King Ottocar, His Rise and Fall

König Ottokars Glück und Ende (King Ottocar, His Rise and Fall) is a historical tragedy by Austrian dramatist Franz Grillparzer. Written in 1823 and first performed in 1825 due to censorship, the play draws from Austrian history.1

The drama contrasts the rise of Rudolf of Habsburg, the first of Grillparzer's characters to avoid guilt and tragedy, with the fall of the tyrannical Ottokar of Bohemia. Ottokar II was a real historical figure, the king of Bohemia from 1253 to 1278, who briefly made his kingdom the most powerful state in the Holy Roman Empire. His domains stretched from Silesia to the Adriatic, but his fortunes changed with the election of Rudolf of Habsburg as German king in 1273. After falling out with rival princes and his own nobility, Ottokar was stripped of his Austrian territories and eventually killed at the Battle of Dürnkrut in 1278 while attempting to regain his power. Grillparzer's play uses Ottokar's fate not as representative of all humanity, but as a specific historical downfall.12