Van Pamel, Rebecca 2019 History Thesis

Title: "The End is Near, the Turks are Here": Instrumentalized History and the Politics of Siege Commemoration in 1883 Vienna Advisor: Alexander Bevilacqua Advisor is Co-author: None of the above Second Advisor: Released: release now Authenticated User Access: No Contains Copyrighted Material: Yes

“THE END IS NEAR, THE TURKS ARE HERE”: INSTRUMENTALIZED HISTORY AND THE POLITICS OF SIEGE COMMEMORATION IN 1883 VIENNA

by

REBECCA KATE VAN PAMEL

Professor Alexander Bevilacqua, Advisor

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors in History

WILLIAMS COLLEGE

Williamstown, Massachusetts

April 15, 2019

Page | 2

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 4

INTRODUCTION 5

I. WHAT EXACTLY HAPPENED IN THE 1683 SIEGE? 7 II. ATTACKED FROM WITHOUT AND WITHIN 13 III. SOURCE MATERIALS AND METHODOLOGY 18

NATIONALIST NARRATIVES: LIBERAL INTERPRETATION IN CONTEXT 22 I. INTRODUCTION 22 II. ORIGINS OF THE LIBERAL PRESS 27 III. LIBERAL NARRATIVES OF THE SIEGE 31 IV. CONCLUSION 48

THE ‘RESCUE OF CHRISTENDOM’: CONSERVATIVE FRAMING OF THE SIEGE 51 I. INTRODUCTION 51 II. REPRESENTATIONS OF GOD 57 III. TOWARD A UNITED CHRISTENDOM 62 IV. BOURGEOIS JEWISH LIBERALS IN THE NEW EQUATION 75 V. CONCLUSION 83

ATTACKERS AND DEFENDERS ONSTAGE AND ON THE PAGE 85 I. INTRODUCTION 85 II. REINVENTING THE FOE: DEPICTIONS OF THE ‘TURKISH’ OTHER 92 III. THEIR MAUSOLEUM IS THE BEAUTIFUL, MAGNIFICENT VIENNA: BÜRGER HEROISM STEALS THE SHOW 103 IV. HENCEFORTH FIGHT FOR HONOR AND GLORY: GREAT SIEGE HEROES AND THE CHRISTIAN OTHER 110 V. CONCLUSION 113

MOVING WITHIN MEMORY: PUBLIC COMMEMORATION IN 1883 VIENNA 115 I. INTRODUCTION 115 II. POLITICAL INTERVENTION IN MONUMENTS AND FESTIVALS 119 III. THE HISTORISCHE AUSSTELLUNG: INTERPRETIVE HISTORY AS PROPERTY AND DECORATION 132 IV. CONCLUSION 141

CONCLUSION 143

BIBLIOGRAPHY 147 Page | 3

Dedicated to the memory of Jim Engelbrecht and Joanie Van Pamel

Page | 4

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my advisor, Professor Alexander Bevilacqua, for nudging me along through this process with constant encouragement and support, and for always offering me coffee during our meetings—even after I stopped studying coffee. This process would not have been the same without the structure and support you provided. I’d also like to thank Professor

Eiko Siniawer for providing guidance to our thesis seminar, and for helping me to rediscover my interest in this subject. Through every change in this project, you remained a positive and helpful resource and made my experience much more manageable and enjoyable.

I also want to express my gratitude to: Lori Dubois and the staff of Sawyer Library at

Williams College for helping me access my sources; the custodians, dining staff, and others who make this institution and its work possible; Professor Gail Newman for guiding me throughout my time at Williams; Professor Magnús Þorkell Bernharðsson for introducing me to so much of the world; Becky Lee Christenberry for teaching me how to read in German; Carey

Christenberry for teaching me how to write in English; Anna Goldelman for reminding me to take care of myself; Rachel, Robin, Jessica, and Mike Van Pamel for showing me what Van

Pamels are capable of; my stepdad Steve Ward for always telling me that what I am up to is “so cool”; my twin for giving me the courage to do anything by always doing it first; Helen Bradley for all the great stories; Greg Jackson, Jeremy Chumley, and Greg Thomson for teaching me what hard work looks like; Linda Grandshaw for all that you do for the History Department;

Philipp Kirchler for everything; Darby Adams, Michel Castillo, Matthew Jauregui, and Carol

Fusaro for being my happy place; Isabel Peña, Chris Waters, and Eiko Siniawer for your thoughtful critiques and comments; and everyone else who has made my time at Williams, and this thesis, possible. Thank you. Page | 5

Page | 6

Introduction

When Anders Breivik killed ninety-four people at a Norwegian office complex and nearby summer camp in July 2011, he believed he was carrying out a mission with righteous historical precedents. Breivik claimed to be protecting “European Christendom” from a

“Marxist-Islamist alliance” supported by the government of his country, specifically, “a liberal

European political establishment he view[ed] as promoting Europe’s destruction.”1 In his manifesto entitled “2083: A European Declaration of Independence,” he explained that modern

Europeans ought to follow the example of those Christians who had defended Europe during the failed Ottoman 1683 siege of Vienna and “drive out Muslim influence” from Europe.2 Mark

Juergensmeyer of the Huffington Post writes that, “in Breivik’s mind he was recreating the historic efforts to save Europe from what he imagined to be the evils of Islam.”3 Nearly eight years later, in March 2019, alleged Australian shooter Brenton Tarrant would enter two

Christchurch, New Zealand mosques during Friday prayers and kill fifty people, wounding fifty more using weapons inscribed, among other white nationalist symbols, with the bold white letters “Vienna 1683.”4 Tarrant also incorporated references to the siege in his own manifesto.

1 Scott Shane, “Killings in Norway Spotlight Anti-Muslim Thought in U.S.,” New York Times, July 24, 2011, https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/us/25debate.html; Johan Ahlander and Patrick Lannin, “Norway’s Mass Killer Pursuing Anti-Islam Crusade,” Reuters, July 24, 2011, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-norway- manifesto/norways-mass-killer-pursuing-anti-islam-crusade-idUSTRE76N0X820110724; Ali Wajahat, “The Roots of the Christchurch Massacre,” New York Times, March 15, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/opinion/new-zealand-mosque-shooting.html. 2 Shane, “Killings in Norway Spotlight Anti-Muslim Thought in the U.S.”; 2083 is a reference to the 400th anniversary of the siege of Vienna. 3 Mark Juergensmeyer, “Why the Year 2083 is the Title of Norwegian Terrorist Andres Breivik’s Manifesto,” Huffington Post, September 27, 2011, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/anders-breivik-manifesto_b_910229. 4 Nicole Chavez, Helen Regan, Sandi Sidhu, and Ray Sanchez, “Suspect in New Zealand Mosque Shootings was Prepared ‘to Continue Attack,’ PM says,” CNN, March 16, 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/15/asia/christchurch-mosque-shooting-intl/index.html; Jon Gambrell, “Mosque Shooter Brandished White Supremacist Iconography,” Associated Press, March 15, 2019, https://www.apnews.com/597933f5d8454f448db02d1fc077730d; “The Islamophobic Signs that Defined the Christchurch Terrorist,” TRT World, March 15, 2019, https://www.trtworld.com/asia/the-islamophobic-signs-that- defined-the-christchurch-terrorist-24982. Page | 7

Wajahat Ali of the New York Times writes that, “if [Tarrant’s] 74-page manifesto and social media posts are to be believed, he was inspired by a thriving online ideological structure that recruits and radicalizes mostly men to save ‘Western civilization’ from a foreign ‘invasion.’”5

The image Ali describes, of an imminent foreign invasion posing an existential threat to the

West, has permeated commemorations of the siege for centuries.

Before his attack in Norway, Breivik had been active on a white nationalist forum called

“Gates of Vienna,” a site whose main page features the subtitle “at the siege of Vienna in 1683

Islam seemed poised to take over Europe. We are in a new phase of a very old war.”6 The site regularly invokes the notion of a current-day “jihad” against European Christendom and documents the efforts of white nationalist so-called “counterjihadists.”7 Like other white nationalist forums frequented by anti-Islamic terrorists and like-minded individuals, “Gates of

Vienna” frames its resistance of growing Muslim populations in Europe by comparing the present day growth of immigration and refugee crises to the deadly threat posed by invading

Ottoman forces during the 1683 siege of Vienna, attacking Muslims and pro-immigration political parties with the understanding that doing so fulfills a time-honored imperative.

The contemporary white-nationalist interest in commemorating the 1683 siege, or even using it as a model for future action, represents a blatant manipulation of a historical moment for immediate political purposes. Manipulation along these lines would not be possible with just any of the numerous battles fought between the Habsburg and Ottoman empires during their

5 Shane, “Killings in Norway Spotlight Anti-Muslim Thought in U.S.” 6 “Homepage,” Gates of Vienna, Accessed February 12, 2019, https://gatesofvienna.net/; Shane, “Killing in Norway Spotlight Anti-Muslim Thought in the U.S.” 7 “Counterjihad Archive,” Gates of Vienna, Accessed February 12, 2019, https://gatesofvienna.net/category/counterjihad/; “History of the Counterjihad,” Gates of Vienna, Accessed February 12, 2019, https://gatesofvienna.net/notable/history-of-the-counterjihad/. Page | 8 centuries-long struggles over the Balkan borderlands. Would-be “counterjihadists” dwell on the legend of the 1683 siege of Vienna in particular because the 1683 siege, in fact the second and final Ottoman siege of the Habsburg capital city, holds a special place in the minds of not just

Austrians and Europeans, but also, as the example of Tarrant shows, in the minds of white nationalists worldwide.

Beyond mere historical curiosity, the story of the siege presents an attractive opportunity for retrospective observers to express contemporary frustrations through the convenient example of a plain binary “us” versus “them” that appears at a glance to have been the case in 1683. The siege has captivated imaginations and inspired robust commemoration since at least its 100th anniversary in 1783, but the present form of direct politicization of the legend would only fully take hold around the siege bicentennial in 1883, which is the subject of this thesis, when such politicization was intensified by the rise of contentious national politics and a growing challenge to the liberal status quo in the Austro-Hungarian parliament.8

What Exactly Happened in the 1683 Siege?

Before considering the modes of manipulative commemoration at play in the legends of the 1683 siege, it is worth briefly reviewing the factual events of the siege and the actions of its various participants. In the late seventeenth century, relations between the Ottoman and

Habsburg Empires were fraught by conflicting territorial aims. The two bordering empires each sought to expand their control of eastern Europe, often with competing interests in the same land.

This was why, for centuries, the Austrian Empire served as a European frontier-land, buffering

8 Maureen Healy, “1883 Vienna in the Turkish Mirror,” Austrian History Yearbook 40, (2009): 101-113, 108-110; Sandra Bittman, “Der mediale Diskurs um die zweite Türkenbelagerung Wiens zwischen 1683 und heute,” Master’s Thesis, University of Vienna, 2008, 92-95. Page | 9

Ottoman advances and partly shielding the rest of the continent from attack.9 Thomas Barker describes these constant border conflicts as “disturbance and small-scale warfare of a rather unchivalrous nature.” 10 Disputes over which Empire would control the territory of modern-day

Hungary were a flashpoint of the conflict, and the land had been uneasily divided between

Habsburg and Ottoman control since the early sixteenth century, with Ottoman control established over the Buda and Pest in 1541 and Habsburg control over northwestern Hungarian lands.11 This territorial arrangement issued from the failed first siege of Vienna in 1529, which laid the groundwork for the establishment of an Ottoman protectorate in Transylvania and

Hungary, too close to the Habsburg capital city for comfort.

There were some cooperative attempts to avoid full-scale war between the two powers.

After a thwarted Ottoman advance into Habsburg lands in 1664, the Ottoman forces and

Habsburg defenders agreed to a twenty-year peace through the Treaty of Vasvar with the goal of stopping the continuous raids and skirmishes along the poorly defined Habsburg-Ottoman border.12 The treaty would prove effective at preventing outright war between the two empires, but was violated on a smaller scale on countless occasions by border forces on both sides, and in the end the border skirmishes continued practically undisturbed.13 As the treaty’s 1684 expiration date approached, it became clear that a failure to renew the treaty would result in the kind of open conflict with the Ottomans that the Habsburg Empire had been dreading. Andrew

Wheatcroft writes that, “in 1682 the Austrians opened negotiations to renew the truce. The talks

9 Thomas Mack Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent: Vienna’s Second Turkish Siege and Its Historical Setting, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1967), 17-18. 10 Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent, 17. 11 Paula S. Fichtner, Terror and toleration: The Habsburg Crown Confronts Islam, 1526-1850 (London: Reaktion Books, 2008), 31-32. 12 Andrew Wheatcroft, The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans and the Battle for Europe, (New York: Basic Books, 2009), 68-73; Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent, 18. 13 Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 72-73. Page | 10 made no progress and the sense of impending war grew steadily.”14 Rather than taking the opportunity to maintain the unsteady half-peace with Austria, the Ottoman Empire prepared for war.

Wheatcroft interprets Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV’s decision to attempt to conquer

Vienna as a matter of pride, noting that Mehmed IV had not yet participated in battle as his predecessors had done and that the sultan may have been eager for a chance to prove himself.15

Whatever the reason, Mehmed IV and his Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa chose to transform a relatively simple border campaign in 1683 into a fight for the Habsburg capital, decisively rejecting the possibility of extending the uneasy peace in favor of an all-or-nothing push for

Ottoman victory.16 Mehmed IV, having seen as much “battle” (read: marching) as he cared to, turned over sole control of the Ottoman forces to Kara Mustafa in May of 1683 and turned back to Constantinople to await news of his forces’ progress.17 At the same time, the Austrian Empire faced challenges from rebellious Protestant elements in Hungary, led by Imre (Emerich) Thököly and emboldened by simultaneous French aggression to the north of the Habsburg lands.18

Thököly ended up siding with Mustafa’s forces as they passed through Hungary later that year, aiding them in overwhelming Austrian border troops during the Ottoman advance.19 Because of his siege-time actions against the monarchy and his agitation of Protestant elements in Hungary,

Thököly would be remembered as a traitor, and his image would later be synonymous with disloyalty and treason. As the Ottoman forces approached, the continued threat posed by the

French and by Thököly’s forces would leave the Habsburg response indecisive and divided, not

14 Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 73. 15 Ibid, 81. 16 Ibid, 86. 17 Ibid, 97-104. 18 Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent, 120-122; Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 106-108. 19 Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent, 136-140; Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 109-110. Page | 11 fully committed to (or prepared for) dealing with either threat.20 The Habsburg Kaiser was unsure where his troops would be most needed and faced difficulties arranging proper defense strategies to cover the empire’s multiple vulnerabilities.

Because Habsburg troops were so divided between different missions, it became clear that the unprepared Austrian Empire would require foreign assistance to protect itself against the

Ottoman advance, the full intentions of which were not yet known in the spring of 1683.21 The

Habsburg Emperor at the time, Kaiser Leopold I, signed a treaty of “mutual defense” with Polish

King John III Sobieski in March of 1683 and secured financing from Pope Innocent XI, while also reaching out to other states in the Holy Roman Empire for aid.22 The paltry result was the added defense aid of German Princes Max Emmanuel, Elector of Bavaria (and son-in-law of

Kaiser Leopold I) and John George, Elector of Saxony.23 Wheatcroft notes that the aid of the

Germans may have come out of existential necessity rather than religious or national affinity, as the Ottomans’ next target after taking Vienna would likely have been southern Germany, and more distant states from the conflict did not pledge similar aid.24 The German and Polish promises of aid would take months to materialize, and Leopold’s field commander would have to wait outside of the city until he had amassed sufficient relief forces to drive out Mustafa’s men.

