Archduke Wilhelm of Austria
| Archduke Wilhelm | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
10 February 1895 Lošinj, Austria-Hungary (present-day Croatia) |
| Died | 18 August 1948 (aged 53) Kiev, Soviet Union (present-day Ukraine) |
| House | Habsburg-Lorraine |
| Father | Archduke Charles Stephen of Austria |
| Mother | Archduchess Maria Theresia, Princess of Tuscany |
Archduke Wilhelm Franz of Austria, later Wilhelm Franz von Habsburg-Lothringen (Ukrainian: pseudonym Василь Вишиваний, Vasyl Vyshyvanyi translation Basil the Embroidered; 10 February 1895 – 18 August 1948) was an Austrian archduke, colonel of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, and poet.
Archduke Wilhelm was the youngest son of Archduke Karl Stephan and Archduchess Maria Theresia, Princess of Tuscany. He was born in a family estate on the Lošinj island, Austrian Littoral (present day Croatia).
Accommodating the 19th-century rise of nationalism, Archduke Karl Stephan decided that his branch of the Habsburg family would adopt a Polish identity and would combine a loyalty to their Habsburg family with a loyalty to Poland. Accordingly, he had his children learn Polish from an early age and tried to instill in them a sense of Polish patriotism. His oldest son, Karl-Albrecht, would become a Polish officer who refused to renounce his Polish loyalty even under torture by the Gestapo. Karl Stefan's two younger daughters would marry into the Polish noble families of Radziwill and Czartoryski. Wilhelm, the youngest child, rebelled, and came to identify with the Poles' rivals, the Ukrainians. He developed a fascination with Ukrainian culture, and as a youth escaped from his family's estate, travelling incognito to Hutsul villages in the nearby Carpathian mountains and Bukovyna (the Land of Cheremosh and Prut). This interest in the relatively impoverished Ukrainian people earned him the nickname of the "Red Prince". Eventually the Habsburgs came to accept and encourage this interest, and he was groomed by them to take a leadership role amongst the Ukrainian people in a manner similar to the one in which his father and older brother were to take amongst the Habsburgs' Polish subjects.
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