Her majestic sight

The series "Crown" continues. Tamara Eidelman - about what queens, princesses and fairy tales about them are now needed by people

Question to readers: who immediately, without using the help of Google, can name the names of the kings and queens who are ruling, say, in the Netherlands or in Norway? I think that there are few such experts. Or one more thing: a newsletter sent me an amazing message: Norwegian Princess Marta Louise (who is this?) Decided to abandon her title. The fact is that she is going to marry the African -American Dashke Veretta, who calls herself ... a shaman in the sixth generation.

Veritt uses the vuduist religion in order to ensure spiritual calm to his wards, among which, of course, there are many celebrities. Martha Louise and her chosen one already live in Los Angeles. The king, however, decided not to deprive her of her title, but the shaman Duker will simply be considered a member of the royal family, but he will not be given the title, since he does not relieve the husbands of the princesses. And Martha Louise, it turns out, was already married to the writer Ari Ben, from whom she has three daughters. In 2019, Ben died, and now she concludes a new marriage.

Imagine for a moment that such a story would unfold in the British royal family. We would surely already know the entire approaching princesses, the details of the first marriage of Marta Louise, would be familiar with all the ancestors of the Dashk Veretta, judged and rowed, the princess should save his title or not. But since the matter takes place in Norway, it turns out that the second marriage of the eldest daughter of the king does not particularly bother anyone except the members of her family, and, probably, the inhabitants of Norway.

Why so? Why is the British royal family, which, frankly, has the same small opportunities to influence political life as other modern European monarchs - why is this family constantly attracting general attention? Marriages and divorces, the birth of children, quarrels and reconciliation ...

It feels that Queen Elizabeth and her offspring are our close friends, if not relatives. How can this be explained?

Probably the incredible economic and political power of Great Britain in the 19th century - the first half of the 20th century. Today, Great Britain remains an influential country, but its situation can not be compared with the one in the old days when the British empire could influence the fate of the entire globe, and the “old lady with Tredinidl Street”-that is, the bank of England, was the most important financial institution of the world. Naturally, the kings who ruled - or not even ruled, but who headed - such a powerful country, had to attract universal attention.

It can also be recalled that Queen Victoria is the most part of the 19th century, with her name determine the era, fashion, morality, furniture, art, and even thanks to the marriages of her many children, she became the “grandmother of Europe”.

I think that there are other reasons. The British royal family is much more conservative than, say, Dutch or Swedish. In the monarchies on the continent, kings and queens calmly go to the theater and sit next to their subjects, the crown princes marry the stewardesses, the princesses travel on bicycles in the streets, and this is perceived for granted.

And actually it's great and right. But we all need fairy tales about princesses in impregnable castles, and not on the streets of cities, about heroic kings and wise queens.

The tradition of the British monarchs and their devotion a long time ago outdated traditions, on the one hand, are sometimes terribly annoyed, and on the other, they are fascinated.

Bifiters and crows in the Tower, the yield of royal guards, castles and palaces that retain the legends of past centuries, a hard etiquette, from which you can not retreat a single step, and, right, the incredible snobbery of the British royal family - all this has become a “trademark”, which we buy again and again.

They talked a lot and wrote about how the Princess Diana, who, having lost the princess’s title after the divorce of the title of the princess, said that she would be “a princess of human hearts” and built her public image on a completely different basis. The question of what really happened between Diana and Charles, extremely complex and confused. But the media long ago gave him the answer that was joyfully accepted by millions of people. We all heard, read, or watched in the movie the story of Cinderella, who went beyond the prince, and then a prince’s harsh family and himself.

It is very difficult to answer the question of how everything really was, but it is clear that Diana’s behavior really did not fit into the strict rules of the Buckingham Palace. And here begins the bifurcation that has gripped half of the world: on the one hand, Diana, especially after its tragic death, caused and causes universal sympathy. On the other hand, royal greatness, palaces and castles, guards in fur hats, Westminster Abbey, Windsor Castle and other attributes of the British monarchy are incredibly fascinating. This, probably, is the reason that the media who supported Diana mainly concentrated their criticism on Charles, but the queen, who did not provide her daughter-in-law with any moral support, was quickly taken out of the fire of criticism. She is the queen.

When I watched the series "Crown", I tried to imagine how the queen reacts to him. Then, with a complete shock, I found out that she really liked him and she looked regularly. It seemed to me that Elizabeth herself and her husband were exhibited there in a not-so-observing light: hard, cold, clearly depressing her children, not understanding the daughter-in-law ...

Then I realized that the queen saw in this series a completely different, extremely important message for her: the royal power is associated with the most important responsibilities, and these responsibilities are above all.

For their sake, you can sacrifice minutes of family happiness, time spent with children, and many other joys available to mere mortals. And what scares me in the fate of the queen was obviously the most important achievement for her.

Today, the British dynasty is changing, and maybe the point is not so much in the fate of Diana as in the changed times. The older children of Elizabeth and Philip were brought up in Victorian severity, the youngest was already much more allowed. The princes William and Harry were, of course, brought up by Diana, but, on the other hand, they just lived at a different time.

When we see how William and Kate take their children to kindergarten or hurry home with shopping, we are surprised and touched - that's how it happens. Actually, the Norwegian princes and princesses have been living like that for a long time, we simply did not pay attention to them, they have not played “real” members of the royal family for a long time. Prince William for us is a half -worn that has gone to the ground.

At the same time, it is interesting that Harry and Megan, who went further along the path of their “humanization”, are constant criticized. Still: they broke with all the traditions, and it is so interesting for us to look at the life of real and at the same time fabulous kings and princes.

With Megan, the fairy tale of Cinderella does not somehow add up too much-after all, Cinderella should obviously be delighted that she got into the palace.

Queen Elizabeth died - and finally passed into the world of fairy tales. The conversations were silent that their marriage with Philip was, perhaps, not very happy, that hard parents broke their children's lives. She became a queen with a capital letter, perhaps even obscuring Queen Victoria herself today.

It will be interesting to see how in these circumstances the fairy tale about Cinderella-Diana will change? The fourth season of the series "Crown" ended on the fact that Diana was about to go on the offensive to the royal family. The next season that is now, obviously, will be mostly focused on the riot of Diana and her divorce. Judging by the previous plays and films created by the authors of the “Crown”, we can assume that we will see Elizabeth, who makes difficult but correct decisions. Whose side will the public sympathize with? Whose fairy tale will become the most important in the coming years: the story of the wise queen or the unfortunate Cinderella? Wait and see.