Domestically, Leopold enlisted the help of his brother-in-law Charles, Duke of Lorraine, and named him as his field commander in May of 1683.25 Lorraine was tasked with leading upwards

20 Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 102. 21 Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent, 207-208. 22 Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 104. 23 Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent, 127-8; Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 164-166, 137. 24 Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 106, 164-166, 137. 25 Ibid, 105-106, 116-118. Page | 12 of 30,000 Habsburg troops to anticipate and ward off Mustafa’s forces as they approached with

Thököly’s help through Hungary.26

When Mustafa broke through Lorraine’s line in early July, Vienna was all but undefended and was in fact so weak that the Kaiser himself fled the city before the approaching forces.27 Leopold left Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg as city commander, in charge of the last line of defense forces standing between Kara Mustafa and the city of Vienna.28 Both Lorraine and Starhemberg would later be lauded as heroes for their actions. Starhemberg rushed to shore up Vienna’s defensive walls while Lorraine awaited reinforcements outside of the city.29 It was he who managed the city’s defenses from the time Mustafa arrived at the city gates on July 14,

1683 until the city’s dramatic rescue on September 12th of that year.30 Once Mustafa arrived, months of brutal warfare followed between Starhemberg’s Viennese defense forces and the multinational troops under Mustafa’s control, including Balkan Christians and Crimean Tartars along with Anatolian and other Ottoman troops, who would be remembered under the convenient but inaccurate catch-all misnomer of “Turks.”31

Many of Austria’s trained troops were tied up with the Duke of Lorraine outside of the city by the time Mustafa’s forces arrived, so that the city was left to defend itself with only roughly 10,000 able-bodied men, even including the city militia, which comprised relatively untrained everyday tradesmen.32 Because many of Vienna’s upper-class residents had fled along

26 Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent, 217-219. 27 Sandra Bittman, “1683 – und was uns davon bleibt: die zweite Türkenbelagerung als medialer Referenzrahmen,” SWS-Rundschau 51, no. 2 (2001): 145-164, 133-136; Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 117. 28 Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 133, 117. 29 Ibid, 122-133. 30 Ibid, 133-138. 31 Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent, 187-192; Barker describes the Ottoman forces as so diverse as to be considered “ethnically kaleidoscopic.”; Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 48-52, 20. 32 Bittman, “Der mediale Diskurs um die zweite Türkenbelagerung,” 133-136; Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 133- 136; Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent, 174-176. Page | 13 with the Kaiser, these lower-class militia-men would later become powerful symbols of the everyday Vienna resident’s selfless bravery and heroism.33 One lower-class city resident in particular, the Polish merchant Georg Franz Kolschitzky, would rise to fame in the centuries after the siege.34 As the fighting raged on and those inside the city walls ran short on supplies and morale, Starhemberg desperately needed to communicate with the waiting relief forces under

Lorraine’s command.35 Kolschitzky, who was familiar with the Turkish language and some

Ottoman customs due to his trade contacts in decades prior, was said to have bravely passed through enemy lines in “Turkish” garb in order to pass messages between the city defenders and the Duke of Lorraine.36 However, Barker argues (and recent historians agree) that much of the

Kolschitzky legend simply stems from Kolschitzky’s own post-siege exaggeration, since he bragged about his battle exploits to gain better payment from the monarchy for his services.37 For centuries, this payment was alleged to have included the right to be the first café proprietor in the city, but since the early twentieth century it has come to light that Kolschitzky was in fact preceded in this venture by a handful of others, including a contemporary city resident, the

Armenian Johannes Diodato.38

The relatively small relief forces outside of the city were forced to watch on as the city took blow after blow from the Ottomans because they were awaiting the sizeable Polish forces whom Sobieski had committed to sending.39 Without the added Polish forces, Lorraine’s relief

33 Bittman, “Der mediale Diskurs um die zweite Türkenbelagerung, 133-136; Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent, 244-245. 34 Tag Gronberg, “Coffeehouse Orientalism,” in The Viennese Café and Fin-de-Siècle Culture, edited by Tag Gronberg, Charlotte Ashby, and Simon Shaw-Miller, 59-77, (New York: Berghahn Books, 2013), 60; Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent, 272; Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 188. 35 Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent, 272. 36 Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 188. 37 Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent, 272. 38 Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 187. 39 Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 164-165. Page | 14 effort was unlikely to succeed. The city walls took severe and constant damage from Ottoman miners who tunneled vast networks underneath the city defenses, filled the tunnels with explosives, and blew them up.40 When Sobieski and his troops finally arrived in early September, the situation in the city was dire. The combined forces of Lorraine, the German princes, and

Sobieski gathered near the Kahlenberg on the outskirts of the city and planned their advance for the 12th of September. When the day finally came, they swept down the hill and routed Mustafa’s men, driving the startled Ottoman forces away from the city.41 The liberation forces had not come entirely as a surprise to Mustafa, but he was severely underprepared (and outnumbered) to halt their advance.42 Polish cavalry proved vital to the success of the relief, also known as the

Battle of Kahlenberg.43 The retreating Ottomans would open up the land that would become

Habsburg Hungary, land which would be conquered with the help of Prince Eugene of Savoy, who had assisted the Duke of Lorraine and who would become a legendary figure in the empire for his heroism in finally warding off the “Turks” and capturing Habsburg land.44 Through a combination of defense aid from Poland and Germany and financing from the Vatican, Vienna remained a Catholic capital and was not absorbed as an Ottoman protectorate, potentially shielding the rest of the European continent from further encroachment of Ottoman control. The subsequent expansion of Habsburg territory would lead to the formation of a remarkably multinational empire straddling the divide between eastern and western Europe, encompassing

German Austrians, Czechs, Hungarians, Croats, Poles, and many others.

Attacked from Without and Within: Manipulation of the Second Siege Legend

40 Ibid, 148, 157. 41 Ibid, 167-175. 42 Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent, 312-330; Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 173, 178. 43 Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 184-187. 44 Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent, 182, 221; Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 245-251. Page | 15

Much of the existing literature on siege commemoration in Austria is organized either thematically or episodically, with some works focusing completely on a single thematic aspect of the anniversaries (i.e., dramatic presentations of the “Turks”) and others proceeding episodically and incompletely through surveys of every Austrian siege commemoration from 1783 to 1983. In this thesis I have attempted to focus on the bicentennial of the siege and present a broad consideration of many aspects of this moment of siege commemoration. This thesis exclusively explores the 1883 commemorations of the 1683 siege, with particular focus on the ways in which opposing liberal and conservative interests reshaped the narrative of the siege to fit their own political programs through the publications of their respective news outlets. My observations of the impact of explicit politicization on the siege story will be informed by further inquiry into contemporary commemorative media, examining to what extent political contentions regarding the siege found expression in publicly consumed media, including plays and memorials.

By the time of the siege bicentennial in 1883, a lot had changed in the Habsburg lands.

The Austrian Empire had become the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary, with the weakened

Austrian crownlands at least nominally sharing their power with the emboldened Hungarian minority. Other national groups within the multinational empire began to seek out similar power to that enjoyed by Hungary.45 As a result of the rise of national politics and of mounting class tensions, the primacy of liberal interests was being challenged by a growing conservative contingent in the empire.46 While the siege anniversary did not define contemporary political

45 Bittman, “Das medial Diskurs um die zweite Türkenbelagerung,” 92-95; Anita Mayer-Hirzberger, “Die Türken vor Wien (‘The Turks at the gates of Vienna’): Music and drama for the 200th commemoration day of the Second Turkish Siege of Vienna – between patriotism and entertainment,” Mousikos Logos 1, no.1 (2014): pages not numbered. 46 Pieter M. Judson, "Rethinking the Liberal Legacy," In Rethinking Vienna 1900, edited by Beller Steven, 57-79, (New York: Berghahn Books, 2012), 66-67; John W. Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna: Origins of the Christian Social Movement, 1848-1897, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 1-6. Page | 16 dynamics in the late nineteenth century, political dynamics surely defined the siege anniversary, determining the ways in which the centuries-old conflict would be commemorated and reshaping the way the empire (and later, Austrians) would relate to the siege legend.

Maurice Halbwachs writes that, “even at the moment of reproducing the past our imagination remains under the influence of the present social milieu.”47 The social milieu of

Austria-Hungary in 1883 was that of a monarchy in turmoil. While much recent scholarship on the later years of the Habsburg Empire has pushed back against the idea of inevitable Habsburg decline, it is undeniable that, in the decades leading up to the turn of the twentieth century, national tensions and internal political strife were heating up rapidly. To make matters worse,

Austria’s military defeat by Prussia in 1866 rendered the empire so weak that compromise with the increasingly empowered Hungarians of the empire became necessary, creating the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary in 1867. Not long after the establishment of this controversial dualist system, the financial Panic of 1873 added economic hardship to the mix, further destabilizing the political status quo.48

By the 1880s, the empire was coming to terms with its new position in Europe: no longer the leading German power, it was increasingly subject to the demands of its national minorities, with Slavs and Czechs pursuing more powerful status. The liberal order that had more-or-less prevailed (if tenuously) found itself rapidly and forcefully challenged, facing steep competition from conservative interests represented by then Prime Minister Eduard Taaffe, as well as rising

47 Halbwachs, Maurice, and Lewis A. Coser, On Collective Memory. The Heritage of Sociology, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 49. 48Jacques Le Rider, Modernity and Crises of Identity: Culture and Society in Fin De Siecle Vienna, (New York: Continuum Intl. Publishing Group, 1993), 19. Page | 17 opposition of burgeoning Catholic-democratic interests, who would later be led by rising political opponent and future Mayor of Vienna Karl Lueger.49

Against this backdrop Vienna celebrated the two-hundredth anniversary of its victory over attacking Ottoman-commanded troops in the second “Turkish” siege of the city in 1683.

The siege commemorations of 1883 offered a chance for reflection on the glory of generations past, and contemporary observers took full advantage of it. Joseph Helfert’s 1883 annotated index, Die Jubiläumsliteratur der Wiener Katastrophe von 1683 (The Anniversary Literature of the Viennese Catastrophe of 1683), documents an explosion of literature published on the occasion of the bicentennial, when dozens of plays and new histories of the era appeared in print.50 In the hotly contentious political atmosphere of the day, the siege anniversary provided an opportunity to draw partisan conclusions from common ground, manipulating the collective memory of the siege for political capital. The cast of characters often present in commemorative publications, including Polish King John Sobieski, Ottoman Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa, various

German princes, and Vienna military commander Rüdiger von Starhemberg, provided a ready set of archetypes with which people across the political spectrum could identify. Maurice

Halbwachs elaborates that, “whereas in our present society we occupy a definite position and are subject to the constraints that go with it, memory gives us the illusion of living in the midst of groups which do not imprison us, which impose themselves on us only so far and so long as we

49 “Ein Gedenkblatt der Neuen freien Presse, 1864 – 1914,” In: Neue freie Presse, 1914,17965 (Vienna: Drückerei der Neuen Freien Presse, 1914), 9, 31; Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 1, 203-211; Pieter M. Judson, Exclusive Revolutionaries: Liberal Politics, Social Experience, and National Identity in the Austrian Empire, 1848-1914, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 226; Karin Brinkmann Brown and Williams Hardy Mcneill, Karl Lueger, the Liberal Years: Democracy, Municipal Reform, and the struggle for Power in the Vienna City Council, 1875-1882, (London: Garland Pub., 1987), 159. 50 Joseph Alexander Helfert, Die Jubiläums-Literatur der Wiener Katastrophe von 1683 und die Kaplir-Frage (Prague: 1884), 5-36. Page | 18 let them.”51 In identifying with one figure or another out of siege lore, political groups could vie for their contemporary causes within a reality which did not subject them to the limitations under which they actually operated.

The story of the 1683 siege of Vienna was particularly fertile ground for partisan manipulation. The legend pitted the city, the underdog defender of Europe, against an external attacking foe. Viennese victory over the “Turks” had been the saving grace of “Christendom” and had even paved the way for the subsequent capture of Hungarian lands from Ottoman control, giving shape to the Austro-Hungarian Empire as it would exist two hundred years later by establishing long-desired Habsburg control over its neighbor to the east.52 In the imagination of 1883 Vienna, subsequent progress in the city could be traced back to this heroic victory. And, to the extent that this progress was threatened, invoking the image of the former “Turkish” enemies provided a powerful set of associations that enabled the mobilization of impassioned resistance against contemporary threats.53 This process of relativizing the former foe made it possible to do what Halbwachs describes, placing conflicts of the day into a binary whose familiarity in popular memory made it a useful tool when discussing contemporary struggles.54

The political dimensions of the 1883 siege commemorations filtered down through parliamentary and city council disputes of the day into the public commemoratory events and the media surrounding the siege, including plays and newspaper editorials. Political jockeying for particular representation in the history of the empire thus made its way into the minds of the everyday Viennese, whose interactions with their own shared history would be fundamentally

51 Halbwachs and Coser. On Collective Memory, 49. 52 Fichtner, Terror and Toleration, 31. 53 “Zur Vollendung des Rathausbaues,” Die Presse, September 11, 1883; Mayer-Hirzberger, “Die Türken vor Wien,” 1. 54 Fichtner, Terror and Toleration, 110. Page | 19 shaped by the interpretations put forth by the competing governing bodies of the day. In effect, the legend of the 1683 siege was removed from its reality, or at least had its reality twisted in such a way as to make the facts of the story less valuable than their contemporary implications.

This is the heart of the matter: the transmission and instrumentalization of Vienna’s siege history during the 1883 bicentennial required that the legend itself (as the history eventually became) be reshaped, parts of it shorn off and ignored and parts emphasized far beyond their rightful proportion, all so that competing contemporary interests could have another arena in which to assert their superiority and rightful claim to power. And even those parts of the narrative which were not so drastically altered would be reframed in a certain light so as to favor one end of the political spectrum or the other in their contemporary goals. The weight of public familiarity with the general contours of the siege made the siege story an irresistible target for politicized historical manipulation for the sake of public outreach and self-legitimation.

In the case of the siege legend and other contentious historical events today, it is plain to see how fringe groups have taken on the task of instrumentalizing certain histories for the purpose of convenient contemporary analogy. The case of the 1883 siege bicentennial allows for a careful analysis of the ways in which a history can be warped and instrumentalized for individual purposes rather than, as is often claimed, for the sake of faithful and respectful memorialization of the past.

Source Material and Methodology

This thesis would not have been possible without the work of Maureen Healy, whose article “1883 in the Turkish Mirror” is one of the few English accounts of the unique function of the siege of Vienna within historical memory, and whose work first exposed me to the siege commemorations of 1883. I hope to have added to her work with my endeavors here. For my Page | 20 study of Austro-Hungarian politics in the late nineteenth century, I am indebted to the many comprehensive works of Pieter Judson and to his predecessors in the field, John W. Boyer and

Carl E. Schorske. Their concise and clear accounts of Austro-Hungarian political dynamics between 1848 and 1900 made it possible for me to properly contextualize my observations from primary source material.

In general, I have distinguished my inquiry into the different angles of the 1883 siege commemorations by grounding each section of this thesis in different types of source material. In my chapters examining liberal and conservative political narratives, I have resorted to the print publications contemporarily associated with each of the political perspectives I interrogate— broader divisions between German nationalist liberalism and clerical Catholic conservatism—to explore the perspectives put forth by each on the occasion of the siege anniversary. I do not intend to entirely equate the positions of the multi-party political angles with the positions expressed in the newspapers, as each side had too many parties to claim that any one paper could fully represent the ideals of all of them. Furthermore, there were too many different newspapers with varied readerships and ideologically nuanced perspectives to possibly include all of them in the scope of this thesis. However, for the sake of recognizing a dichotomy of politicized interpretation to the extent that it did exist in contemporary publications, it is vital to impress that, generally, Das Vaterland was Catholic-conservative and the Neue freie Presse and Die

Presse were liberal in their readership, contemporary perceptions, and in the platforms for which they advocated in their editorial content.

The liberal-conservative divide was not the only political dimension at play in 1883; various democratic upstart parties and minor socialist interests were springing up in Vienna at the time. However, liberalism and conservatism were the most significant and arguably the most Page | 21 dissimilar in their interpretations of the history of the 1683 siege, engaging in heated and direct disagreement regarding the literal factual events of and historical implications of the siege. As this thesis explores, historical legend and collective memory bend to the wills of prevailing contemporary ideologies, and the best dimension through which to examine the manipulation of public collective memory and historical common ground in the case of the 1883 Turkish siege bicentennial is through contemporary disagreements between the competing perspectives of the liberal and conservative political programs. The most comprehensive and logistically feasible manner through which to approach these programs as a researcher in my situation is through the publications of each general platform, an angle which provided me with rich and varied evidence on which I am confident I have based solid and well-founded conclusions regarding the politics of commemoration in 1883 Vienna.

