Holy Romans And Hapsburgs (800-1740). Austria has been both a barrier between and a meeting point for Eastern and Western Europe ever since the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne conquered the Bavarians in AD 788. The German King Otto I took control of the Holy Roman Empire after Charlemagne’s death and named Leopold of Babenberg ruler of much of present-day Austria.
The last Babenberg died childless in the 13th century, and Rudolf of Hapsburg established his dynasty in the resulting power vacuum. Six centuries of Hapsburg kings proved that the wedding vow is just as politically powerful as the sword. Maximilian I, who became ruler of the Netherlands through his wife in 1477, is credited with the adaptation of Ovid’s couplet, “Let other nations go to war; you, happy Austria, marry.” His son Philip the Handsome married into Spanish royalty, endowing his grandson, Charles V, with an empire that covered wide swaths of Europe and parts of the Americas. The vast fortunes of the Hapsburgs left behind many monuments and castles in Austria; the Hofburg and Schloß Ambras palaces still dazzle with Hapsburgian grandeur.
Despite Austria’s vast territory, Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation shook the reins of the Hapsburgs in the 16th and 17th centuries. Peasants left the Catholic Church en masse, and Protestant nobles doggedly fought the Catholic Hapsburgs in the Thirty Years’ War (1618-48). Soon after, the Ottoman Turks besieged Vienna until Prince Eugene of Savoy drove them out. The plucky Eugene would triumph again, this time over the French in the War of Spanish Succession (1701-14). His palace, Schloß Belvedere , now houses a superb art collection.
Castles Crumble (1740-1914). When Maria Theresa, daughter of Charles VI, ascended the throne in 1740, her neighbors were eager to infringe on the Hapsburg domain. Aware of this, she forged an alliance with France by marrying her daughter Marie Antoinette to the future King Louis XVI. The decapitation of Marie Antoinette during the French Revolution made relations between the two nations less than friendly; after the Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte mercilessly conquered many Austrian territories. French troops invaded Vienna, where Napoleon took up residence in Maria Theresa’s favorite palace, Schönbrunn , and married her granddaughter.
Ironically, Napoleon’s temporary success led to the establishment of a consolidated Austrian empire that could defend itself against the imperial aggressions of France. In 1804, Franz II renounced his claim to the defunct Holy Roman crown and proclaimed himself Franz I, Emperor of Austria. During the Congress of Vienna (1814-15), which redrew the map of Europe, Chancellor Klemens von Metternich renewed Austria’s power base. Calm prevailed until the spring of 1848, when the philosophy from the French bourgeois revolution reached Austria. Students and workers revolted, seizing the palace and demanding a constitution with freedom of the press. The movement was divided and the rebellions were quashed. Nevertheless, the emperor was eventually pressured to abdicate in favor of his nephew, Franz Josef I, whose 68-year reign remains the second-longest in the recorded history of Europe.
Austria’s political status continued to shift throughout Franz Josef’s reign. Prussia, Austria’s powerful northern neighbor, dominated European politics under Otto von Bismarck and defeated Austria in 1866. A year later, Franz Josef was outmaneuvered by Hungarian nobles and agreed to end the Austrian Empire to form the dual Austro-Hungarian Empire. Non-German speakers were marginalized within the new empire until 1907, when the government ceded basic civil rights to its peoples and instituted universal male suffrage. Unfortunately, these concessions to the empire’s Slavic minority came too late. Burgeoning nationalist sentiments, especially among the South Slavs in the Balkans, led to severe divisions within the empire.
Modernity Approaches (1914-2000). The divisions within the Austro-Hungarian Empire gave way to open conflict at the turn of the 20th century. The assassination of Austrian archduke and heir to the throne Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo in June 1914 sparked World War I: Austria’s declaration of war against Serbia set off a chain reaction that spread throughout Europe. Franz Josef died in 1916, leaving the throne to his reluctant grandnephew Karl I, who struggled in vain to preserve the empire. On November 11, 1918, Karl finally surrendered, and the 640-year-old Hapsburg dynasty was replaced by the First Republic of Austria.
