The first European edition of the historical bestseller of the winners of the Enlightener Award. This book is a fascinating story about an extremely diverse and surprisingly interesting country, a kind of European Atlantis, known to the Russian—speaking reader much less than it deserves to be. The Habsburg empire has not been on the maps for a long time. The First World War destroyed this, perhaps, the most comfortable empire in history, but the experience of coexistence accumulated by its peoples is still relevant for Central Europe. Based on a deep knowledge of facts, the analysis of historical processes is accompanied by an exciting story about the everyday life and holidays of the Danube monarchy, vivid portraits of members of the Habsburg dynasty and their subjects, lively essays about trips to Habsburg Vienna and Budapest, Prague and Lviv, Sarajevo and Trieste.