Archduchess Monika, Duchess of Santangelo

Monika Habsburg (nee Monika Maria Roberta Antonia Raphaela Habsburg-Lothringen), Archduchess of Austria, Princess Royal of Hungary, Duchess of Santangelo (born 13 September 1954, in Wurzburg), the daughter of Otto von Habsburg and Princess Regina of Saxe-Meiningen. She is the twin sister of Michaela von Habsburg.

Upbringing

Born and largely raised during her father's exile from his native land, Austria, where she not legally allowed to visit or live until 1969. To provide a home near the Austrian border to raise their family, her parents acquired a large villa in Pocking, Bavaria in 1954, from which their father commuted weekly to his work in Vienna and Innsbruck, as vice-president of the Paneuropean Union, once his banishment was lifted in 1967. During Monika's youth, her father usually spent his time traveling, lecturing, writing and attending political conferences abroad associated with his efforts to encourage Austria's alignment with and leadership in the Euro-movement, with the exception of an annual family holiday during the month of August. Monika was in her teens when the family acquired a residence in Austria.

Her upbringing was less religious and more political in focus than her father's had been, and reflected his commitment to supra-national but limited government and to respect for moral and historical continuity to the extent these could remain consistent with the evolution of pan-Europeanism. Having been the object of worker syndicate support (the Christlich Soziale Partel) for his repatriation to Austria before 1938; dodged Hitler's and Goebbels' efforts to appeal to Austria's traditionalist elements through recruitment of him; accepted President Roosevelt's invitation to visit the United States in 1939, whither he returned after the Nazis conquered France, staying until 1944; endured the expulsion from Austria by the Soviet Union after the war; and been kept in exile by a partisan alliances until the mid-60s, Habsburg drew from his experience the conviction that the best hope for a thriving Europe and the fall of the Iron Curtain would be a non-nationalist approach, consistent with the historical arc of his own ancestors as central European emperors for 600 years.

To that end, he sought to modernize the legacy of the House of Habsburg while eschewing claims to any throne, use of titles and monarchical restoration. He sought rather to harmonize the former dynasty's incarnation of Austrian traditions (such as Christianity) with reality and with the multi-cultural, internationalist orientation he enthusiastically embraced for Europe's future as a current manifestation of the role he believed history customarily assigned to the Habsburg heir. He recognized the utility of the fame he enjoyed and welcomed the prospect of holding elected office in Austria, yet also believed in building a grassroots and youth-oriented rather than an intellectual groundswell for the pan-European movement.

He delegated roles in this advocacy to his five daughters as they grew up, not just to his two sons, accepting that some were more inclined to take up his calling than others.

Spain

Archduchess Monika married a Spanish grandee, Don Luis Maria Gonzaga Casanova-Cardenas Baron, Duke of Santangelo (and Duke of Maqueda, until that dukedom was until that dukedom was successfully claimed by his eldest sister in (2005), only son of Balthasar Casanova-Cardenas Ferrer and Maria Doloras Baroness Osorio Moscoso, Duchess of Maqueda, on 21 June 1980 in Pocking, Germany. A farmer and business executive, he and Monika raised their children in the old Moorish castle of La Rapita inVallfogona Balaguer, in the Catalonian province of Lerida, Spain. Fifth cousins-once-removed through descent from daughters of Francis I of Bourbon, King of the Two Sicilies, the couple have been active in the civic and charitable activities of the regional Spanish chivalric orders of the Real Cuerpo Nobleza Cataluna and the Real Maestranza Caballeria Valencia. They have four sons:

-Baltasar Carlos Casanova Habsburgo-Lorena, 23rd Marques of Elche B. 17 August 1981)

-Gabriel Mara Casanova Habsburgo-Lorena, (b. 23 March 1983)

-Rafael Maria Casanova Habsburgo-Lorena, (b. 18 August 1986)

-Santiago Casanova Habsburgo-Lorena, (b. 26 April 1993)

Titles, Styles and Honours

13 September 1954-21 June 1980: Her Imperial and Royal Highness Archduchess Monika of Austria

21 June 1980-31 October 1989: Her Imperial and Royal Highness Archduchess Monika of Austria, Hereditary Duchess of Santangelo and of Duchess of Maqueda, Marchioness of Elche

31 October 1989-20 March 2005: Her Imperial and Royal Highness, Archduchess Monika of Austria, Duchess of Santangelo and of Maqueda, Countess of Valhermoso, Countess of Lodosa, Baroness of Linola

20 March 2005-present: Her Imperial and Royal Highness Archduchess Monika of Austria, Duchess of Santangelo, Countess of Valhermoso, Countess of Lodosa

National Honours

House of Habsburg: Dame of the Order of the Starry Cross, 1st Class

Spain: Dame Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Alfonso

House: Habsburg-Lorraine

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