My work with the news publications in circulation in 1883 was made possible by the remarkable online database of the Austrian National Library, whose digitization of primary records enabled me to enjoy unlimited access to the many publications on which I have based significant portions of this thesis. However, the use of key-word searchable newspaper databases has its drawbacks, among them the incomplete consideration of contemporary events and a myopic focus on particular articles or terms. When possible, I have attempted to overcome these challenges by saving and printing out issues of newspapers in order to read them page by page and take in their contents as a whole rather than simply absorbing the section provided by a key- word search. I admit that this was done at least partly for my own amusement, as I more than once stumbled across amusing advertisements and cartoons which, while somewhat tangential in the scope of this thesis, made my research process exponentially more entertaining. Page | 22

Lastly, a note on terminology and translation. I have tried to refer to historical figures by the modern English versions of their names for the sake of the reader. Additionally, all translations of German texts into English are my own unless otherwise noted, and while I have made my best effort to accurately represent the meanings of these texts while also adhering as closely as possible to their literal translations, I am not an experienced translator, and the texts I have translated frequently use terms and spellings no longer in use in the German language. I ask for understanding regarding any resulting errors.

Page | 23

Nationalist Narratives:

Liberal Interpretation in Context

Introduction

In early September 1883, even the chocolatiers of Vienna capitalized on the bicentennial of the “Turkish” siege of the city. In observation of the much-anticipated anniversary, the chocolate shop Aug. Tschinkel Söhne (Augustin Tschinkel and Sons) devised a special confection: a cannonball-shaped chocolate stamped with the date “1683” which advertisements described as an “exploding hollow bullet” (figure 1).1 After describing the types of candy which would “explode” out of the chocolate, the advertisement boasts that similar confections could also be personalized for festivities such as weddings (or baptisms!) and then gives the address of the chocolate shop where these unique treats could be purchased. The chocolate shop seized on the common symbolism of and public excitement for the bicentennial commemoration to drum up business, indicating a high level of popular momentum of the siege story in the public eye.

1 “Explodierende Hohlgeschosse,” Figaro, Sept 8, 1883. Page | 24

Figure 1: Figaro, September 8, 1883. Advertisement from the weekly paper Figaro, selling "exploding hollow bullets" as souvenirs of the siege bicentennial. The necessity of harnessing the full potential of the siege bicentennial’s popular momentum was not lost on liberals, whose prominence in Viennese politics was showing signs of decay even as they continued to exert considerable influence.2 The political attitudes of

Vienna’s liberal parties had their roots in the revolutions of 1848, but had become confused and fragmented by September of 1883, until they could be boiled down to what John W. Boyer describes as “self-interest in support of bourgeois norms and privileges.”3 Beginning with the

Concordat of 1850, the Viennese Bürgertum (bourgeoisie/middle classes) was structured into three distinct tax curia, a classification which accounted for a man’s profession and income and also determined his voting status. To access nominal popular support, governing liberals claimed

2 Pieter M. Judson, "Rethinking the Liberal Legacy," In Rethinking Vienna 1900, edited by Beller Steven, 57-79, (New York: Berghahn Books, 2012), 59; John W. Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna: Origins of the Christian Social Movement, 1848-1897, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 202; Johannes Feichtinger and Johann Heiss, “Wiener ‘Türkengedächtnis’ im Wandel. Historische und anthropologische Perspektiven,” Austrian Journal of Political Science 38, no. 2 (2009): 249-263, 250, 255. 3 Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 7. Page | 25 representation of even those Bürger whose curia level was too low to access the franchise. Boyer writes that until the mid-1880s, “Liberalism tried to style itself as the party of the people in a universalistic, nonpolitical sense.”4 Yet in practice this unifying doctrine appealed mostly to those of the upper rung of Vienna’s curia, a strategy of governance which “ignored the social and economic needs of the lower levels of the Bürgertum.”

This exclusive upper-bourgeois strategy did indeed keep liberal parties in power for decades, as the status quo was insulated from the discontent of lower classes by the restrictive voting laws.5 But the electorate was changing. As a result, Austro-Viennese liberals of 1883 were increasingly threatened by the expansion of the franchise to include so-called “five-guilder men,” a change ushered in by controversial conservative Prime Minister Eduard Taaffe in the autumn of 1882 which lowered the tax threshold required to vote to a mere five guilders, a relatively low cost at the time.6 The thousands of new voters whom this legislation enfranchised functioned as “instruments to disrupt the bastions of Liberal power in Vienna,” signaling

Taaffe’s intent to use the new voters to bring about a “punitive reduction of Liberal power.”7

Pinning down exactly what constituted Austrian liberal thought in the 1880s is as difficult now as it was then. The liberal platform of the 1860s and 1870s combined basic “claims about projecting liberty to all sectors of society” with staunch anti-clericalism, a program which led to showdowns with the then-ineffective, Catholic-interested “Party of the Right” in parliament.8

Liberalism and its particular view of a forward-oriented societal progression made enemies of

4 Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial, 294. 5 Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 3. 6 Pieter M. Judson, Exclusive Revolutionaries: Liberal Politics, Social Experience, and National Identity in the Austrian Empire, 1848-1914, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 198; Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 64; Maureen Healy, "1883 Vienna in the Turkish Mirror 1." Austrian History Yearbook 40 (2009): 101-113, 102-103. 7 Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 64. 8 Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 28-33. Page | 26

Viennese Catholics with its contention that ecclesiastical affairs ought to be “subordinate” in civil society, indeed taking this position a few steps further by attempting to strip the church of political authority. This approach, in conjunction with liberal neglect of the lower-middle-class elements of the Bürgertum, would pave the way for the Christian Socialist opposition which would prove to be the undoing of liberal dominance after the 1882 expansion of the franchise.

Conservative rivals could draw on low-Bürger discontent, anti-Semitism (a stand-in for resentment of wealthy interests in the city), anti-Slav interests (which would be a shared theme of both sides of the political spectrum, with some variation on which Slavs were targeted by whom), and religious sentiment to build a powerful political alternative to liberalism.9

Austrian liberalism faced systemic weaknesses whose consequences were beginning to play out in dramatic fashion through external attacks from Christian and national opponents. But the political program had also fallen into factions internally. Previous decades had seen a “liberal vision of progress” which emphasized “modern technology, capitalist enterprise, enlightened tolerance, and the freedom of the individual to develop in accordance with his capacities.”10 By

1883, however, the Viennese liberals could be described as “an odd-lot combination of Free

Conservatives, the National Liberals, and the more conservative sectors of the Prussian

Progressives,” which is to say, they had lost internal ideological cohesion.11 As the political sphere grew more and more fractious under the weight of a growing set of interests vying for representation in government, divisions within liberalism would become more pronounced, adding to the difficulty of maintaining power and relevance. But political mechanisms existed to

9 Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 3; Robin Okey,“The Neue Freie Presse and the South Slavs of the Habsburg Monarchy,” The Slavonic and East European Review 85, no.1 (2007): 79-104, 81; Carl E. Schorske, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture, (New York: Knopf: Distributed by Random House, 1980), 5. 10 Karin Brinkmann Brown and Williams Hardy Mcneill, Karl Lueger, the Liberal Years: Democracy, Municipal Reform, and the struggle for Power in the Vienna City Council, 1875-1882, (London: Garland Pub., 1987), 159. 11 Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 324. Page | 27 dance around these internal divisions. Boyer writes that, “inevitably, there were tensions within the party on a variety of issues […] but the Liberals were fortunate in always finding sufficient external enemies to distract them from their internal feuds—whether this be […]Czech nationalism, or after 1880 the personality of [Prime Minister] Taaffe himself.”12 Rather than addressing the roots of their internal divisions and risking alienating some factions, the simpler solution for liberals was to redirect criticism toward these external enemies and draw on a unity based on collective opposition rather than collective cohesion.

In fact, German nationalism would become the focal point of liberalism throughout the

1880s as a response to burgeoning Slavic, and particularly Czech, nationalism. As newly enfranchised Czech voters established their loyalty to the conservative/Catholic interest groups who had enfranchised them, and the same conservative groups agitated and leveraged the interests of similarly neglected lower class voters, the liberal powers scrambled to find a point of agreement through which to consolidate the support of a voter base in spite of the newly exaggerated class differences in the empire. They found their answer in German nationalism, a mode which would organize support around ethnic commonality. In the ascending age of “mass” and “interest group” politics, “if the Germans refused to organize themselves as a group as had the Czechs or the Poles, they could look forward to further political impotence and greater defeats.”13 Politicized nationalism was, for Austrian liberals, a matter of existential necessity, and one which did end up prolonging the relevance of liberalism for a while longer, until its extinction (or, as Pieter M. Judson argues, transformation) in the late 1890s.14

12 Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 325. 13 Judson, Exclusive revolutionaries, 202. 14 Ibid, 195. Page | 28

The strategy of reorganizing along nationalist lines did pose a threat to the formerly near absolute control of bourgeois voters, as it lent legitimacy to even lower-middle-class German-

Austrian liberals, a consequence which would be counterproductive for the ultimate liberal goal of maintaining some extent of its former bourgeois-protective form. To this end it was vital for liberals to impose their own definition of what exactly Germanness entailed, thus enabling themselves to remain in a relatively exclusive position of power while garnering public support through nominal, attractive notions of inherent German superiority.15 As Judson explains, “if an expanded political community was to be defined by Germanness, then its leaders could retain their preeminence only so long as the traditional bourgeois determinants of status, property ownership, and education were redefined as specifically German qualities.”16 Recent electoral changes and challenges from without and within, combined with what Judson dubs “the rise of mass politics” in the 1880s and the contemporary fervor for commemoration, gave liberals a powerful opportunity to wield the two-hundredth anniversary of the Turkish siege to their own advantage.17 By staking a claim to certain elements of the story and redefining the central narrative of the siege as inherently German, liberals attempted to stave off their demise and legitimate their formerly powerful political standing.

Origins of the Liberal Press of 1883

One of the primary mediums through which liberal political expression found a foothold was the liberal newspaper. By 1883, the press had become a bastion of Austrian political speech, and even as liberal political dominance waned, the liberal-oriented newspapers still remained by

15 Judson, Exclusive Revolutionaries, 200. 16 Ibid, 200. 17 In 1882, Vienna found itself captivated by the 400th anniversary of the introduction of book-printing to the city, a celebration which seems to have only been upstaged by that of the following year honoring the memory of the siege.; “Das Buchdruckerfest in der ‘Neuen welt,’” Neue freie Presse, June 26, 1883. Page | 29 far the most popular information outlets. The continued primacy of liberal organs was due in large part to the origins of the nineteenth century press in Austria, a process which firmly established the 1848-founded liberal paper Die Presse and its proverbial offspring, Neue Freie

Presse, as the standard news sources of many throughout the eventually dualist Austro-

Hungarian Empire.

Austrian political speech had been heavily restricted in the first half of the nineteenth century, a policy designed to stem the flow of revolutionary sentiment spreading through Europe.

Under the watchful rule of Chancellor Klemens von Metternich, censorship became the law of the land. Indeed, outside of two official news outlets, all publications before 1848 were “either literary fiction in content or strictly trade journals.”18 But revolution came to Austria anyway, demanding democratizing reforms from the Kaiser—including the deregulation of the press. The restrictions came to an explosive end with Metternich’s forced resignation following the revolution. The Kaiser announced the beginning of the deregulation of political speech on March

14, 1848, writing that “his majesty the Kaiser and King has resolved that censorship be abolished and a new law governing the press be published.”19 That year alone, at least 173 new daily or weekly publications would be founded in Vienna and the surrounding area of Lower Austria, a phenomenon which Kurt Skalnik aptly compares to the sprouting-up of mushrooms after a heavy rain.20 While this new freedom of the press would endure ebbs and flows, the newspaper industry

18 Kurt Skalnik, An der Wiege der Österreichischen Journalistik; Die Wiener Presse Im Jahre 1848. Österreich- Reihe, Bd. 55, (Wien: Bergland Verlag, 1958), 14; “entweder literarisch-belletristischen Inhalts, oder strenge Fachjournale,“; All translation’s are the author’s own unless otherwise noted. 19 Skalnik, An Der Wiege der Österreichischen Journalistik, 10.; ““seine k.k. apostolische Majestät haben die Aufhebung der Zensur und die allsbaldige Veröffentlichung eines Pressgesetzes allergnädigst zu beschliessen geruht.” 20 Kurt Skalnik,. Die Österreichische Presse: Vorgestern, Gestern, Heute. Österreich-Reihe, Bd.221. (Wien: Bergland Verlag, 1964), 7. Page | 30 it spawned would remain saturated with publications of all kinds, many of which would remain in print well into the twentieth century.

Enter August Zang, the man for the moment in the summer of 1848. Having spent time peddling Viennese pastries (and adapting the Viennese Kipferl into the modern “French” croissant) at his café in Paris, he got to know Emile Girardin, the founder of the conservative

French newspaper La Presse. Zang’s relationship with Girardin exposed him to the ins and outs of the newspaper industry so that, by the time he returned to Vienna, he was ready to make his own foray into the business.21 His timing could not have been more perfect. The first issue of

Zang’s creatively named Die Presse would hit the presses on July 3, 1848, beginning the steady reign of one of Austria’s most prominent liberal publications in the nineteenth century. In its first issue, the leading editorial of the paper describes Die Presse’s goal as presenting a “pure, democratic journal,” noting that “the public has fought for the freedom of the press, so the press must fight for justice, order, and civilization” for the people. Die Presse’s principles, it wrote, included “protecting our rising freedom and civilization against barbarism” and “seeing to the preparation and the creation of the new” rather than “fearing progress because it disturbs the peace.” 22 While liberalism as such would not find its foothold in Austria until the 1860s, some of its origins are visible in statements like these. 23

But as in tune with the zeitgeist as Zang may have been, his operation wasn’t perfect. In a veritable coup d’état in 1864, some of Die Presse’s editors, fed up with their low pay, broke

21 Skalnik, Die Österreichische Presse, 5.; Skalnik, An der Wiege der Österreichischen Journalistik, 31.; Zang is often credited with having introduced the modern croissant to Paris (Viennoiserie).;Bernadette Bayrhammer “Ein Kipferl, von Mythen umrankt: "Presse"-Gründer August Zang sollen die Franzosen das Croissants verdanken,” Die Presse, February 18, 2017. 22 “Wien, den 2. Juli,” Die Presse, July 3, 1848. 23 Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 2. Page | 31 away from Zang’s publication and founded their own, calling it the Neue freie Presse, or “New

Free Press.”24 The Neue freie Presse would become the “mouthpiece of the liberal upper class” in Vienna, a world-class newspaper regarded as “by far the most powerful and prestigious of the various Viennese newspapers.”25 Together with the other Austrian Weltblatt, Die Presse, the

Neue freie Presse came to boast tens of thousands of readers by the late nineteenth century and exerted massive influence.26 Indeed, though the Neue freie Presse itself represented a particular set of liberal interests with its editorial voice—interests described by Robin Okey as those of

“the bourgeoisie of Bildung [education] and Besitz [status], often Jewish, rather than the increasingly populist and anti-Semitic lower middle class”—the paper’s popularity had not suffered much from the change in political tide as of 1883. As Skalnik notes, even conservative opponent Eduard Taaffe recognized that “it would not be possible to govern against the Neue freie Presse,” such was the paper’s immense popularity. To have read the Neue freie Presse was a hallmark of one’s place in a certain level of society, even if one did not necessarily agree with the ideas that it put forth.27

Given the greater contemporary importance of the Neue freie Presse, as well as the greater extent to which the Neue freie Presse has been treated as a representative of nineteenth- century Austrian liberalism in contemporary historiography, my analysis of the 1883 interpretations of the siege legend from the liberal perspective focuses primarily on the Neue freie Presse’s coverage. However, to emphasize the diversity within the liberal perspective as well as to give proper consideration to the other forms of publication in which liberal

24 Skalnik, Die Österreichische Presse, 8. 25 Steven Beller, "German Liberalism, Nationalism and the Jews: The Neue Freie Presse and the German-Czech Conflict in the Habsburg Monarchy 1900–1918,” Bohemia, 34, (1993): 63-76, 63. 26 Okey, "The 'Neue Freie Presse' and the South Slavs,” 81; Skalnik, An der Wiege der Österreichischen Journalistik, 9. 27 Skalnik, Die Österreichische Presse, 9.; Okey, "The 'Neue Freie Presse' and the South Slavs,“ 81. Page | 32 perspectives were reflected, I also analyze content from Die Presse as well as the liberal-satirical

Kikeriki, Figaro, and Wiener Caricaturen in the following section and in later chapters.

