that it had surely "escaped the flames of the wars of independence that were advancing in the Spanish colonies", thus obtaining Austrian consent to marriage. Once this was secured, the contract was signed in Vienna on 29 November 1816. Two ships were prepared, and in April 1817, scientists, painters, gardeners and a taxidermist, all with assistants, travelled to Rio de Janeiro ahead of Maria Leopoldina, who, in the meantime, studied the history and geography of her future home and learned Portuguese. During these weeks, the Archduchess compiled and wrote a vade mecum, a unique document the like of which has never been produced by any other Habsburg princess. The marriage per procuram (by proxy) between Maria Leopoldina and Dom Pedro took place on 13 May 1817 at the Augustinian Church in Vienna. The groom was represented by the bride's uncle, Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen. Through this marriage, King John VI saw the opportunity to counteract the excessive influence of England in its domains by forging new alliances with traditional dynasties. Austria, on the other hand, saw the new Portuguese Brazilian Empire as an important transatlantic ally that fit perfectly with the reactionary, absolutist ideals of the Holy Alliance. In this way, the marriage was a purely political act, not a sentimental one.

There are disagreements about the real cause of death of the first Empress of Brazil. For some authors, Maria Leopoldina would have died as a result of puerperal sepsis, while the Emperor was in Rio Grande do Sul, where he had inspected the troops during the Cisplatine War. The version that Maria Leopoldina died as a result of the attacks on her during a tantrum of her husband, is a widespread theory corroborated by historians such as Gabriac, Carl Seidler, John Armitage and Isabel Lustosa. The perception of real violence as the cause of death suffered a certain setback —even if a fatal assault did not necessarily reach the skeleton— with the recent exhumation of the Empress' remains where there was no bone fracture. This would have happened on 20 November 1826, when Maria Leopoldina would take over the regency so that the Emperor could travel to the South to deal with the war against Uruguay. Wanting to prove that the rumors about his extramarital relations and the bad climate between the Imperial couple were lies, Dom Pedro I decided to hold a large farewell reception where he demanded that both the Empress and his mistress the Marchioness of Santos appear together with him before the ecclesiastical and diplomatic dignitaries for the protocolary hand kissing. With the fulfillment of this demand, Maria Leopoldina would have officially recognized her husband's mistress, and for this she defied Dom Pedro I's orders and refused to appear at the reception. The Emperor, known to have a volatile genius, had a bitter argument with his wife, and even tried to drag her around the palace, attacking her with words and kicks. At the end, he attended the hand kissing ceremony accompanied only by the Marchioness of Santos and departed to the war with no resolution to the situation.

Maria Leopoldina died at the São Cristóvão Palace in the Quinta da Boa Vista, located in the neighborhood of São Cristóvão, in the northern part of the city of Rio de Janeiro on 11 December 1826, five weeks before her 30th birthday. The funeral ceremony was chaired by Francisco do Monte Alverne, official preacher of the Empire of Brazil. Her body, covered with the imperial mantle, was placed in three urns: the first made of Portuguese pine, the second made of lead (with its own Latin inscription, on which there was a skull with two crossed tibias, and on this, the imperial coat silver) and the third of cedar. She was buried on 14 December 1826 in the church of the Ajuda Convent (currently the Cinelândia). by Maria Padilha in the miniseries Marquesa de Santos (1984) and by Érika Evantini in the miniseries O Quinto dos Infernos (2002). Maria Leopoldina's life was also the subject of the 1996 plot of the samba school Imperatriz Leopoldinense, whose name already derives indirectly from her (because the school is based in the area of the Estrada de Ferro Leopoldina, named in honor of the Empress). On the occasion, the carnival designer and professor Rosa Magalhães received support from the Austrian government for the parade. In 2007, the actress Ester Elias gave life to Maria Leopoldina in the musical Império, by Miguel Falabella, which tells part of the history of the Empire of Brazil. In 2017, actress Letícia Colin played the Empress Maria Leopoldina in the telenovela Novo Mundo. In 2018, Maria Leopoldina and Imperatriz Leopoldinense were honored by the Tom Maior samba school, at the São Paulo carnival.

By June 1818 Maria Leopoldina became pregnant, and her first child, Maria da Glória, was born after a difficult delivery on 4 April 1819. Her next pregnancy ended in a miscarriage in November 1819, and on 26 April 1820 she suffered her second miscarriage; the child, a son, was named Miguel in honor of his paternal uncle and died almost immediately. These failed pregnancies had a profound effect on Maria Leopoldina, who, conscious of her primary duty to produce an heir to the House of Bragança, became depressed and withdrew from society for a time. | 5 = 5. Maria Louisa of Spain
| 7 = 7. Maria Carolina of Austria (= 14)
| 9 = 9. Maria Theresa of Austria (= 12)
| 11 = 11. Maria Amalia of Saxony (= 10)
| 13 = 13. Maria Amalia of Saxony (= 11)
| 14 = 14. Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor (= 8)
| 15 = 15. Maria Theresa of Austria (= 9)