Accueil
"Vienna has been at the crossroads of European civilisations, continental trading routes, cultural developments and power relationships for more than two millennia. This began with the foundation of the Roman outpost of Vindobona, which developed over the centuries into the city we know today as the Austrian capital, especially since it became the city of residence for the up-and-coming Habsburg rulers in 1440. [...]
By 1600 the Holy Roman Empire was firmly in the grip of the Habsburgs, ruling from the Hofburg palace within Vienna’s city walls. The empire had the largest population in Europe; it was bigger than France, Russia, Spain or England. With 50,000 people, Vienna itself still had a relatively small population compared to the likes of London, Paris and Moscow, but it held a key position as the dynastic hub of central Europe. [...]
Vienna was a melting pot of nationalities from across central Europe and beyond, with visitors struck by its polyglot population and its burgeoning cultural scene, which attracted the finest composers, performers and artists from near and far. The city was also the Christian bulwark against two Turkish sieges, leading Catholic resistance to the Reformation and opposition to revolutionary and Napoleonic France. [...]
Over the course of 20 years of warfare, Austria provided the most consistent continental opposition against revolutionary and Napoleonic France. Despite numerous defeats across Germany, Bohemia and Italy, the Habsburg forces continued to fight, handing Napoleon his first personal battlefield defeat at Aspern-Essling on the outskirts of Vienna. [...]
During the 19th century, Vienna quadrupled in size to become one of the largest cities in Europe; the city walls were replaced by a wide boulevard around the old town centre, which became home to some of the grandest and finest buildings on the continent. While Austria’s political relevance began to be eclipsed by the rising power of Prussia and a unified Germany, it remained one of the great powers. This ended with defeat and collapse in the First World War, a development that was even lamented by foes such as Winston Churchill [...]
Only after the re-establishment of the Austrian Republic and the end of four-power occupation in 1955 did Vienna begin to fully prosper and reinvent itself as the international capital. On the front line of the Cold War, only miles from the Iron Curtain, Vienna became the preferred neutral meeting place for world leaders from West and East. Today it is home to the third global headquarters of the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the OPEC oil cartel and a myriad of international organisations. In becoming a world centre for diplomacy whilst retaining its status as a global city of culture, Vienna is, truly, the international capital."
[Chapitre 8 : Nervous Splendour: Fin de Siècle]
"In 1871 the new administration of Emperor Meiji dispatched the Iwakura Embassy, a high-level delegation, for an epic tour of the US and Europe led by Prince Iwakura, a senior member of the Japanese court and government minister. He was joined by high-ranking decision-makers and a 108-strong delegation, including 45 commissioners and clerks. The secretary to Prince Iwakura was the young scholar Kume Kunitake (1839–1931), who wrote the official report of the tour, which has been described as ‘an outstanding piece of work containing shrewd analysis and compelling observations’.
The Japanese delegation spent eight months in the US, travelling by train from San Fransisco to Washington, then on to Europe for a full year, starting in Britain before visiting Paris and northern France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Berlin and Prussia, St Petersburg and Russia, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Austria-Hungary and Switzerland. They returned to Japan from Marseilles through the recently opened Suez Canal. Their extended travels included meetings with US President Ulysses S. Grant, Queen Victoria, Otto von Bismarck and Emperor Francis Joseph.
Arriving from the south, the Japanese were impressed by the beauty of the railway journey and the engineering of the route as they crossed the Semmering Pass towards the Austrian capital. In his report, Kunitake sought to explain to Japanese readers the difference between Austrians and Prussians: ‘It has been argued that both . . . are circumspect and slow, but they deserve praise for their natural aptitude for intricate craftsmanship. Because they spend their lives on the cold, bare plains of the north, the Prussians nurtured their spirit in poverty, practised perseverance and elevated their morale; thus, they excel at war and often engage in harsh practices. Of late they have been victorious in war against four of their neighbours and the mood in Berlin is fierce. Austria, by contrast, enjoys good soil and a milder climate and has long been used to civilised ways of its famous capital city; it has learnt to live with riches and has steeped itself in urban elegance; the people are discriminating and fond of the arts. The two seem to be opposites; yet they both share the phlegmatic character of the German people.’
Kunitake was 32 at the time of the visit, which corresponded with the eclipse of Austria by Prussia: ‘At present Prussia is on the rise and Austria is in decline, and everybody lauds the military culture of the Prussians. Military skills are not one of Austria’s strengths, but its literary arts are truly amongst the finest in Europe. It is a leader in politics, law, science and engineering, and in medicine it is virtually without equal.’
The first stop of their tour in Vienna was at the Arsenal building, which is now home to the Military History Museum, where the military hardware did not impress the visitors: the weapons ‘did give the impression of being 40 years behind the times, the same as its constitutional arrangements’.5 The tour continued with audiences with the emperor, empress, and ‘several princes’, a visit to the treasury with its ‘astounding items’, observing the Corpus Christi procession and washing of the feet of the poor: ‘all Catholic ceremonies, remnants of old religious practices’. The delegation visited the Foreign Ministry, attended a military tattoo, and viewed the World Exposition a number of times. The 1873 World’s Fair in Vienna was located in the Prater Park and drew visitors from around the world: ‘The enormous size of the Rotunda at the centre was enough to astound the visitor. The dome of this structure was 250 feet in diameter and 370 feet in height . . . and the apex was so high that one could not see it clearly. The doors and windows were glazed. At the top of the Rotunda there was a replica of the jewelled crown of Austria. Above this flew the country’s flag. Seen from a distance, it seemed to rise into the very clouds . . . Every section was filled with treasures; at each step one discovered marvels. If one walked without stopping, taking in something new at every step, at the end of a day one would still have seen only a fraction of the exhibition.’