Liberal Narratives of the Siege: Enemies Without and Within

In its September 11th, 1883 issue, the Neue freie Presse conceded that the bicentennial of the siege commemorated a heroic victory over an enemy that no longer threatened the people of

Vienna. The paper wrote that:

The name of the Turks had lost its shock, the infirmity and the weakness of Turkey obscures what a fearful scourge to humanity the Ottoman warrior state once was. […] Thus a historical commemoration lacks a lively relationship with the present.28 More recent scholarship supports the Neue freie Presse’s claim of Ottoman weakness. Paula

Fichtner examines how the once mortal foe of the Habsbugs, the Ottoman Empire, faded from dire existential threat in the seventeenth century to comic trope employed for laughs or dramatic impact by the nineteenth.29 Fichtner writes that, “the growing sense of security once an enemy is truly vanquished, the conversion of a feared figure into an object of laughter and scorn, the turning of public attention to personal pursuits—all are familiar signs of a culture no longer under threat.”30 Yet the lack of a threat from the Ottomans did not translate into a lack of interest in their culture, and certainly did not preclude further interactions between the Habsburg and

Ottoman empires given the extensive shared border between the two. Weakened as the Ottomans were, Habsburg officials still had interests to defend in the empire of the once dreaded foe.31

28 „Wien, 10. September,“ Neue freie Presse, September 11, 1883; “Der Name des Türken hatte seinen Schrecken verloren, das Siechthum und die Ohnmacht der Türkei ließen vergessen, welche furchtbare Geissel der Menschheit einst der osmanische Kriegerstaat gewesen. […] So fehlt einer historischen Gedenkfeier die lebensvolle Beziehung zur Gegenwart.“ 29 Paula S. Fichtner, Terror and Toleration: The Habsburg Empire Confronts Islam, 1526-1850. (London: Reaktion Books, 2008), 96. 30 Ibid, 110. 31 Ibid, 12.; Indeed, as Fichtner explores, the Habsburg relationship with the Ottoman Empire became primarily one of commerce rather than conflict in the centuries after the second siege, even leading to the creation of an Imperial Page | 33

And the notion of Ottoman weakness, at least morally and militarily, was far from new. Even in the months leading up to the 1683 siege itself, Vienna had stubbornly failed to adequately prepare itself against the advancing forces because even Kaiser Leopold I severely underestimated Ottoman strength. Leopold even diverted military forces away from Vienna for fear of simultaneous French aggression as Ottoman forces approached.32 The idea of the attacking “Turk” seemed to carry more weight as an exercise of the imagination than as a real threat, even as the Ottomans were literally on their way to attack. But even in light of the contemporary weakness of the “sick man” of Europe, to use the Neue freie Presse’s own terminology as well as the popular phrase, the bicentennial siege commemoration remained relevant. It was simply the case that, by 1883, writers understood that the weight of the siege story now lay in how it was used and understood rather than in its literal contents.33 And they intended to use it well. Further on in the September 11th issue, the Neue freie Presse elaborated that, although the Ottomans no longer wage war against the Habsburgs, the empire still has reason to be afraid—just not of the Ottomans themselves. The empire instead continued to face threats not only from outside enemies, but also from enemies within. What the paper does here is as fascinating as it is common: drawing on the already existing images of fear in its readers, and then redirecting that fear towards something much more politically expedient for the moment.

This notion would carry on into the Neue freie Presse’s leading editorial on September 12th, with the paper writing that:

It is now an awful time, where little devils and little angels conspire together to break down liberalism—times where not an outside foe, but rather an interior one besieges the

Royal Academy of Oriental Languages in Vienna in 1754, for the purpose of training translators and interpreters to facilitate commercial and diplomatic contact. 32 Andrew Wheatcroft, The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans and the Battle for Europe (New York: Basic Books, 2009), 74.; Fichtner, Terror and Toleration, 110. 33 “Wien, 10. September,” Die Presse, September 11, 1883; Feichtinger and Heiss, “Wiener ‘Türkengedächtnis’ im Wandel,” 250. Page | 34

city. But the Bürgertum would be unworthy if it did not find the bravery to defend its current position, if it did not have the spiritual resilience to openly resist the working class, to defeat them not with contemptible cowardice but rather through justice and good character.34 As we have already seen, the Neue freie Presse’s fear of the destruction of liberalism at the hands of lower classes was a legitimate one, as newly enfranchised voters aligned themselves more with conservativism. The bravery the paper invokes here, appealing to the historical memories of the contemporary bourgeoisie to defend their prominence in the face of such threats, indicates a clear willingness to manipulate the siege story in defense of specific political goals.

The opportunity presented by the siege commemoration for the paper to set out its own us-versus-them narrative for the nineteenth century makes Viennese liberals’ perceived position in this time period relatively clear. Within its leading September 11th, 1883, editorial regarding the upcoming bicentennial celebration, the paper explicitly identified the ills which were upsetting German Austrians, writing that:

It is the nationalistic interior conflicts, the demonization of Germanness, whose most glorious and most important representative is and must be Vienna, the pushback against the voice of the German people in their centuries-long claim to the executive position, the consequences of dualism and henceforth the federalization of the empire, which together with economic competition from abroad and the diversion of world trade away from Vienna currently affects Vienna and seems to threaten it with the loss of its political and economic importance, and which fills the Viennese with worry for their city and will not allow them to partake in the celebratory mood.35

34 „Wien, 11. September,“ Neue freie Presse, September 12, 1883; “Es ist eine böse Zeit, wo niedrige Teufel und vornehme Engel sich verbinden, um die Macht des Liberalismus zu brechen, wo nicht der äußere, aber der innere Feind die Stadt bedrängt. Doch das Bürgerthum wäre unwürdig, wenn es nicht dem Muth fände, seine Stellung zu vertheidigen, wenn es nicht die geistige Spannkraft hätte, dem Arbeiter mit Offenheit zu begegnen, ihn ohne jede verächtliche Feigheit, aber durch Gerechtigkeit und Persöhnlichkeit zu gewinnen. Das Bürgerthum findet seine Grenze nicht im Besitze, es schließt Alles in sich, was da schafft und producirt, den Straßenkehrer und den Millionär, den Maurer und den Architekten, Jeden, welcher dazu beiträgt, die Gaben der Natur durch materielle und geistige Anstrengung der allgemeinen Wohlfahrt zuzuführen.“ 35 „Wien, 10. September,“ Neue freie Presse, September 11, 1883; “Es sind die nationalen Kämpfe im Innern, die Anfeindung des Deutschthums, dessen glänzendster und wichtigster Vertreter Wien ist und sein muß, die Zurückdrüngung des deutschen Volksstammes von der durch Jahrhunderte behaupteten leitenden Stellung, es sind Page | 35

The position put forth by the Neue freie Presse here can be distilled into two main components: the humiliation/degradation of Germandom in Austria, and the consequent gloom that had settled over Vienna’s liberal German Austrians. In its September 11th, 1883 issue, Die Presse would make use of similar “defender of Germandom” imagery, remembering with pride the brave

“Viennese, German, and Austrian” forces who “gave their blood in defense of their fatherland.”36

Liberalism was taking an increasingly combative approach to these issues, lashing out in reaction to its decline and latching onto an ethnic identity in its scramble to remain relevant and withstand attacks from rival parties. Amid escalating national tensions and on the brink of extensive political change in the monarchy, liberals found themselves digging into divisive rhetoric to justify their continued standing as the preferred ideology of the upper classes.37

Judson argues that the shift of liberalism toward a more divisive German nationalist tone would take hold more fully as of 1885. However, the seeds of this nationalist bent can already be found in prominent 1883 liberal-bourgeois publications like Die Presse and the Neue freie

Presse, as well as satirical weeklies like Kikeriki.38 In studying 1883 Vienna, it is vital to question whether the liberal manipulations of the siege story can be meaningfully differentiated from those of the more explicitly German nationalist contingent in the city. In her treatment of the subject, Maureen Healy divides German nationalists and liberals into different categories, discussing them as though they were separate in their interpretations of the siege and the related

die Folgen des Dualismus und nunmehr der Föderalisirung des Reiches, die nebst der argen wirthschaftlichen Concurrenz des Auslandes und der Ablenkung des Weltverkehrs von Wien sich an Wien jetzt geltend machen, es mit dem Verluste seiner politischen und handelspolitischen Bedeutung zu bedrohen scheinen, die Wiener mit Sorge für ihre Stadt erfüllen und eine freudige, frohe Stimmung nicht aufkommen lassen.“ 36 “Wien, 10. September,” Die Presse, September 11, 1883. 37 Judson, "Rethinking the Liberal Legacy," 68; Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 2. 38 Beller, "German Liberalism, Nationalism and the Jews,” 63. Page | 36 celebrations; however, the reality was not so clear cut.39 Examining the ways in which liberal publications discussed the two-hundred-year-old conflict illuminates the position in which liberal readers preferred to situate themselves. At least in the case of the Neue freie Presse, that position was squarely in the camp of German nationalism as of the early 1880s.40

In defense of the primacy of Germanness within the empire, the Neue freie Presse’s coverage challenged the importance of different figures during the siege of 1683, disputing what it saw as unjust claims by non-Germans that the heroes of the second siege were foreign rescuers who had come to the Austrians’ aid. This dispute regarding the nature of the celebrations being planned for the siege commemoration argued that Czechs (and to a lesser extent, Poles) were detracting from the glory of the event by inserting themselves into the narrative and pushing for the recognition of non-German heroes during the siege.41 The paper’s September 11th issue treated this notion as blasphemous, emphasizing that it was not “through the bravery of an allegedly Czech officer in the city center nor through the foreign Polish king” that the city was saved, and asking who could possibly believe that “through Czech-Polish help alone, the city could have been saved!?”42 In place of these alleged heroes, the Neue freie Presse offered the assertion that the deciding factor in the 1683 siege was, in fact, the troops offered by the princes of Prussian provinces, to whom the greater debt of gratitude is owed. “Protestants and

Catholics,” it writes, “from Saxony, from north and south, led by honorable, war-ready princes” came to rescue the city. “There was not a heart that didn’t beat for Vienna, and namely no

German heart that didn’t pray for the city’s rescue, and heaven couldn’t help but agree.” This

39 Healy, “1883 Vienna in the Turkish Mirror,” 108. 40 Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 2. 41 “Wien, 10. September,” Neue freie Presse, September 11, 1883. 42 “Wien, 10. September,” Neue freie Presse, September 11, 1883; “Welt-Ärgerliches von Dr. Bombus,“ Die Bombe, June 17, 1883. Page | 37 version of the story, the real version in the eyes of the Neue freie Presse’s editors, would win out in spite of the nonsense put forth by the Czechs and Poles as long as the paper’s readers responded to its calls to action.

This would not be the only criticism of the commemoration celebrations to come out of the liberal press. The Neue freie Presse bemoaned the bicentennial as lackluster, airing its disappointment at the alleged insufficiency of the city’s celebratory mood. “Ach, it is painful to compare how, all over the world, in Paris, London, Rome, Berlin, other capital cities are celebrated,” the paper exclaims indignantly.43 In comparison to Vienna, all of these other cities seemed to be much prouder of their own accomplishments, and could celebrate openly rather than having to contend with the stream of criticism that Vienna was facing under liberal control.

The Neue freie Presse went on to write that:

[The city] remains unappreciated on the greatest days in its history, and celebrates the memory of the heroism of its citizens and the royal relief forces, with whom the monarchy, indeed the entire region of the world was rescued, as though it were merely a provincial, local achievement. These Slavs, allegedly loyal to the empire, remain far from the celebrations, and they can do nothing but diminish the immortal fame of the Duke of Lorraine, the leader of the relief forces, who led the Austrian royal family so gloriously into the history of our land, in favor of their Polish and Czech heroes.44 We must remind ourselves of all of these unpalatable occurrences if we really want to explain to the world why the mood in Vienna is not more festive, and why joy isn’t rising out of us more loudly.45

43 “Wien, 10. September,” Neue freie Presse, September 11, 1883. 44 Charles, the Duke of Lorraine, was the son-in law of Kaiser Leopold I, who ruled Austria in 1683. Wheatcroft writes of him as an unrefined man, gifted in the art of war, and one of the better military choices that the Kaiser made during the siege. Wheatcroft, The Enemy at the Gate, 104. 45 „Wien, 10. September,“ Neue freie Presse, September 11, 1883; “Es bleibt unbegrüßt an dem glanzvollsten Ehrentage seiner Geschichte und feiert das Gedächtniß der Heldenthat seiner Bürger und der kaiserlichen Besatzung, mit welcher es die Monarchie, ja den Welttheil gerettet, wie ein städtisches Local-Ereiguiß. Diese angeblich so dynastisch treuen Slaven bleiben der Feier fern, ja sie konnten nicht umhin, den unsterblichen Ruhm des Lothringers, des Führers der Entsatz-Armee, der die österreichische Herrscherfamilie so ruhmvoll in die Geschichte unseres Landes eingeführt, zu Gunsten ihrer polnischen und czechisch-n Heroen zu schmälern. An all diese widerwärtigen Erscheinungen müssen wir erinnern, wenn wir der officiösen und der Welt überhaupt erklären wollen, weshalb die Stimmung in Wien nicht festlicher, die Freude nicht lauter sich erhebt.“ Page | 38

The Neue freie Presse suggested that the very fact that national demands like those of the Czechs continued at a time when the city ought to be celebrating its own bravery was a sign of ingratitude on the part of these minorities and diminished their claims of loyalty to the empire.

This allegation of ingratitude presupposed the notion that Germans were responsible for the wellbeing of Slavic minorities and for their salvation from the Ottoman forces centuries earlier, a presupposition which, if accepted by readers, would concede the legitimacy of German nationalism in the empire.

As the Neue freie Presse’s article goes on to explain, Czech demands on the Habsburg crown were undermining German control. The Czechs of 1883 were not the friends of liberals, having leveraged their sizeable minority within the empire as well as the increasing democratization of the parliament to bargain for increased representation, resulting in the loss of the liberal majority and the conferment of the position of prime minister on the controversial

Eduard Taaffe in 1879.46 Taaffe himself had deliberately empowered Czechs in the 1870s by promising concessions to some of their demands, since these demands constituted direct challenges to the liberal stronghold on political power in the Austro-Hungarian state, a political monopoly which Taaffe hoped to destroy.47 Czech demands had included limiting the centralization of the monarchy’s power within Vienna, pushing instead for a federalization of the already dualist monarchy, a fragmentation which would further diminish ethnic Germans’ executive power within the empire. Further, Czechs had pushed for greater official recognition of the Czech language, given the high number of people using the language in Habsburg-Czech

Bohemia and Moravia compared to those using the official German.48 Within the city of Vienna

46 Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 27. 47 Judson, Exclusive Revolutionaries, 195-198. 48 Jeffery W. Beglaw, The German National Attack on the Czech Minority in Vienna, 1897– Page | 39 itself, the growth of the Czech population further emphasized the extent of this growing threat against German primacy within the empire. If Taaffe wanted to maintain his anti-liberal coalition’s power, he would have no choice but to reach a compromise with the minority. Jeffrey

Beglaw writes that, “the concessions which [Taaffe] gave to the Czechs […] caused the German speakers to react against what they saw as a government acquiescing to the demands of the

Slavs.”49 German liberals would vehemently oppose the imposition of Czech-empowering reforms, viewing them (rightly) as harbingers of liberal political downfall. It is therefore unsurprising that the Czechs were among the primary targets of liberal outcry, and useful straw- men for the broader issue of rising nationalism within the empire which had also taken hold among other Slavic peoples.

