Queen Elisabeth Of The Belgians (1876-1965)

[maria-olivia]

When the Queen passed away I saw her dead body at the Salon des Penseurs at the Royal Palace. I quite remember her violin next to her. I did not know she played badly!

The Queen's wish was that the Nurses of l' Ocean à la Panne stayed the whole night.
So my Grand Mother who was one of the survivors receive a call from the Royal Palace. A Car came to her home and they passed the whole night kneeling and in the morning my grandmother asked an Officier to help her to stay up.!

[Blog Real]

Queen Mary of the United Kingdom and Queen Elisabeth of the Belgians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisab..._Elisabeth.jpg

[CyrilVladisla]

In 1958 Queen Elisabeth of Belgium became the first royalty received at the Kremlin.

[Prinsara]

Originally Posted by CyrilVladisla

In 1958 Queen Elisabeth of Belgium became the first royalty received at the Kremlin.

The Red Queen!

[maria-olivia]

And the then Minister of Foreign Affairs said to Her ." You don't need to ask the autorisation I know you will go ".

[An Ard Ri]

Originally Posted by Prinsara

The Red Queen!

The visit by the queen mother to the Soviet Union in March 1958 must have raised eyebrows!

[CyrilVladisla]

Queen Elisabeth's arrival in Moscow in 1958

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmm4NiKXQk0

[Prinsara]

I understand Elisabeth's curiosity and desire for diplomacy, but... why did she think this was a good idea, again?

Also, was Khrushchev busy? I didn't see him in that video.

[Marengo]

Her visits to Russia, Poland and other countries in Eastern Europe were officially considered 'private'. The Queen was a pacifist and in this period the intellectual elites in Western Europe perhaps had a naive and romantic view of the nature of these communists regimes. The queen was convinced that science and art could bring people closer together.

Before the visits the Belgian communist party started a wide range of cultural activities, concerts etc. They founded several Belgian-Russian, Belgian-Polish, Belgian-Chinese etc. friendship groups, of which the queen sometimes became an honorary member. She apparently learned the basics of the Russian language as a child in Bavaria. In this period she continues her studies. In 1954 she hosts a meeting at Stuyvenberg between writers from East and West, among them Jean-Paul Sartre and Bethold Brecht.

Conservative voices at court thought that the queen had allowed herself to be manipulated by people like baron Antoine Allard (peace activist, later chairman of the NGO Oxfam) of Kamiel Huysmans (former mayor of Antwerp, socialist politician). Others thought she simply enjoyed shocking her conservative relatives. Her granddaughter Pss M. Gabrielle of Italy said that her grandmother told her 'I want to see the world with my own eyes', so it could be simply curiosity.

Note that in the late 40-ties and early 50-ties among a large part of the public in Western Europe the Soviet Union was not unpopular (yet). The country had made the greatest sacrifises and won the biggest victories against the Nazis. All over Europe the communist resistance fighters were among the bravest. The crimes of Stalin were not as widely known yet as they are today.

The government always tried to stop the Queen from going - without success. Ministers wrote letters - which she ignorned. Sometimes they were disregarded as she remembered that one or two of the letter writers had collaborated with the Nazis.

The royal family was not happy with the visits at all, esp. King Baudouin was already known to be very conservative. This was perhaps underlined by his marriage to Fabiola, whose family was rather sympathetic to the Spanish fascist dictator Franco.

After a trip to China the Queen arrived at Zaventem airport near Brussels. Courtiers hurried to make sure she would immediately get into the limousine and did not speak to any journalists. The Queen was not amused. The same evening she invited a group of journalists at Stuyvenberg castle to tell them all about her trip, while wearing a red cocarde in the buttonhole of her vest and a portrait of Mao Zedong in a silver frame next to her. The Belgian government had no official relations with China at the time and did not recognise the communist regime.

It was noted that the Queen did visit these countries while she refused to attend the wedding of her grand daughter Maria Pia of Italy to a prince of Yugoslavia. The reason was that the wedding was held in Portugal where semi-fascist dictator Salazar was still in power. It was only 10 years after the war of course.

[maria-olivia]

How interesting Marengo . This was possible at that time
No Belgian Family Member attend the Wedding of Maria Pia at Cascais !

[Prinsara]

Elisabeth was by no means a stupid woman and someone who had happened to see two wars at extremely close range; someone who said in the first one that the British and French would never have done to Belgium what the German army did.

The visit to Moscow was two years after the whole world saw what happened to Hungary. And decades after leftists had been writing about what was going in the USSR.

She's a highly admirable person on the whole, but turning herself into totalitarian propaganda just because she wanted to irritate her grandson and others makes her sound immature, not just eccentric.

[Denville]

Originally Posted by Prinsara

Elisabeth was by no means a stupid woman and someone who had happened to see two wars at extremely close range; someone who said in the first one that the British and French would never have done to Belgium what the German army did.

The visit to Moscow was two years after the whole world saw what happened to Hungary. And decades after leftists had been writing about what was going in the USSR.

She's a highly admirable person on the whole, but turning herself into totalitarian propaganda just because she wanted to irritate her grandson and others makes her sound immature, not just eccentric.

Perhaps she wanted to see ohter countries, even if they were totalitarian, in order to avoid future wars with them...

[CyrilVladisla]

Elisabeth played the violin for a boy heroically wounded.
http://www.maryevans.com/history/Pri...iolin-10190333