Empress Dowager Cixi is remembered in public life for work that changed what came after it.
The record lists Empress Dowager Cixi as Chinese empress (1835–1908).
Empress Dowager Cixi was born at Beijing in 1835. Her recorded nationality is China.
The nineteenth century produced mass politics - parties, newspapers, franchises that widened by inches - and empire on a scale never seen before.
She served as list of consorts of rulers of China (1861–1908).
She is described as politician, queen regnant and painter.
Her name is attached above all to to the occupation of Beijing by the Eight-Nation Alliance and her flight to Xi'an. The test of a public life is what remained possible afterwards that had not been possible before.
Formal honours included the Order of Saint Catherine and Order of the Precious Crown.
That the career was made in China is not incidental: the institutions available, the franchise, and the constraints of the moment all shaped what could be attempted.
Empress Dowager Cixi died in 1908, aged 73. The assessment continues, as it does for anyone who held power - which is the ordinary fate of a political life.
Achievements
- list of consorts of rulers of China (1861–1908)
- Order of Saint Catherine
- Order of the Precious Crown
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