Through its references to an enemy attacking from within, combined with its complaints regarding Czech national efforts to find heroes of their own within the siege legend, the Neue freie Presse advanced an implicit narrative of Germanness yet again under siege.50 Other publications, like the satirical liberal weekly Wiener Caricaturen, would take this narrative a step further, taking on the matter of the Czech threat much more explicitly. In the late summer and early autumn of 1883, the Österreichischer Kunstverein (Austrian Art Society/Club) ran an exhibition of a large theatrical painting entitled “Wiens Todesangst (1683),” or “Vienna’s mortal fear” (figure 2). The Todesangst painting was advertised in several newspapers as depicting “the view from an Ottoman tent before the city of Vienna on the last night of the siege at the hands of the Turks, from which the mystifying image of a cross looming above St. Stephen’s Cathedral

1914, as Reflected in the Satirical Journal “Kikeriki”, and its Role as a Centrifugal Force in the Dissolution of Austria-Hungary, Master’s Thesis, (Ann Arbor: Simon Fraser University, 2004), 7-9; Judson, Exclusive Revolutionaries, 195-197 . 49 Beglaw, "The German National Attack on the Czech Minority in Vienna, 9. 50 Healy, "1883 Vienna in the Turkish Mirror,” 108. Page | 40 can be seen.”51 This striking description of the painting excites the imagination of the reader, vividly reenacting the threat of the foe and reminding readers of the siege’s historical proximity to themselves, even mentioning the city’s tallest (at the time) and most noticeable extant landmark, St. Stephen’s Cathedral, to imbue the reader with a personal connection to the danger.

It is understandable, therefore, that this advertisement itself became a popular symbol of the buzz surrounding the siege bicentennial, and the advertisement and the exhibition both became easy targets for the satirical publications in print in Vienna in 1883.

Figure 2: Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung, June 18, 1883. Advertisement of an exhibition commemorating the second siege. The painting depicted attacking Turks, and this advertisement would be satirized repeatedly to invoke different contemporary foes.52 One of the satirized versions of the advertisement appeared in Wiener Caricaturen’s July

8th issue. The Caricaturen advertisement imagines an exhibition taking place two hundred years later, in the year 2083, showing a painting entitled “Wiens Todesangst 1883” (figure 3). In the fictional painting, the advertisement states, viewers can see “the capital city in its last desperate struggle against overwhelming power of its Czech opponents,” with a cross visible above the city, “which the era of Taaffe has imposed upon the city,” a reference to Taaffe’s pro-clerical

51 “Österreichische Kunstverein,” Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung, June 18, 1883. 52 “Österreichische Kunstverein,” Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung, June 18, 1883. Page | 41 policy reforms which had undone years of liberal restriction of religious political might. And in the background of this spectacle, one can even see the Poles and German-clericals waiting eagerly to rush the city and replace the besieged Bürgertum once it has been defeated.53 The imagery here is, like the advertisement it imitates, incredibly vivid, and the implications are clear: the Czechs, the clericals, and Taaffe himself are to be feared just as the Turks were feared.

But while the image is clearly intended to evince a sense of danger, the prediction put forth by the Caricaturen is an optimistic one. For if the Czechs, Clericals, and Poles indeed occupy the same position as the Turks once did, then these new foes are doomed to be defeated as the old ones were. Still, the comparison of this new threat to the former does make it clear how necessary it had become in the eyes of liberals to vigorously defend themselves against their rising opponents, even if liberals maintained an internal assurance of their own staying power.

Figure 3: Wiener Caricaturen, July 8, 1883. Satirized advertisement of an exhibition for a siege-commemoratory painting. It describes a fictional exhibition in the year 2083, with a painting depicting attacking Czechs.

53 “Zukunftsbild aus einer Ausstellung des Kunstvereines im Jahre 2083,” Wiener Caricaturen, July 8, 1883. Page | 42

In his analysis of similar depictions of the Czechs in Kikeriki in the 1890s, Jeffrey

Beglaw describes the purpose of such depictions as creating “an image of the Czechs as being both different and inferior to the Germans,” convincing readers of a reality “which would make

Germans more receptive to notions that [Czechs] were a negative element both in the city, and in

Austria, whose goal was to usurp the power of the Germans: a goal that had to be challenged with stiff resistance.”54 Framing the Czechs as enemies tantamount to the former “Turkish” threat, Wiener Caricaturen assumes the superiority of Germanness to the cultural and political aims of the advancing Czechs, and seeks to grant these threatened Germans the same status as those heroic Austrian and Prussian Germans who defended the city in 1683.

Other national minorities in the empire would also face criticism on the occasion of the bicentennial. After all, Czechs were not the only nationality challenging liberal hegemony with demands for further recognition. Poles in Habsburg Galicia had posed considerable challenges to liberal power in parliament since the 1860s by advocating for more provincial power and similar linguistic recognition to that demanded by Czechs, and were thus also targets of liberal jabs.55

The humorous weekly paper Die Bombe (The Bomb) compared the Poles of 1883 to the Poles of

1683, who had helped to reclaim the city of Vienna from the attacking Ottoman forces in the dramatic Battle of Kahlenberg on September 12, 1683. Die Bombe reimagines the historical

Polish “conquest” much more negatively, publishing an address “for historians” in its June 24,

1883 issue, asking, “when did the Poles conquer more: 1683 or 1883?” (figure 4).56 The paper implied that contemporary Polish national demands amounted to a similar “conquest” to that achieved by Sobieski-led Polish forces during the siege, somehow managing to paint even siege-

54 Beglaw, The German National Attack on the Czech Minority in Vienna, 99. 55 Judson, Exclusive Revolutionaries, 102, 119, 125. 56 „Für Historkier,“ Die Bombe, June 24, 1883; „Wann haben die Polen mehr erobert: 1683 oder 1883?“ Page | 43 time heroes in a negative light. While the siege-era Poles had not been enemies, the manipulation of this historical moment would still have conjured images of violent Polish hussars descending down the Kahlenberg, intent on claiming the empire’s capital city.57

Figure 4: Die Bombe, June 24, 1883. A question posed to historians, asking whether Poles conquered more in 1683 or 1883. Likely intended to criticize Polish national demands. Another external enemy to liberalism would pop up in the coverage of the bicentennial: rising conservative and future mayor of Vienna Karl Lueger. Though Lueger’s primary period of influence would not come for more than a decade, his opposition to liberalism was already pronounced enough by1883 to make him a target for ridicule by liberal publications, satirical or otherwise. Lueger had been a prominent member of the ultimately doomed anti-liberal United

Left party since its founding in 1878, writing its political program (which renounced the restrictive curia-based voting system) and even running as the party’s candidate for vice-mayor of Vienna in 1881, though he would ultimately not win the position.58 He was not yet the chief enemy of liberals, as he would later become once he switched his allegiance to Christian

Socialism and ultimately won the position of mayor in 1896, but he was already remarkably unpopular with them. His involvement with the siege commemoration would prove too good an opportunity for liberal publications to pass up.

57Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 167; Polish hussars were cavalry-style infantry whose service proved instrumental in the defeat of the besieging Ottoman forces. 58 Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 198-201. Page | 44

In the lead-up to the bicentennial, a Volksfest which was to take place in Vienna’s Prater

(a large public park area across the Danube from the city center) was cancelled by the city’s primarily liberal-controlled Gemeinderat, or city council, of which conservative Karl Lueger was a prominent member at the time. There would of course be many other celebrations on the siege anniversary in September of 1883, but the Volksfest was still set to have been a popular attraction. The cancellation drew sharp criticism of the Gemeinderat, as well as Lueger himself.

The dimensions of this controversy are difficult to grasp exactly. Lueger and the few other conservatives on the Gemeinderat in 1883 were certainly in the minority, as the Vienna city government of 1883 was primarily liberal. Yet, in the case of the Volksfest cancellation, liberal publications chose to single out those conservative interests and blame them for what seems to have been an almost universally unpopular decision (as conservative papers would also blame the liberals on the Gemeinderat for the cancellation). Kikeriki modified the same “Todesangst” advertisement on August 9, 1883 for the purpose of ridiculing the Volksfest cancellation, to slightly less dramatic effect than those versions concerning Czechs (figure 5).59 The satirized advertisement recommended that the painting at the center of the exhibition be renamed from

“Vienna’s mortal fear (1683)” to “the Fear of the Instigators of 1883,” in light of the fact that

“certain leaders” apparently feared that a Volksfest would take place in spite of their decision forbidding that particular festival.

59 “Wiens Todesangst 1683,” Kikeriki, August 9, 1883. Page | 45

Figure 5: Kikeriki, August 9, 1883. Satirized version of an advertisement for a painting entitled "Wiens Todesangst (1683)," ("Vienna's mortal fear (1683)"). This satirization proposes that the exhibition be renamed "The mortal fear of the instigators."60 Notably, this advertisement, while critical of the decisions of Lueger’s Gemeinderat, does not mention Lueger by name. Kikeriki was certainly not the “liberal mouthpiece” that the Neue freie Presse was, and its image-based medium also made it attractive to parts of Vienna that were generally left behind by liberalism, namely the lower classes who were much less literate in high-standard German.61 Julia Secklehner writes of Kikeriki that, “the magazine was initially liberal and pro-Jewish. This changed in the 1880s under the influence of editor-in-chief Friedrich

Ilger.” 62 This meant that the political humor offered by Kikeriki, while still liberal-leaning by

1883, would have a much more malleable political perspective, so that the journal would eventually end up as an anti-Semitic publication which actually supported Lueger and other conservatives. Since anti-Semitism had already taken root in Vienna and in Lueger himself by

60 “Wiens Todesangst 1683,” Kikeriki, August 9, 1883. 61 Beglaw, The German National Attack on the Czech Minority in Vienna, 12, 78. 62 Julia Secklehner, “Bolshevik Jews, Aryan Vienna? Popular Antisemitism in ‘Der Kikeriki’, 1918–1933,” The Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 63, no.1, (2018): 157–178, 160. Page | 46 the early 1880s, the journal’s shifting perspective would have prevented it from directly criticizing Lueger by name, even if it did continue to primarily represent the liberal perspective.63

Other publications did not exercise the same restraint. The humorous weekly Figaro, in its cartoon-based July 28, 1883, Wiener Luft (Viennese air) insert, did not pull any punches in its coverage of the citywide disappointment over the cancellation, pointedly directing the blame toward Lueger.64 The issue contains many references to the upcoming bicentennial as well as direct mentions of Lueger, including a fictional schedule of events for the siege anniversary of

September 12th. This schedule lists some of the attractions which were allegedly set to take place instead of the Volksfest, including “giant salamanders driven under the command of Dr. Lueger for the honor of the conciliation-era and the conciliation-ministry,” wherein the allusions to

“conciliation” likely refer to Lueger’s desire appeal to Prime Minister Taaffe, then infamous for his compromises with or “conciliation” of the Czechs.65 The issue goes on to list the “menu for the cheerless lunch of the Vienna Gemeinderat,” a seven-course meal involving “sadness-soup,”

“condolence-truffle-pie,” and, to drink, “the tears of Christ,” (an actual wine called Lacryma

Christi does exist, but in this context the author interprets its name literally as the humorous paper may have intended).66 Figaro, like Kikeriki, published sections written entirely in

Viennese dialect, making its pieces accessible to the greater Viennese population and appealing to a sense of local authenticity in its readers. However, in spite of their obvious differences, the journal engaged in the same sort of finger-pointing at external enemies to liberalism as did the much more refined Neue freie Presse. Indeed, the same issue would feature cartoons

63 Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 95. 64 “Wiener Luft,” Figaro, July 28, 1883. 65 “Festprogramm für das Volksfest am 12. September,” Figaro, July 28, 1883. 66 “Menu für das düstere Stimmungs-Dejeuner des Wiener Gemeinderathes am 12, September d. J.,” Wiener Luft, Figaro, July 28, 1883. Page | 47 complaining of the Czech issue with captions like, “in Bohemia, the Germans are now supposed to become bilingual (two-tongued),” alongside an image of a German Austrian having his tongue sliced in half, as well as cartoons bashing clericalism (figure 6).67

Figure 6: Figaro, July 28, 1883. Drawing playing off of the idea of Germans in Czech Bohemia being forced to become bilingual, or "two-tongued." As Boyer and Judson describe above, the entrenchment of liberals along ethnic lines and the dependence on images of external enemies to spark a meaningful liberal response to their changing political circumstances was as much an indication of their need to overcome internal division as it was a reflection of their sense of external danger. In keeping with this tactic, liberal publications would both attack their enemies and call for the unity of their readers in the same breath. Die Presse, whose editorial version of the siege legend on the occasion of the bicentennial is less divisive and defensive than that of the Neue freie Presse but still invokes the idea of threats to Germandom, writes of the centuries-past siege battle that:

67 „In Böhmen sollen die Deutschen doppelzüngig gemacht werden,“ Figaro, July 28, 1883. Page | 48

Destiny unified us, common interest unified us, common need unified one and the same dynasty, and only unified can we pay tribute to and preserve the work which our ancestors have done and for which we owe them the sincerest thanks.68 The paper’s emphasis on the unity of Vienna’s 1683 defense forces regardless of national origin or financial stature here is not entirely incorrect, given the extent to which Poles, Germans, and

Austrians cooperated in the city’s relief forces.69 But the paper’s later assertions that citizens became defense fighters and managed to cooperate in spite of class differences had already been the subject of some (unpopular) pushback from conservative historian Onno Klopp in his 1882 book Das Jahr 1683 und der folgende grosse Türgenkrieg bis zum frieden von Carlowitz 1699

(The Year 1683 and the Subsequent Great Turkish War Until the Peace of Carlowitz), in which

Klopp brought to light the fact that tens of thousands of bourgeois Viennese Bürger had, in fact, fled the city in the days before the siege in 1683.70 Liberal politicians and historians vehemently resisted this version of the narrative, which besmirched the otherwise clean, undoubtable heroism of the city’s siege defenders, and upended the popular narrative of the everyday-Bürger-turned- defender.

Still, Die Presse invoked the notion of the unified, brave citizenry of Vienna without any qualification, and used the lesson of this version of the narrative to advance its key point: if the

Viennese of two hundred years ago could unite in the face of their opponents, then liberals of

1883 ought to follow their lead. The paper closed out its leading September 11th editorial with the exhortation that:

68 „Wien, 10. September,“ Die Presse, September 11, 1883; “Vereint hat uns das Geschick, vereint hat uns das gleiche Interesse, das gleiche Bedürfniß-, vereint ein und dasselbe Herrscherhaus, und nur vereint können wir das Werk erhalten, das unsere Ahnen geschaffen und wofür wir ihnen selbst bei jeder Gelegenheit den innigsten Dank bezeugen.“ 69 Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 137, 164-166. 70 Healy, "1883 Vienna in the Turkish Mirror,” 108; Anita Mayer-Hirzberger, “Die Türken vor Wien (‘The Turks at the gates of Vienna’): Music and drama for the 200th commemoration day of the Second Turkish Siege of Vienna – between patriotism and entertainment,” Mousikos Logos 1, no.1 (2014): pages not numbered. Page | 49

The memories that so strongly permeate our current time, which we gladly yield to, tell us what we as politicians should do with this commemoration festival, what we must do in order to raise up the city and to preserve the state, and to manifest German sense and German spirit. The sons of the allies, of the nations whom fate and common interest brought together two hundred years ago under the gates of Vienna, have the same reasons today to work and fight together in the spirit of their ancestors. Whoever supports this alliance of nations, this alliance of states, he is a friend of Vienna, a friend of Austria, and a friend of the German people.71 The call for unity here is an appeal to the same sort of universalism which characterized liberalism’s public image in previous decades, and ultimately comes off as disingenuous in light of the simultaneous appeals to German nationalism and other divisive tactics employed by liberal publications in 1883. In its September 12th issue, Die Presse would go on to use the occasion of the opening of the new Rathaus (city hall), happening on the same day as the bicentennial’s high point, to draw on an attitude of optimism, taking the perspective that, if the city could accomplish so much between the end of the 1683 siege and the opening of this monumental new city building, then the “elastic temperament” of the Viennese would surely bounce back from its temporarily depressed and divided mood and return to its former stature.72 Die Presse’s optimism in this case carries specific ideological weight, calling on readers to act in the direction of a particular future—one in which Germanness has been restored to its “rightful” position and contemporary threats have been vanquished.

Conclusion

71 „Wien, 10. September,“ Die Presse, September 11, 1883; “Die Erinnerungen, die mächtig in diesen Tagen auf uns eindringen, denen wir uns gerne ergeben, sie sagen uns auch, wie wir als Politiker das Säcularfest zu begehen haben, was wir thun müssen, um die Stadt zu heben, den Staat zu erhalten, deutschen Sinn und deutschen Geist zu bekunden. Die Söhne der Bundesgenossen, der Nationen, welche das gleiche Geschick und gleiche Interesse vor zweihundert Jahren unter den Thoren von Wien zusammengeführt, sie haben auch heute gleichen Grund, zusammenzuhalten und im Geiste der Ahnen zu arbeiten und zu kämpfen. Wer dieses Bündniß der Nationen, dieses Bündniß der Staaten fördert, der ist ein Freund Wiens, ein Freund Österreichs, ein Freund des deutschen Volkes.“ 72 “Zur Vollendung des Rathausbaues,” Die Presse, September 11, 1883. Page | 50

Liberalism’s fraught position as of 1883 necessitated some form of action to get the newly expanded voting public back on its side if bourgeois dominance were to be maintained.

