Here is the coat of arms of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (before it was just the the Habsburg Austrian Empire) 1867-1918
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
WIEN MACHT KULTUR!
There is a local quotation here in Vienna...which is quite apropo for this first question, being
What is culture?
As you can see the German version is the title of this blog and partially the title of this posting
Here is the translation (roughly speaking...)
"Europe is the force and/or power of Vacations - Vienna is the force and/or power of Culture!"
And when you go in the downtown of Vienna this is a palpable feeling...
The question to discuss however is not easy due to its relativity.
However for me personally it is not academic, it is traditional and personal in the way that I was raised within the different eccentricities of both the Catholic milieu of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, early Austrian-Czech Republics (break with the historical abberation of Communism here) with some regional differences but also similarities in terms of what is dubbed some times by wags "high-brow culture." I was raised to appreciate (occasionally not from my own volition) the highest forms of aestheticism which European Society has produced vis-a-vis Art, History, Literature, Music (Operatic and Symphonic), Theatre. The proper basic things a bourgeois family would instill in their younglings. Only know in this Grand and old Imperial city, with my maturity have I come to fully appreciate this. These things all interesect here in Vienna for the many nationalities that were a part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation and then Habsburg Imperial Austria...
What is culture?
As you can see the German version is the title of this blog and partially the title of this posting
Here is the translation (roughly speaking...)
"Europe is the force and/or power of Vacations - Vienna is the force and/or power of Culture!"
And when you go in the downtown of Vienna this is a palpable feeling...
The question to discuss however is not easy due to its relativity.
However for me personally it is not academic, it is traditional and personal in the way that I was raised within the different eccentricities of both the Catholic milieu of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, early Austrian-Czech Republics (break with the historical abberation of Communism here) with some regional differences but also similarities in terms of what is dubbed some times by wags "high-brow culture." I was raised to appreciate (occasionally not from my own volition) the highest forms of aestheticism which European Society has produced vis-a-vis Art, History, Literature, Music (Operatic and Symphonic), Theatre. The proper basic things a bourgeois family would instill in their younglings. Only know in this Grand and old Imperial city, with my maturity have I come to fully appreciate this. These things all interesect here in Vienna for the many nationalities that were a part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation and then Habsburg Imperial Austria...
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