Hosting the 1873 World’s Fair in Vienna was a major effort by the Austrian government to boost its international image after its major setbacks in Italy and Germany and the recent compromise arrangements with Hungary. The silver anniversary year of Francis Joseph’s reign was also deemed as opportune to showcase the economic progress of the empire and the largest urban reconstruction project of anywhere in Europe. Not only was the urban redevelopment around Vienna’s Ringstrasse proceeding apace, but large-scale regulation works were under way on the River Danube. While the Danube Canal continued to flow next to the city centre, the main body of the river was subject to major engineering works to straighten its course and reduce the risk of regular flood events. Half a million cubic feet of excavated gravel from the riverbed was used to construct the site of the World’s Fair in the Prater park between the main channel of the River Danube and the Danube Canal.
The Vienna site was five times larger than the preceding fair in Paris, with so much exhibition space for different participating nations that the organisers constructed separate Palaces of Industry, Machinery, Agriculture, and Art in addition to the main exhibition rotunda, which was the largest structure of its kind ever built, with its dome twice the diameter of St Peter’s in Rome and weighing 4,000 tonnes. Between 1 May 1873 and 2 November 1873, 7.2 million visitors viewed the displays in 194 pavilions from 35 different countries involving 53,000 exhibitors.
It was not all plain sailing for the exhibition, however, as Vienna was rocked nine days after the official opening by a stock market crash, which followed feverish speculation on projects such as the massive Ringstrasse building development. The crash amounted to ‘a tremendous setback for the city and caused a rash of suicides among financiers and speculators. A severe financial depression gripped the city and country and caused widespread unemployment.’
The summer also saw an outbreak of cholera in the city, which claimed the lives of more than 2,000 people. Visitor numbers never reached their targets, in part because of rampant profiteering by the city’s hotels, restaurants and cab drivers, which discouraged even the wealthy from attending. All of this contributed to the exhibition running at a loss of 15 million gulden and earning it the dubious accolade of being ‘one of the greatest financial failures of the nineteenth century’.
Nevertheless, the exhibition was a success as a national and international society event of the highest order, and as the backdrop to a number of high-level diplomatic meetings and agreements. During the six months it was open, it was attended by visiting foreign government ministers and delegations, 33 ruling princes, 13 royals next in the line of succession and 20 princes from the Vienna court. In addition to top Austro-Hungarian attendees, like Crown Prince Rudolph and Foreign Minister Count Gyula Andrássy, international visitors included King Leopold II of Belgium, King Victor Emanuel II of Italy, Prussian Crown Prince Frederick III, Prince Albert of Saxony, Edward Prince of Wales, Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark, Prince Nicolas I of Montenegro and scores of diplomats.10 A particular international high point was the visit of the Shah of Persia Naser al-Din."
"As the Belle Époque period developed across Europe, peace, growing prosperity and urban and technological progress could be felt in Vienna too. 1879 was a year of jubilee celebrations marking the 25th anniversary of the marriage of Emperor Francis Joseph and Empress Elisabeth. At its heart was a historic inspired pageant around the Ringstrasse with more than 14,000 participants. It was organised by Hans Makart, the most popular Vienna artist of the age. Although the via triumphalis was formerly opened in 1865, it would take a number of years for the first main buildings to be erected and further decades to be completed. All were designed in the historicist architectural style, inspired by historical eras thought to be fitting to their modern function: a Hellenic temple from the home of democracy for the parliament, Renaissance palaces for the museums, Roman grandeur for the imperial residence, Flemish urban splendour for the municipal government.
The first public building completed on the new Ringstrasse was the Vienna Court Opera (now State Opera) in 1869. The Neo-Renaissance-style building, which accommodates a seated audience of 1,700, with room for another 500 standing guests, is one the foremost opera houses in the world. At the time of its construction, however, it was very controversial, which led to one of the architects, Eduard van der Nüll, dying by suicide. Over the years, Gustav Mahler and Herbert von Karajan have been among the many leading conductors of its opera company and orchestra, which provides the musicians for the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. The Vienna State Ballet is based at the State Opera, which also hosts the annual Vienna Opera Ball.
The other major performance venue on the Ringstrasse is the Court Theatre, which opened in 1888 and is the largest theatre in the German-speaking world. It replaced the old court theatre, which had been an annexe to the Hofburg, and it retains that connection in its current name: the Burgtheater. Built directly opposite the new Vienna city hall in the historicist style, its main influences are from the Italian High Renaissance and it also includes ceiling paintings by Gustav Klimt and his brother Ernst.
Vienna City Hall (Rathaus) was completed in 1883 and built in a neo-Gothic style, inspired by Flemish and Brabant public buildings like Brussels Town Hall. Its central tower is nearly 100 metres high and topped by the Rathausmann, a knight in armour who has become a symbol of the city of Vienna. The giant municipal building boasts more than 1,500 rooms over six floors, including the grand meeting rooms of the city council and senate as well as a series of halls and a ballroom.
The Austrian Parliament Building stands next to the City Hall and was also opened in 1883, with sweeping ramps accessing the main Corinthian colonnaded portico entrance. Inspired by Athenian architecture and the Greek origins of democracy, the building is fronted by a massive fountain statue of Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, and female figures representing executive and legislative power. The design, by the Dane Theophil Hansen, has at its centre a Hall of Pillars with the two chambers of the Imperial Council of the Cisleithanian half of the empire on either side. The lower chamber remains in its original form and is used for special sessions of the current Austrian parliament, including the inauguration of the president. The chamber of deputies was famed for its disorderly proceedings, with repeated disputes about language rights and proceedings in a time before simultaneous translation."
-Angus Robertson, Vienna. The International Capital, Edinburgh, Angus Robertson, 2021.