Optimism and unity were attractive tools, signaling an at least performative effort to return to the formerly less divisive political basis of the liberal program. But reality would prove a harsh motivator, and, as Boyer writes, “to the extent that extreme German nationalism and the earlier national moderation of the Austrian Liberals were mutually exclusive—and most older Liberals felt they were—the former rather than the latter was bound to prosper.”73 More extreme tactics won out as a matter of desperation, prompted by the liberal desire to fend off attacks on their quickly waning political relevance. While the city as a whole would engage in some much richer, more genuine historical and artistic commemorations of its victory over its once mighty foe, the legend of the 1683 siege would be transformed into a tool of personal justification for Vienna’s liberals, propping up claims of German superiority on the basis of their distant, alleged heroism, and further justifying the debasement of increasingly emboldened national minorities.

Furthermore, liberal publications took advantage of the occasion of the siege bicentennial to combat the threat of class tensions. The Neue freie Presse and its peers leveraged their widespread popularity combined with common familiarity with siege symbolism to both supplant historical fear for the “Turks” with contemporary fear for changes in the bourgeois status quo and to establish themselves as the rightful inheritors of the heroism represented by

Vienna’s siege victory. Situating themselves in the world of 1683 had the added benefit of shielding liberal bourgeois protectionism behind a localized, relatable patriotism which nominally praised the former everyday citizens of the city. Even as liberal policies upheld a social dynamic in which upper-class Bürger possessed the majority of political power, liberal

73 Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 2. Page | 51 emphasis on the achievements and unity of the former city population (allegedly regardless of national and class differences) in the context of the siege itself provided a rhetorical smokescreen through which liberals seemed to be champions of the everyday Wiener or low-Bürger. The consequent usefulness of the common siege legend as an arena for liberal self-promotion and criticism of contemporary enemies cannot be overstated. At a turning point in the political status quo, the anniversary of the 1683 siege of Vienna provided declining liberal interests with an invaluable chance to reassert their own values and defend their own mission via a set of common associations and under the guise of historical commemoration. Page | 52

The Rescue of Christendom:

Conservative Framing of the Siege

Introduction

The political manipulation of siege commemoration was not one-sided. Just as increasingly threatened liberal ideologies found purchase in the fertile collective interest in the story of 1683, so too did the conservative press begin to leverage the occasion of the celebrations to further legitimate conservative ideology’s ascension to political prominence in the early

1880s.1 Through the Catholic-conservative newspaper Das Vaterland (The Fatherland), supporters of Taaffe and Lueger would express their dismay at perceived contemporary attacks against Catholicism, using the occasion of the siege to engage in a campaign of intense anti-

Semitism and to accuse the broader liberal electorate of having similar aims to those of the historical “Turks”: the overthrow of Christendom with a flood of “heathens.”2 When imposed upon the siege legend, the conservative paradigm supplants liberals for the anti-Catholic enemy, and establishes conservatism as the ersatz savior of Vienna, leveraging contemporary support for the historical saviors in pursuit of potential political advancement.3

The heated conservative backlash in support of Catholicism was to be expected, given the level of criticism that clericalism—and the church more broadly—had faced at the hands of the liberal press. As discussed in the previous chapter, the resistance of clericalism, or Catholic

1 Maureen Healy, “1883 Vienna in the Turkish Mirror,” Austrian History Yearbook 40, (2009): 101-113, 110; Johannes Feichtinger and Johann Heiss, “Wiener ‘Türkengedächtnis’ im Wandel. Historische und anthropologische Perspektiven,” Austrian Journal of Political Science 38, no. 2 (2009): 249-263, 255. 2 „Die Fanatiker der Brandlegung,“ Das Vaterland, Sept 7, 1883; Sandra Bittman, “Der mediale Diskurs um die zweite Türkenbelagerung Wiens zwischen 1683 und heute,” Master’s Thesis, (Vienna: University of Vienna, 2008), 135-136. 3 Feichtinger and Heiss, “Wiener ‘Türkengedächtnis’ im Wandel,“ 250.

Page | 53 interference with and influence on politics, was a key tenet of liberal thought as of the early

1880s.4 The continual reliance on the church in the political sphere was incompatible with the liberal program of progress, and stripping the church of its former political authority was therefore an important part of the liberal platform at the time of the bicentennial. By contrast, conservatism resisted liberal notions of progress as destructive to the former way of life enjoyed in the empire. The conservative platform reacted by attempting to restore some elements which had been lost to the liberal vision.5 This restoration effort took on the status of the Church as one of its main projects, bemoaning the embarrassingly limited scope of Church power as of the early

1880s. The Catholic Church’s former status as the “center point of the community,” as well as the formerly respectable position of the clergy within Viennese society, had been degraded by decades of liberal rule. Religious officials’ power decreased gradually into the late 1870s, as clerics even found themselves controversially excluded from the public education system in which they had formerly held important roles.6

Clerics were not content to endure the drastic reduction of their social stature, and they appealed to Prime Minister Taaffe’s government for the restoration of their roles after his election in 1879, eventually seeing some improvement of their positions with a bill forced through the government by Taaffe in May of 1883. John W. Boyer writes that, “in rejecting liberal culture, the clerics demanded a return to the values of the past.”7 Liberalism had brought

4 John W. Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna: Origins of the Christian Social Movement, 1848- 1897, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 28-33. 5 Pieter M. Judson, Exclusive Revolutionaries: Liberal Politics, Social Experience, and National Identity in the Austrian Empire, 1848-1914, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 194-201; „Liberale Gleichberechtigung,“ Das Vaterland, September 27, 1883. 6 Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 150. 7 Ibid, 149; Boyer emphasizes that the roots of the decline in clerical power actually dated back to 1780, far predating liberal hegemony in Austria, arguing that “the traditional symbiosis of clergy and state in Austria seemed to be at the root of all their problems.”

Page | 54 the church considerable trouble, and conservatives rightly feared that they would face further diminishment of clerical power if the liberal status quo were to be restored. Conservatives were therefore eager to take advantage of the conservative majority in parliament and newly conservative seats in the Viennese Gemeinderat (including that of Lueger who was elected in

1883) to fervently pursue new reforms which would solidly protect the privileges of the Church.

Viennese conservatives traced many social ills back to the liberal contempt for

Catholicism, further legitimating conservative policy issues through the righteous status afforded by protecting what was sacred. This reasoning explains why, for conservatives, even labor reform was a matter of protecting religion from the attacks of liberal “heathenism” (as Das

Vaterland often calls it). They saw contemporary “economic misery” as a consequence of liberalism, attributing unrest among “the master handworkers [artisans], the small farmers, and the urban workers” to “a godless capitalism” which had been introduced during the liberal era and which was very closely associated with the city of Vienna’s Jewish population.8 Das

Vaterland, in a brutally anti-Semitic article regarding a recent spate of fires throughout Vienna, somehow manages to wedge the issue of capitalist/liberal oppression of Catholicism into the matter, writing that:

On Sundays, as on workdays, the chimneys of our factories continue to smoke, the machines still hum, the streets are still ridden with massive carriages, the work carries on at construction sites. At least until late morning, during church services; in the afternoon the debased people are freed to visit the taverns. That is the way to ultimately bestialize

8 Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 42-45, 159, 204; Jacques Le Rider, Modernity and Crises of Identity: Culture and Society in Fin De Siècle Vienna, (New York: Continuum Intl. Publishing Group, 1993), 17-21; Le Rider discusses Austria-Hungary’s generally sluggish economic modernization and industrialization, ascribing the empire’s slow embrace of more modern systems to aristocratic resistance to change. Le Rider writes that, „the aristocracy was suspicious of industrial investment and would only engage in it under the protection of monopolies guaranteed by the administration on a mercantilist basis,” arriving at an analysis of Austrian economic “’backwardness’” and elaborating that “in general it seems that anti-capitalist forces were still dominant in the Austria of 1900, perhaps as a long-term consequence of the Counter-Reformation.” Conservative/Catholic resistance against economic modernization, therefore, had a very powerful and direct impact on the labor structure of the empire for decades.

Page | 55

the worker who has been robbed of every Christian ennoblement. The traveler who comes from Germany to Vienna, irrespective of whether he comes from the Catholic south or from the Protestant north, is shocked by this unchristian and inhuman scandal. It would take an iron-clad mind to deny it. […] The wretched attacks of Jewish-liberalism on our social endeavors show that with them it is coming shamefully to an end. It’s high time!9 As conservatives understood it in 1883, the advancements of liberal society were deliberate obstacles to religious practice, both hindering church-going and encouraging worldly vices. The

Vaterland’s proposition that urban/industrial work not only harms the worker by preventing him from attending church, but also embarrasses the city of Vienna in the eyes of its fellow

Christians and Germans to the north, rallied readers’ religious sentiments in opposition of the liberalized economy, and also drew in disgruntled workers with less concern for clericalism than for their own working conditions.

Indeed, supporters of the conservative parliament as of 1883 aligned themselves against the liberal program for different reasons, some accepting conservative anti-industrialism for the sake of defending Catholicism, and some accepting the defense of Catholicism if it meant the reform of the labor and electoral systems.10 Boyer writes that, “most lower-Bürger voters were not ‘pro-Czech’ or ‘pro-clerical,’ but they were increasingly interested in special interest policies which would enhance their economic security,” and elaborates that, “for most of the Third Curia

9 „Die Fanatiker der Brandlegung,“ Das Vaterland, Sept 7 1883; „Am Sonntage, wie am Werktage dampfen durchwegs die Rauchfänge unserer Fabriken, ertönt das Geräusch der Maschinen, sind die Straßen mit schwerem Fuhrwerk erfüllt, wird auf den Bauplätzen gearbeitet. So wenigstens des Vormittags, zur Zeit des Gottesdienstes; der Nachmittag wird den entwürdigten Menschen wohl zum Besuche der Schänken freigegeben. Das ist der Weg, um den jeder menschlichen Ruhe, jeder christlichen Erhebung beraubten Arbeiter schließlich zu bestialisieren. Der Reisende, der aus Deutschland, einerlei ob aus dem katholischen Süden, oder aus dem protestantischen Norden nach Wien kommt, ist betroffen über diesen unchristlichen und inhumanen Scandal. Es gehört eine gepanzerte Stirne dazu, ihn ableugnen zu wollen. […] Die jammervollen Angriffe des Juden-Liberalismus auf unsere socialen Bestrebungen zeigen, dass es mit ihm schmählich zu Ende geht. Es ist die höchste Zeit dazu!” 10 For instance, Czechs, who accepted the conservative platform of Taaffe’s party for the sake of obtaining greater political power/enfranchisement.; Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 204, 209-210; Judson, Exclusive Revolutionaries, 195; Carl E. Schorske, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture, (New York: Knopf: Distributed by Random House, 1980), 125.

Page | 56 voters enfranchised in the 1880s nationalism […] was rapidly becoming [a] secondary issue.”11

Conservatism therefore faced limited internal friction relative to that endured by the fractured liberal program of the same era, as adherents had more to gain in uniting by the up-and-coming political newcomer than they did in challenging the specifics of the conservative platform.

The conservative efforts in opposition of recent liberal changes to the empire leveraged the support of those communities who had been left behind by liberal notions of progress, elevating the urban poor and the clerics to a status of political relevance from which they had previously been completely excluded. Appalled at the liberal legacy of the “anti-Catholic” system, the Taaffe government actively attempted to undo some of what had been accomplished in the 1860s and 1870s, introducing laws that reversed elements of this newly industrialized economy. In the early 1880s, conservatives “wrote legislation to […] reorganize and strengthen the artisan industry […] Blaming the liberals for aiding heavy industry with generous state funds during the 1870s while ignoring the plight of handworkers, the conservatives also determined to revive artisanal production.”12 Conservatives thus utilized their newly established political power to rally behind the “little man,” the lower-middle-class Viennese Bürger, in a move that vastly increased the range of their popular support and enabled them to fairly claim to represent a legitimate type of social unity which liberals of the same era could only pretend to support.

In advocating for the urban poor and the industrial workers of the empire, conservatives supported exactly those populations whom liberals had long claimed—and failed to—represent, highlighting the hypocrisy of the formerly unchallenged political model and further pushing for reform of the system.13 The added benefit of this approach was that, when combined with

11 Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 209. 12 Judson, Exclusive Revolutionaries, 199. 13 Ibid, 194.

Page | 57

Taaffe’s expansion of the franchise, conservative policies that benefitted the formerly apolitical

“little man” vastly expanded conservatism’s appeal to include “newly enfranchised small businessmen, farmers, and artisans” as well as the Czechs with whom Taaffe brokered many compromises in order to strengthen his coalition against liberals.14 The effectiveness of this model enabled conservatives to pose an existential threat to Viennese liberals. They drew on far more than the pure novelty of an alternative to the once dominant liberal powerhouse, bringing to light the shortcomings of their predecessors and sparking elaborate showdowns between the news organs of both sides.

The contemporary political quarrels between liberalism and conservatism mobilized intense disagreements over the nature of the siege bicentennial in Vienna. After all, the opportunity to connect one’s political program with the popular lore of the empire’s capital city was valuable for both sides of the political spectrum. While the bicentennial allowed liberals to draw on the German nationalist aspects of the legend to more firmly establish their new nationalist bent, it also presented conservatism, a newcomer to political dominance in the empire, the chance to historicize its platform, reminding commemoration participants of the similarities between their efforts on behalf of Catholicism and the 1683 heroic defense of Christendom. The idea of returning to a past when the Church had a robust political and social presence was thus an attractive element of the conservative platform, and clerics had already shown a willingness to manipulate history in order to justify their importance. What better historical moment to manipulate for this purpose than the second Turkish siege, when Christendom had rebuffed its most notorious historical foe? 1883 was therefore an auspicious moment for the commemoration

14Jeffrey Beglaw, The German National Attack on the Czech Minority in Vienna, 1897–1914, as Reflected in the Satirical Journal “Kikeriki”, and its Role as a Centrifugal Force in the Dissolution of Austria-Hungary, Master’s Thesis, (Burnaby, BC: Simon Fraser University, 2004), 9; Judson, Exclusive Revolutionaries, 195, 198; Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 209.