Between 1918 and 1938, Austria experienced its first taste of parliamentary democracy. Immediately after the war, the Republic suffered massive inflation, unemployment, and near economic collapse, which did not stabilize until the 1920s. In 1933, the weak coalition government gave way when Engelbert Dollfuss, the Austrian chancellor, declared martial law and abolished freedom of the press. Two years later, Dollfuss was assassinated by Austrian Nazis , who hoped for an alliance between Germany and Austria that Dollfuss opposed. In 1938, Austrian Nazis got their wish when Germany annexed Austria in the Anschluß. While World War II continued, tens of thousands of Austrian Jews, political dissidents, disabled people, Roma (gypsies), and homosexuals were sent to endure the horrible conditions of Nazi concentration camps.
After Soviet troops “liberated” Vienna in 1945, Allied troops divided Austria into four zones of occupation. During the occupation, the Soviets tried to make Austria a Communist state, but instead settled on an agreement that the nation would be permanently neutral. As in much of Western Europe, the American Marshall Plan helped jump-start the economy, laying the foundation for Austria’s present prosperity. The Federal Constitution (1945) and the Austrian State Treaty (1955) established Austrian sovereignty and formed the basis for the current Austrian nation, often referred to as the Second Republic. Today, Austria is led by a president, elected for six-year terms, and a chancellor, usually the majority party’s leader. A bicameral parliamentary legislature and strong provincial governments perform the main work of governance. Historically, the government has been dominated by a coalition of two parties: the socialist Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) and the Christian-conservative People’s Party (ÖVP). Together, the two parties have built one of the world’s most successful economies, with low unemployment and low inflation rates.
During the 1990s, the country moved toward stronger unification with Europe, joining the European Union in 1995. Austria faced European criticism, however, when its far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) claimed 27% of the vote in the 1999 national elections. Led by the infamous Jörg Haider, the FPÖ maintained a strong anti-immigrant stance; Haider has made remarks that some have interpreted as neo-Nazi sentiments. Several hundred thousand protestors turned out on the day that members of the FPÖ were to be sworn in to parliament, and several EU countries ceased cooperation with the government until 2000.
Euroskeptic. Beginning in 2002, the popularity of the Freedom Party began to fall precipitously; a splinter group of the Freedom Party, the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ), enjoyed popularity for a few subsequent years. Heinz Fischer, a member of the SPÖ, is Austria’s Federal president, although the role is largely ceremonial, with political parties and their leaders holding most of the power. The Chancellor of Austria is Alfred Gusenbauer, also the leader of the SPÖ. Austria has become known as one of the most “euroskeptic” members of the EU, consistently opposing measures to promote free movement of labor from Eastern Europe and the entry of Turkey into the Union. Pundits argue that such skepticism stems from lingering resentment in Austria over its political ostracization by other EU nations in the 90s. In 2006, the Social Democrats and the People’s Party agreed on a coalition.
Demographics. Although almost 90% of Austria’s eight million people identify as German, nearly all have ties to other ethnic groups that belonged to the former empire. The 10% of the population that does not identify as German is made up mostly of recent immigrants. An emphasis on education is responsible for sky-high literacy rates (100%). Unemployment is around 4%.
Language. While German is the nation’s official language, Austrians often add a diminutive “- erl ” (instead of the High German “- chen ” or “- lein ”) to words. Also, Austrians don’t greet each other with the standard Guten Tag, but instead opt for Servus (ZER-vus) or Grüß Gott (grOOs got).
Literature. One of the earliest and most impressive works of Austrian literature is the German-language heroic epic Song of the Nibelungs (c. 1200), whose author is unknown. Johann Nestroy (1801-62) wrote biting comedies and satires like The Talisman (1840), lampooning social follies. His contemporary, Adalbert Stifter (1805-68), wrote short stories and novels, such as The Condor (1840) and Indian Summer (1857), which represent the height of Austria’s classical style. Beginning around 1890, a growing recognition within Austria of the nation’s fin-de-siècle social turmoil transformed Austrian literature. Karl Kraus (1874-1936) unmasked the crisis, Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931) dramatized it, Georg Trakl (1887-1914) commented on it in symbolic verse, and Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929) penned its eulogy. Many of Austria’s literary titans, such as Franz Kafka (1883-1924) and Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916), lived in the Hapsburg protectorate of Bohemia, and conversed with other writers in coffeehouses. Kafka’s surrealist style is most famously elucidated in The Metamorphosis (1915), in which the narrator comes to terms with his unexpected transformation into a cockroach. Ebner-Eschenbach is considered the greatest female Austrian writer for her vivid individual portraits and her defense of women’s rights.
