Good Night Vienna!
January 6, 2014 11:36 AM   Subscribe

Dancing over the Edge: Vienna in 1914. Österreich (Austria) was one of the cultural and political Centres of modern Europe a hundred Years ago. Vienna - the Capitol of the big Austro-Hungarian-Empire and Home to the longest running imperial Family the Habsburgs. Just in 1913 Hitler, Trotsky, Tito, Freud and Stalin (previously on MeFi) all lived in Vienna.
posted by homodigitalis (10 comments total) 17 users marked this as a favorite
 
What a bunch of Wieners.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:41 AM on January 6, 2014


Vienna is totally beautiful in Winter but I could not shake the feeling that I was visiting VAMPIRE CENTRAL.
posted by The Whelk at 11:46 AM on January 6, 2014 [1 favorite]


Nice article, thanks for posting. Fin-de-siecle Vienna certainly is compelling to imagine, thinking about what kinds of conversations Freud and Schoenberg and etc. may have had at the cafe....but so much hateful stuff came out of such a refined place.

Visiting Vienna a couple of summers ago for the first time in a few years, I was struck by how run-down it looked. Graffiti in the center of the old town (like, right by St. Stephens, directly across from the Figarohaus), trash on the sidewalks, so forth. Similar to several central European capitols we visited that summer, actually. Adaptation pains, for sure.
posted by LooseFilter at 11:55 AM on January 6, 2014


My favorite European city by far, for reasons that are probably personal but still.
posted by Dr Dracator at 12:24 PM on January 6, 2014


The Whelk: "Vienna is totally beautiful in Winter but I could not shake the feeling that I was visiting VAMPIRE CENTRAL."

Dr Dracator: "My favorite European city by far, for reasons that are probably personal but still.
posted by Dr Dracator
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O.o

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posted by IAmBroom at 12:38 PM on January 6, 2014 [1 favorite]


From the first link:

Designed in 1913, it's an image of one of Vienna's most charismatic and controversial mayors, Karl Lueger

I will take the opportunity to point out (as I learned from saying it wrong in Vienna, a city I was not thrilled with—I liked Prague much better) that Lueger is not pronounced the way you think; it's loo-EH-ger.

Also, his anti-Semitism was not as simple as that article makes it out to be; there's a good discussion in his Wikipedia article ("Viennese Jewish writer Stefan Zweig, who grew up in Vienna during Lueger's term of office, recalled that 'His city administration was perfectly just and even typically democratic'").
posted by languagehat at 3:07 PM on January 6, 2014 [1 favorite]


Just in 1913 Hitler, Trotsky, Tito, Freud and Stalin all lived in Vienna.

Other interesting stuff I just read a few days ago: Ludwig Wittgenstein and Hitler went to the same school in the same time, though they were two grades apart.
posted by bdz at 3:51 PM on January 6, 2014


Where are anarchist bombers when you need them?
posted by IndigoJones at 4:03 PM on January 6, 2014


Hold your pitchforks people - there are Mefites who can vouch I go around by daylight and often stink of garlic.
posted by Dr Dracator at 12:11 AM on January 7, 2014


Darnit! Do you have any idea how hard torches are to get hold of, under current OSHA rules? Not to mention the safety features they require on the stakes...
posted by IAmBroom at 11:48 AM on January 8, 2014


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