Page | 58 to take place, a moment whose political texture provided for the intense scrutiny not only of the minute details of the siege, but also of the overarching meaning of the conflict, ensuring that the anniversary could by no means pass unnoticed.15 Conservative Catholic interests would use the bicentennial as an opportunity to call for the defense of Catholicism, lash out at the bourgeois liberal system, and generally stake a claim to a legend which played a crucial role in the

Viennese historical imagination.16

Representations of God in the siege: Papal correspondence in context

Maureen Healy posits that bicentennial Catholic interpretations of the siege hinged on notions of God as a historical actor and emphasized the role he had played in shaping the events of 1683, and a careful analysis of Christian media at the time of the Jubilee confirms Healy’s position.17 In the eyes of Christian participants in the commemoration, just as individual men like

Starhemberg and the Duke of Lorraine received praise for their heroism, so too should God be credited as a legitimate savior of the city. On this point Catholics of 1883 were not entirely wrong. If not God, then at least common religious belief had indeed played a significant role in gathering the necessary forces to resist the besieging Turks. Wheatcroft writes that the Holy

Roman Empire, imperfect as it was as of the late seventeenth century, “had produced both infantry and cavalry, about forty thousand men from both Catholic and Protestant states, for the salvation of Vienna,” motivated at least partly by a common interest in defending Christendom from the mostly Muslim advancing forces and responding to a call to action by the contemporary

15 Healy, “1883 Vienna in the Turkish Mirror,” 103 16 Bittman, “Der mediale Diskurs um die zweite Türkenbelagerung,” 89 17 Healy, “1883 Vienna in the Turkish Mirror,” 110-111; Feichtinger and Heiss, “Wiener ‘Türkengedächtnis’ im Wandel,” 250, 255

Page | 59

Pope, Innocent XI.18 On September 12th, 1883, Das Vaterland published the full text of a letter from Pope Leo XIII, in which the pope wrote of the provision of troops by German-Christian princes and by Catholic Poland as a literal act of God, claiming that, “the victory, to which God in the time of battle lent the allied princes” was a result of the “beneficence of God, the guider of battles.”19 The letter would go on to further recognize not only God but also his earthly representative, Pope Innocent XI, for his role in the protection of the city, writing that, just as

Pius V had helped in battle, so too had Innocent XI aided in the defense of Vienna, “because as he saw Christendom threatened through the violent strength of the Turks […] he directed the strength of his endeavors to influencing the alliance of the Catholic princes, and ensured that

Kaiser Leopold I secured an alliance with the Polish King Johann Sobieski.”20 He had in fact played a role in orchestrating the Christian response to Ottoman invaders, but in 1883, German national ambitions muddied the waters by arguing that the truer motivation of siege defenders had been their common nationality, and that German princes had played a larger role in the defense of the city than had religiously motivated Polish King Sobieski.21 To conservative readers of Das Vaterland, God had exerted both direct and indirect influence on the battles of the

18 Andrew Wheatcroft, The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans and the Battle for Europe, (New York: Basic Books, 2009), 164-165 19 „An Unserem ehrwürdigen Bruder,“ Das Vaterland, Sept 12, 1883; „Der Sieg, welchen Gott in der Schlacht bei Wien den verbündeten Fürsten verliehen hat, war daher von einem wunderbar heilsamen Erfolge für die christliche Welt, die denn auch voll der lebhaftesten Freude eifrigst bemüht war, für die Grösse der empfangenen Wohltat Gott, dem Lenker der Schlachten, ganz besonderen Dank zu zollen.“ 20 „An unserem ehrwürdigen Bruder,“ Das Vaterland, September 12, 1883; „Gleichwie daher mehrere aus ihnen in früheren Zeiten der Befreiung Jerusalems ihre Sorge zuwendeten und wie später der heilige Pius V. der Urheber eines höchst erfolgreichen Seekrieges war, ebenso hat im Jahre 1683 Innocenz XI. jenes grosse Unternehmen angeregt und gefördert; denn als er das Christenthum durch die gewaltige Macht der Türken arg bedroht sah, war er auch überzeugt, dass man die Gefahr auf jede Weise beschwören müssen, richtete daher sein Bemühen dahin, auf die Entschliessungen der katholischen Fürsten Einfluss zu uben, und bewirkte, dass Kaiser Leopold I ein Bündniss schloss mit dem Polenkönige Johann Sobieski.“ 21 Thomas Mack Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent: Vienna’s Second Turkish Siege and Its Historical Setting, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1967), 108-109; Barker claims that the Church had already been exploring ways to resist growing Ottoman influence before they attacked Vienna, and that the subsequent opportunity to chase Ottoman forces out of Hungary and establish Catholic control over those lands had influenced Papal and Polish interest in the conflict.; Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 166

Page | 60 siege, manipulating events himself while also working through the actions of the pope to ensure

Christian cooperation and, by extension, Christian victory.

Emphasis of God’s defining role was not limited to the pope’s commentary alone. A later issue of Das Vaterland would publish a commemorative editorial in which the paper would write of the improbable victory of the relatively few Habsburg soldiers over the sizeable Ottoman- commanded forces. The paper contends that, “the almightiness of God discarded the instruments of battle and put the superior power in the hands of the few. He blinded the boisterous heathens.”22 Conservative angles interpreted the long odds of Habsburg victory as a sign that

God had surely intervened on their behalf to ensure the expulsion of the “Turks.” They could just as easily have ascribed the victory to the superiority of Germans, as liberals had, but in favoring religious rather than national motivations in their interpretations of the siege, Catholic conservatives prioritized of the “spiritual” over the “material.”23

The contention that God ought to be credited as the ultimate deciding factor in the siege, while vital to the conservative interpretation of the legend in 1883, did not find similar favor among liberals. Liberal-leaning satirical papers, in their writings on the siege bicentennial, would ridicule the God-as-savior notion, highlighting German rather than Christian elements of the siege as explored in the previous chapter. In its September 8th, 1883 issue, the weekly satirical paper Figaro would issue a challenge addressed directly to the contemporary pope, entitled “A

Question for Leo XIII,” in which it accused Catholics of bizarrely believing that the liberation of

Vienna had succeeded through the intercession of the Virgin Mary alone (figure 1).24 The

22 „Zur Säcularfeier,“ Das Vaterland, September 12, 1883; „Die Allmacht des Gottes hat das Werkzeug der Strafe verworfen und die Übermüthigen Heiden verblendet.“ 23 Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 159. 24 „Anfrage an Leo XIII,” Figaro Sept 8, 1883.

Page | 61 paper’s next weekly issue, on September 15th, would take similar jabs at the conservative interpretation. The issue included a verse in its bicentennial-retrospective poem “Nach der

Festwoche” or “After the Festival Week” which read jokingly that “one put up with nagging idea, /that the Church had rescued Vienna, /that the same would have been forfeited to the barbarians, /if the pope had not prayed.”25 That Figaro published segments like these suggests that liberal readers were familiar enough with both the conservative political platform and with the Catholic siege interpretation to understand the jokes. Moreover, it indicates that the sectional dueling narratives of liberal Germandom and conservative Christendom did not easily intermingle or recognize the validity of one another, or at least they did not mix easily in the context of the political publications of the respective political platforms. Other more public interpretations of the siege in the form of plays, speeches, and participatory communal events would tend to blur the lines between, or at least establish some conversation within, these two competing siege narratives, alternating between recognizing the importance of the siege victory for both Austria in particular and Christian Europe as a whole and incorporating elements of each version of the narrative to differing degrees.26

Figure 7:Figaro, September 8, 1883. Small entry in a liberal satirical paper mocking the idea that the Virgin Mary alone won the siege.

25“Nach der Festwoche,“ Figaro, Sept 15, 1883; „Man liess sich gefallen das Mährlein gar, /Dass die Kirche Wien hat gerettet, /Dass dieses verfallen wär dem Barbar, /wenn hätte der Papst nicht gebetet.“ 26 Feicthinger and Heiss, “Wiener ‘Türkengedächtnis’ im Wandel,” 250-255.

Page | 62

Conservatives deliberately highlighted their clear allegiance to Catholicism rather than

Germanness in the context of the siege commemoration, particularly when it came to the presentation of Leo XIII’s letter. Many news outlets, including the liberal Neue Freie Presse and

Die Presse, also published all or part of the pope’s letter, which emphasized God’s personal historical importance and expressed the notion that, more than the threat to Vienna and to the

Austrian Empire, the Ottoman forces of 1683 had posed an existential threat to Christendom. The pope wrote that Vienna’s efforts in battle were “not over the Empire and the public welfare alone, but also over religion and Catholic belief […] because the enemy’s intention was the annihilation of Christian gospel and the spread of Mohammedan superstition over all of

Europe.”27 The liberal mouthpiece Neue freie Presse published the pope’s letter in small print toward the middle of the second page of its siege anniversary morning issue, prefacing it with several other news items including a front-page liberal editorial on the significance of the bicentennial for “Germandom,” a response-piece to the political program of the Young Czechs party, and a Bürger-centered siege-story Feuilleton (a type of short-story literary format often printed in newspapers of the day).28 Die Presse would subordinate the pope’s Catholic-centered message even further, relegating it to the middle of its evening issue’s third page and only printing select excerpts from the letter—excerpts which notably did not include the pope’s claims of God’s role in the victory. Above the letter, Die Presse printed news coverage of the

27“Papst Leo XIII,” Die Presse, Sept 12, 1883; An unserer ehrwürdigen Bruder,“ Das Vaterland, Sept 12, 1883; „Inland,“ Neue freie Presse, September 12, 1883; „Nicht um das Reich und die öffentliche Wohlfahrt allein, auch um die Religion und für den Katholischen Glauben wurde bei Wien gefochten denn das Ziel jener feindlichen Einfälle war, nach Vernichtung des christlichen Evangeliums den mohammedanischen Aberglauben über Europa zu verbreiten.“; Bittman, “Der mediale Diskurs um die zweite Türkenbelagerung,” 89. 28 „Wien, 11. September,“ Neue freie Presse, September 12, 1883.

Page | 63 day’s festivities which emphasized a sense of Austrian-specific, rather than universally Christian or Catholic, patriotism and pride.29

By contrast, the conservative Das Vaterland took pains to remind readers that the pope’s message was not merely in honor of the actions of Germans but was rather a message made in praise of all Christendom and its defense against attacking “Turks.” Das Vaterland both made the pope’s letter the first item on its front page and published the text of the message in German and the Catholic-standard Latin, giving over the entire first page and almost half of the second page to both versions of the Catholic figurehead’s interpretation of the siege events.30 This choice in the paper’s layout was in keeping with the general style of Das Vaterland, which regularly published correspondence from the pope and made space for specific columns informing its readers on the news from the Vatican in Rome as well as other more general church news (kirchliche Nachrichten). In so doing, the paper emphasized the broader religious significance of siege victory and of the anniversary itself, giving the original Latin message as much space as it gave the German version (though the German, as the more accessible form of the letter for readers, was printed first).

Toward a united Christendom: Who was invited to commune

Despite of their programmatic differences, the formats of both liberal and conservative siege interpretations fall into formally similar molds: each perspective emphasized a particular threat to the innermost identity of its adherents and called for those adherents’ unity in order to resist said threat. Furthermore, each side drew on the bicentennial’s popular historic notion of a

29 „Papst Leo XIII,“ Die Presse, September 12, 1883; „Die Einweihung des neuen Rathauses,“ Die Presse, September 12, 1883. 30„An unseren ehrwürdigen Bruder,“ Das Vaterland, Sept 12 1883.

Page | 64 heroic defense against a mortal foe in order to justify its call to action. The particularities of liberal and conservative commemoration become more differentiated when examining exactly which groups were called on to unite, and against whom. Where liberals called for class unity in opposition of national demands, conservatives called for Christian unity in spite of national demands, urging certain minority populations in the empire to cooperate along religious lines not only because they were spiritually bound to do so, but also because they owed it to the Christian faith as recompense for its defense of their people and lands during the 1683 siege.31

Jacques Le Rider writes of the impact of nationalism on late nineteenth century Viennese politics as detrimental to political progress and to the formation of positive (that is, generative rather than divisive/sectionalist) political programs. He notes that “nationalist factional interests had ousted party intentions in the Viennese parliament and paralyzed the activity of local political institutions.” It seemed, in the decades following the 1867 dual-monarchist compromise between the Austrian Empire and its largest minority, Hungary, that the so-called “Habsburg myth,” or the “supranational ideology which ought to have brought different nationalities together,” was failing to rein in expanding calls for further power concessions like the one given to Hungary, and even failing to restrain further demands from Hungary itself.32 On August 21,

1883, Das Vaterland would write that:

In the eyes of steady and unbiased observers, it is certain that the political developments within the last decades, the present-day nationalist aspirations, disturbances, riots and open pandemonium are merely a natural consequence of that system which found its official recognition in the year 1867.33

31 „Ungarn und die Wiener September-Feste,“ Das Vaterland, September 12, 1883. 32 Le Rider, Modernity and Crises of Identity, 21; “Pansklavistenhetze in Ungarn,” Das Vaterland, Oct 26, 1882. 33 „Zu den Agramer Demonstrationen,“ Das Vaterland, August 21, 1883.

Page | 65

In order to establish a positive political program, then, rising conservative political interests would need to find a way to overcome the withering effects of nationalist division, a necessity which would explain the conservative calls for national cooperation and Christian unity in the name of a broader notion of Christendom. That is not to say that Catholic conservatives defended religious political might purely out of necessity, nor does this interpretation deny that conservative action was at least partially rooted in a genuine religious faith and allegiance; rather, in light of conservative siege-commemorative writings in the context of the national politics of the early 1880s, it is clear that there was strong interplay between the desire for a unified Christendom and the desire to maintain a static national dynamic within the monarchy.

In practice, conservative attempts to overcome nationalist division would not manifest as all-encompassing, nor would calls for unity ever be equally applied. Das Vaterland took a particularly selective approach to its calls for Christian unity, opting to rebuke the divisive power demands of the Hungarian portion of the empire while notably avoiding discussing the arguably more disruptive demands of the Czechs, on whom the conservative majority in Parliament relied owing to the size of the newly enfranchised Czech voting base.34 In the context of the siege commemoration, this meant that the paper would draw on references to Imre (Emerich) Thököly, the Hungarian traitor who collaborated against Habsburg forces with Ottoman Grand Vizier Kara

Mustafa during the 1683 siege, to emphasize the “treasonous” nature of Hungarian nationalism.35

The paper writes in an article entitled “Ungarn und die Wiener Septemberfeste,” (Hungary and the Viennese September festivities) that, “the lineage of these self-seeking or misguided malcontents is unfortunately not yet extinct. As in those days they would rather have been

34Pieter M. Judson, The Habsburg Empire: A New History, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press, 2016), 258- 259; Sept 12 1883, Das Vaterland, Ungarn und die Wiener Septemberfeste; Onno Klopp, Offenes Sendschreiben an Herrn Bürgermeister Uhl, Das Vaterland, October 26, 1882. 35 Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent, 33-36; Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 108-109.

Page | 66

Turkish than kaiserlich, that is, European: so they cry out today in impotent anger and hate against everything which would protect and advance the togetherness of this monarchy.“36 To work against the desires of the monarchy or the church, then, would be to carry on the legacy of an infamous, treasonous, would-be Ottoman servant—a very useful historical image indeed.

Das Vaterland also insistently reminded Hungarians that, but for the heroic defeat of the attacking “Turks,” Hungary would not have had the benefit of Habsburg rule and would have been just another Ottoman borderland. If agitators of 1683 had their way, according to the paper, then Hungary would have “become a mere historical-political memory” because “wherever the

Turks ruled, there also ruled all of the hardship and barbarism that we encounter in the Turkish lands today.”37 If the Hungarians have benefitted so strongly from Habsburg rule thus far, the paper argues, then there is no sense in resisting Habsburg rule and risking falling into the same chaos as the traitor Thököly once risked creating. In this manner, the fate of various Habsburg nationalities is inextricably linked with the Habsburgs themselves, their siege victory, and, by extension, the will of God, all of which had ostensibly allowed the nations to come together as one unit and thrive. The paper jumps off from its direct discussion of Hungarian and Habsburg roles in the siege to draw vast historical and political conclusions regarding national cooperation in the empire, continuing:

Luckily for the foolish and beguiled, nature and history are stronger factors than the decrepit will of individual people and factions. This monarchy did not arise out of the

36 „Ungarn und die Wiener septemberfeste,“ Das Vaterland, September 12, 1883; „Das Geschlecht dieser selbstsüchtigen oder irregeführten Malcontenten ist leider noch nicht ausgestorben. Wie sie damals lieber ‚türkisch‘ als ‚kaiserlich‘, d.h. europäisch sein wollten: so declamiren sie auch heute in ohnmächtigem Groll und hass gegen Alles, was die enge Zusammengehörigkeit dieser Monarchie schützen und befördern könnte.“ 37 „Ungarn und die Wiener Septemberfeste,“ Das Vaterland, September 12, 1883; „Ungarn war nahe daran, zu einer blossen bistorisch-politischen Reminiscenz zu werden; denn von Grosswardein bis Erlau, Neuhäusel, Kanisca und Fünfkirchen zog sich jener eiserne Ring, den die Unmittelbare Türkenherrschaft um das eroberte Lande gezogen hatte. […] Und wo der Türke gebot, da herrschte auch all das Elend und die Barbarei, der wir heute in den türkischen Ländern begegnen.“; This excerpt also represents one of the more rare acknowledgements of the state of the contemporary Ottoman Empire within commemorative media.