When the Austro-Hungarian monarchy suddenly gave way to democracy, novelists Robert Musil (1880-1942) and Joseph Roth (1894-1939) charted the transformation. In post-war Austrian society, Ingeborg Bachmann’s (1926-73) novels told stories of personal transformation through a feminist perspective, while Thomas Bernhard (1931-89) critiqued Austrian society and the inherent brutality of human nature. Peter Handke (1942-present) has written many experimental novels and co-wrote the screenplay for Wim Wenders’s Wings of Desire (1987). The wildly popular crime novels of Wolf Haas (1960-present) have been adapted into films, including Komm, süßer Tod (“Come, Sweet Death”; 1998, film 2000) and Silentium! (1999, film 2004).
Science And Philosophy. Gregor Mendel (1822-84) studied trait inheritance in pea pods and later became the father of modern genetics. The world’s most famous psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), developed theories of sexual repression and the subconscious. His former home in Vienna is now a museum .The Austrian School of Economics began developing libertarian economic theories in 1871. One of its most influential members, Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992), received the 1974 Nobel Prize in Economics. The Vienna Circle championed logical positivism in the early 20th century, and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) published Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921), which he believed solved all of philosophy’s problems.
Music. Josef Haydn (1732-1809) defined the classical period and created a variety of new musical forms that led to the sonata and the symphony. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91), a prodigy and brilliant composer, produced such pieces as The Marriage of Figaro, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (A Little Night Music), and the unfinished Requiem. Mozart’s birthplace in Salzburg is now a museum , and the Salzburger Festspiele carries on his musical tradition. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) lived in Vienna for much of his life and composed some of his most famous works there. The expressive lines of Franz Schubert (1797-1828) incorporated the classical style as well as the Romantic Movement, music characterized by swelling melodies and harmonies. Mainly self-taught, Schubert began his Unfinished Symphony in 1822. Later in the 19th century, Johannes Brahms (1833-97) reintroduced Classical forms into Romanticism. The exhilarating waltzes of Johann Strauss the Elder (1804-49) and his son, creatively named Johann Strauss the Younger (1825-99), kept Vienna dancing for much of the century. Arnold Schönberg (1874-1951) rejected tonal keys at the turn of the 20th century, producing a highly abstracted sound.
Visual Arts. Aided by the Hapsburg Empire’s extensive patronage, Austria has maintained a rich artistic tradition. The flowering of Austrian architecture is represented in the cherub-covered facades of the Baroque style, exhibited exquisitely in the Schönbrunn and Hofburg palaces. The Ringstraße , a broad boulevard encircling Vienna, is an example of Austria’s 19th-century Modernism . Modern Austrian art began in the 20th century with the works of Gustav Klimt (1862-1916), who founded the Secession movement. Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) and Egon Schiele (1890-1918) worked at the same time as Klimt and were tangentially involved with the Secessionists. Also around 1900, Modernist architects deviated from the Viennese Academy’s conservatism. This gave rise to the Jugendstil movement (Art Nouveau), which formulated an ethic of functional buildings with artistic touches in the smallest details, an idea embraced by Otto Wagner (1841-1918). Travelers can still see Jugendstil apartments near Stephanspl. in Vienna . In the 1920s and early 1930s, the Social Democratic administration built thousands of apartments in large municipal projects in a style reflecting the assertiveness of workers’ movements and the ideals of urban socialism.
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For 52 years, we have published the world’s favorite budget travel guides, written entirely by students and updated every year. With pen and notebook in hand and a few changes of underwear stuffed in our backpacks, we spend months roaming the globe in search of travel bargains.
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