The Order of the Black Eagle
Never underestimate the value of online sources. Chasing up the fact that Chulalongkorn had been awarded the Prussian Order of the Black Eagle, I wanted to get a sense of what this meant beyond 'most prestigious order at the Kaiser's disposal.'
It was only very rarely given out, it seems, and then largely only to fellow monarchs. There's something in the fact that these honours were not only bestowed upon fellow German and European monarchs but also on some monarchs from outside Europe. So far as I can tell, the list of non-European monarchs who received the Black Eagle (other more minor royals received the Red Eagle too) is as follows:
Chulalongkorn of Siam
Gojong of Korea (pictured here wearing it).
Taisho of Japan
Naser al-Din Shah of Persia
Mozaffar al-Din Shah of Persia
Guangxu Emperor (Zaitian) of China
Pedro II of Brazil (who given his Iberian links might not really belong on this list).
So I'm spending a bit of time nutting out what all of this means. Without getting too Cannadine / Ornamentalist about it, there's more than a symbolic logic at play here. Decisions of who gets a Red Eagle and who gets a Black Eagle (and who gets lower honours and who gets none) were taken seriously, but that doesn't mean they had serious effects.
At the very least, however, it has given me good reason to look closely at David Motadel's work on the Shahs in Germany - royal visits that were more or less next on my list (I've already written a draft something on the visit of Tamasese from Samoa, but that needs more archival work). That will give me some research to talk to here.
It was only very rarely given out, it seems, and then largely only to fellow monarchs. There's something in the fact that these honours were not only bestowed upon fellow German and European monarchs but also on some monarchs from outside Europe. So far as I can tell, the list of non-European monarchs who received the Black Eagle (other more minor royals received the Red Eagle too) is as follows:
Chulalongkorn of Siam
Gojong of Korea (pictured here wearing it).
Taisho of Japan
Naser al-Din Shah of Persia
Mozaffar al-Din Shah of Persia
Guangxu Emperor (Zaitian) of China
Pedro II of Brazil (who given his Iberian links might not really belong on this list).
So I'm spending a bit of time nutting out what all of this means. Without getting too Cannadine / Ornamentalist about it, there's more than a symbolic logic at play here. Decisions of who gets a Red Eagle and who gets a Black Eagle (and who gets lower honours and who gets none) were taken seriously, but that doesn't mean they had serious effects.
At the very least, however, it has given me good reason to look closely at David Motadel's work on the Shahs in Germany - royal visits that were more or less next on my list (I've already written a draft something on the visit of Tamasese from Samoa, but that needs more archival work). That will give me some research to talk to here.
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