Page | 67

good- and ill will of this or that tribe; it was not the work of “free voting”, rather the Habsburg Empire is the product of natural and historical necessity, created by divine providence. All tribes worked together according to the limitations of their own strengths to build this empire; because they all hold a vital interest in it. That is precisely why this empire does not belong to only this or that singular nation, neither in its genesis nor in its continuation; here there are no privileged tribes, no Spartans or Helots38: rather, just as this empire arose from the cooperation of all, so do all of these nations have an equal claim to the best possible satisfaction and advancement of themselves within this time- honored empire. No fraction is foreign, everyone should feel and recognize this place as his homeland, his fatherland by and large, whose total wellbeing comprises the wellbeing of every individual part.39 The explicit claims put forth by Das Vaterland in its discussion of the ramifications of the

Habsburg victory in the 1683 siege, that nations have always worked together under the care of divine providence and in a unified manner to create the Habsburg Empire as it was in 1883, are a stunningly direct microcosm of the conservative program under Taaffe’s rule as Prime Minister, and almost could not be further from the claims of German national superiority put forth by liberals of the same era.

Das Vaterland rounds out its discussion with the resounding assertion that, if Vienna wishes to celebrate is liberation from “Turkish plight,” then the commemoration ought to remind

“every area of the monarchy” of the role unity played in the great deeds of the siege, and that

“Hungary in particular should take the lessons of history to heart, that not liberalization and

38 In the original German, “Lakädemonier” and “Heloten,” referring to the Spartan warriors and the people whom they enslaved as servants. 39 „Ungarn und die Wiener Septemberfeste,“ Das Vaterland, September 12, 1883; „Zum Glücke für die thörichten und bethörten Menschen sind Natur und Geschichte stärkere Factoren als der hinfällige Wille einzelner Parteien und Fractionen. Diese Monarchie ist nicht aus dem Wohl- oder Übel-wollen dieses oder jenes Volksstammes hervorgegangen; sie war kein Werk der ‚freien Wahl“, sondern das Reich der Habsburger ist das von der göttlichen Providenz geschaffene Product natürlicher und historischer Nothwendigkeit. An seinem Aufbaue haben sämmtliche Volksstämme dieses Reiches nach Massgabe ihrer Kräfte mitgewirkt; denn sie Alle besitzen daran ein vitales Interesse. Eben deshalb gehört dieses Reich aber in seiner Entstehung wie in seinem Bestande nicht nur diesem oder jenem Einzelvolke; es gibt hier keine priviligierten Stämme, keine Lakedämonier und Heloten: sondern gleichwie dieses Reich durch das Zusammenwirken Aller entstanden ist und erhalten wird, ebenso haben auch alle diese Völker ein gleiches Anrecht auf möglichstes Behagen und thunliche Förderung ihrer selbst innerhalb dieser altehrwürdigen Monarchie. Kein Bruchteil ist hier fremd, jeder fühle und erkenne hier seine Heimat, sein Vaterland im großen Ganzen, dessen Gesammtwohl ja das wohl jedes einzelnen Theiles in sich schließt.“

Page | 68 division, but harmony and unification strengthen the people, and perpetuate the monarchy!”40 As previously explained, the conservative press organ would not have been willing to emphasize

Czech nationalist failings due to a political reliance on Czech support, but it still remains remarkable that Das Vaterland would most forcefully rebuke Hungarian aims rather than invoking the broader threat of pan-Slavism, as it had in previous issues in 1883, or at least specifically mentioning other Slavic nationalist movements in its exploration of the significance of the siege bicentennial. Hungarians were, it seemed, a useful enough straw-man to emphasize the paper’s point that a return to the national power dynamics which had made the empire possible and saved it from the Turkish threat would be the best possible solution. And, as previously explored, conservatives (perhaps rightly) perceived the most drastic political changes in the decades preceding the 1883 bicentennial to be direct results of the 1867 dual-monarchy compromise with Hungarians.

The paper would also use very similar language in its discussion of other nationalist demonstrations and demands, even if it did not specifically connect those demands to the siege commemoration by name, as it had with the Hungarian nationalist agitators. In an August 21st,

1883 article regarding nationalist demonstrations in Agram, located in the Habsburg territory of current-day Croatia, Das Vaterland would write that:

Christian-conservative politics recognize and appreciate the entitlement to exist and the development of every viable tribe. Christendom is the holy leader for all people of the world, and does not wish to destroy or absorb them, but rather to enrich them. […] This

40 „Ungarn und die Wiener Septemberfeste,“ Das Vaterland, September 12, 1883; „Wenn also am 12.d.M. in Wien die Erinnerung an die hehre That der Befreiung aus Türkennoth lebhafter ins Gedächtniss tritt, so möge auch das Bewusstsein von den großen staatsbildenden und staaterhaltenden Wirkungen dieser That in allen Gauen der Monarchie lebendig werden und möge man namentlich in Ungarn die Lehre der Geschichte beherzigen, dass nicht Lockerung und Trennung, sondern Annäherung und Einigung die Völker stark, die Reiche dauernd macht! Diesen Wunsch senden wir aus Ungarn nach der Kaiserstadt an ihrem seltenen Ehrentage.“

Page | 69

unjust one-sidedness in the exploitation of and application of the nationalist principle is decidedly unchristian.41 The notion of nationalism as unchristian even when practiced by Christian peoples is a trend which emerges throughout the “Christian-conservative” paper’s publications. It was not a difficult leap for the paper to make, then, to perceive those “unchristian” nationalist agitators as actually anti-Christian, posing a real threat to the existence and advancement of Christendom.

Das Vaterland’s calls for cooperation would not end at the borders of the empire, as the notion of a unified Christendom could be stretched to include all of Europe, and especially those places which had devoted troops to the defense of Vienna during the siege. Previous chapters have discussed how Protestant German princes came to the aid of Habsburg and Polish forces, joining in the relief expedition which finally thwarted Ottoman forces during the battle of

Kahlenberg on September 12th, 1683.42 While liberal outlets emphasized the Germanness of the princes, Das Vaterland and the conservatives whose writings they published would give preference to the implications of German combat aid within the context of the greater European continent. Siege historian Onno Klopp, in an open letter published in Das Vaterland on October

26, 1882 in the aftermath of his siege history’s publication and its subsequent controversy, would respond to liberal critics by emphasizing that his volume was not one meant to glorify Vienna in particular, but was rather meant to reframe discourse on the siege to include the former Holy

Roman Empire, from which aiding siege troops were (somewhat underwhelmingly) drawn.

Klopp writes that:

41 „Zu den Agramer Demonstrationen,“ Das Vaterland, August 21, 1883; „Eine christlich-conservativ Politik anerkennt und würdigt die Existenzberechtigung und die Entwicklung eines jeden lebensfähigen Volstammes. Das Christenthum ist die Heilslehrer für alle Völker der Erde, die sie nicht vernichten, nicht absorbieren, sondern veredeln will. […] Diese ungerechte Einseitigkeit in den Ausbeutung und Anwendung des Nationalitäten-principes ist entschieden unchristlich.“ 42 Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 105.

Page | 70

In the first place I want the record to show that I have not in fact written a history of the city of Vienna, but rather a history of the European implications of the year 1683, with Vienna as its focal point. I believe I can say that the love for Austria was not the weakest motive which led me to this. Because I would like to point out that at the time, when this battle over Vienna raged, Kaiser Leopold I was not only the hereditary lord of the lands which now comprise the empire, but was rather at the same time also the Roman Emperor and the overlord of the German nation.43 Because the time-honored monarchy was once both officially and confessionally associated with other Christian lands in 1683, Klopp’s letter argues, the history of the siege must be told in a manner which acknowledges contemporary national unity’s role in the victory. Klopp goes on to emphasize that the victory “did not only concern the city of Vienna, not only the Habsburg

Monarchy, but also Germany, the entire Occident, and the entire Christendom of 1683,” remarking that “for this victory we have the entire Christendom of the Occident to thank.”44

Klopp and Das Vaterland’s shared vision of a heroic Christendom uniting to rescue itself from the existential Turkish threat harmonizes to some extent with the liberal perception as well as with the image put forth in public media (i.e., plays) of a unified public effort beating back the indomitable Oriental foe, if one broadens one’s definition of what constitutes “public.” For some, this meant praising the roles of German heroes to the exclusion of Slavic heroes like Sobieski (as seen in many siege plays and in the liberal press), and for others it meant the reliance on religious rather than national dimension of the conflict between Christian defenders and a

Muslim (referred to as heathenistic of barbaric) enemy. The particular emphasis on Christian

Germans in the case of Das Vaterland’s publications may have been a part of conservative

43 Onno Klopp, „Offenes Sendschreiben an Herrn Bürgermeister Uhl,“ Das Vaterland, October 26, 1883; „Zuerst bitte ich festzuhalten, dass ich nicht die Geschichte der Stadt Wien im eigentlichen Sinne geschrieben habe, sondern diejenige der europäischen Verwicklung des Jahres 1683, mit Wien als dem Mittelpunkte derselben. Ich glaube sage zu dürfen, dass nicht das schwächste Motiv, welches mich dabei leitete, die Liebe für Österreich war. Denn ich hebe hervor, dass damals, als dieser Kampf um Wien entbrannte, der Kaiser Leopold I. nicht blos der Erbherr der Länder war, die jetzt die Monarchie umfasst, sondern zugleich als römischer Kaiser der Oberherr der Deutschen Nation.“ 44 Onno Klopp, „Offenes Sendschreiben an Herrn Bürgermeister Uhl,“ Das Vaterland, October 26, 1883 ; „Nicht blos die Stadt Wien anging, nicht blos die Monarchie des Hauses Habsburg, sondern auch Deutschland, ja das gesammelte Abendland, die ganze Christenheit von 1683, so sehr, dass diese ganze Christenheit des Abendlandes […] zu danke verpflichtet ist.“

Page | 71 efforts to not entirely exclude the liberal voting base from its program, allowing German

Austrians an access point to their program and, indeed, shedding light on the hypocrisy of a liberal siege interpretation which highlighted nationalist pride in spite of clear evidence of multinational coordination during the siege battles of 1683.

The paper would also publish a series of advertisements on behalf of the General

Versammlung der Katholischen Deutschlands, or “General assembly of Catholic Germany,” promoting a separate siege commemoration festival in Düsseldorf, Germany which would take place at the same time as the Viennese festivities (figure 2).

Page | 72

Figure 8: Das Vaterland, September 7, 1883. Advertisement for a siege commemoration festival in Düsseldorf, Germany.45 The advertised program of events for the Düsseldorf festival included a visit to the ruins of the castle of German Holy Roman Emperor Otto III, a visit which would further emphasize the common Roman heritage shared by Vienna and Germany. The participants would also partake in meals and church services together to mark the occasion. Das Vaterland’s advertisement for the festivities invited members of the German-Catholic assembly, as well as any other “like-minded

45 „General Versammlung der Katholischen Deutschlands,“ Das Vaterland, September 7, 1883.

Page | 73 people” (Gesinnungsgenossen) to purchase tickets and take part. That this celebration was marketed to the “like-minded” and not only to German participants sets it apart from the kind of event the liberal program might have conceived of when it envisioned an event celebrating the intersection between Germany and Austria-Hungary.

The conservative emphasis on a Christian rather than national unity encompassed broader sections of the population, and appeared to favor a more “common” perspective above the competing doctrine of liberal exclusivity, about which Das Vaterland wrote in 1883 (in an article unrelated to the commemorations):

Modern liberalism has nothing in common with true liberalism except its name; because in reality this commonly accepted liberalism is the most intolerant political system. Intolerant and impotent; just as [liberalism] will not suffer any other ideas or convictions near it, so is it incapable of accomplishing anything positive. […] But the rule of modern liberalism also demoralizes through the […] annulment of the rights of the minority, through the fiction of “transmission of the will of the people” and through the sustained resistance to every authority. Thus liberalism shakes the pillars of society and threatens the Christian world with a heathenistic flood. […] Therefore the enemies of Christendom united themselves easily in this system, the modern Jews and heathens, with the enemies of Catholicism.46 Clearly, Das Vaterland was not hesitant to criticize the liberal program directly, even going so far as to name liberals explicitly as collaborators in a scheme to attack Christendom. The newspaper posits that liberal political opponents are incapable of representing minorities, projecting onto them the encroaching threat of a “heathenistic flood” to emphasize the

46 “Liberale Gleichberechtigung,” Das Vaterland July 27, 1883; „Der moderne Liberalismus hat mit der wahren Freisinnigkeit nichts gemein als nur den Namen; denn in der Wirklichkeit ist dieser landläufige Liberalismus das allerintoleranteste politische System. Intolerant und impotent; wie derselbe neben sich keine andere Meinung und Überzeugung dulden will, so vermag er auch aus sich selber nichts Positives zu schaffen. […] Aber das Walten des modernen Liberalismus wirkt auch demoralisirend durch den Seelenlauf der kammer-Majoritäten, durch die Annulirung der Rechte der Minorität, durch die Fiction von einer ‚Übertragung des Volkswillens‘ und durch die fortgesetzte Bekämpfung jedweder Autorität. Dadurch rüttelt dieser Liberalismus an den Grundsäulen der Gesellschaft und bedroht die christliche Welt mit einer neuen heidnischen Überfluthung. […] Leicht verbanden sich deshalb in diesem Systeme die Feinde des Christenthums, die modernen Juden und Heiden, mit den Bekämpfern des Katholicismus.“

Page | 74 incompatibility of their exclusivity and nationalism with Catholicism. Competing doctrines of unity and exclusivity would be hallmarks of politicized siege interpretation at the time of the bicentennial.

Beyond showcasing conservative contempt for liberal exclusivity, the excerpt above also demonstrates that Das Vaterland sought to sensationalize the liberal threat even before the bicentennial arrived, establishing a vernacular of existential fragility which made discussions of the siege anniversary virtually interchangeable with standard conservative coverage by

September 1883. It is important to note that the above excerpt precedes the siege bicentennial by about two months and makes no direct reference to the siege anniversary itself. Yet, the language the Catholic-conservative Das Vaterland uses to describe the threat of the liberals is remarkably similar to the language the paper would use in reference to the 1683 siege, demonstrating how similarly conservatives perceived the historic “Turkish” foe and the contemporary liberal (and

Jewish) foe, and how vulnerable they imagined themselves to be both in historical and contemporary contexts. The paper would write, when discussing the siege, that “the 12th of

September, 1683 was the day of a great historical turning point,” characterizing the attacking enemy as “the fearful foe of Christian culture” and “the threat to and punishment of

Christendom.”47 In discussing the Ottomans, other Das Vaterland articles would refer to “the wild approach of barbaric masses against the Christian empires who understood themselves to be organized into states and classified into societies.”48 Similarities in the treatment of the historical enemy and the contemporary enemy could be indicative of conservatism’s very real sense of

47 „Zur Säcularfeier,“ Das Vaterland, September 12, 1883. 48 Josef Alexander Helfert, “Die Weltgeschichtliche Bedeutung des Wiener Sieges 1683,“ Das Vaterland, September 7, 1883; “Aber diese Bildung und Gesittung, deren allmäliges Entfalten und Gedeihen das Mittelalter und die ersten Jahrhunderte der neueren Zeit ausfüllte, sie war wiederholt bedroht durch jene dritte Art von Einwirkung des asiatischen Ostens auf den europäischen Westen: durch das Heranstürmen barbarischer Völkermassen gegen die in ihrer staatlichen Ordnung und gesellschaftlichen Gliederung begriffenen christlichen Reiche.“

Page | 75 being threatened by the liberal program, just as liberal comparisons between Czech enemies and the historical “Turks” signal the extent to which liberals feared the threat of growing ethnic nationalism.

Yet the significance of conservative partisan commemoration does not end there: more than signaling the general existential fear of Catholics, the reframed bicentennial siege narratives also represent an attempt to draw on the historical idea of a mortal enemy in order to heighten the level of certainty in readers’ minds that they needed to take decisive action. As imagined by the conservative Das Vaterland, contemporary enemies to “Christendom” are imminently threatening and very real, comparable in scale and danger to the Turks of 1683, whose image was helpfully at the forefront of the Viennese and broader Austrian collective consciousness as a result of the bicentennial. In an editorial following the pope’s letter on September 12th, 1883, the paper wrote that “the fight which is now imposed upon us is more difficult than that of the 12th of September, 1683,” impressing upon readers that, just as there had been threats from outsiders before, so too was there in 1883 a deadly threat, this time leveled at Christendom from the inside by so-called followers of the “golden calf,” a biblical reference to idolaters who stopped worshipping God and began worshipping false idols; the image could also be a commentary on the contemporary ills of capitalism, since the anti-clerical liberals had, as examined above allegedly paved the way for an industrial system that prevented poorer workers from exercising their faith.49 But, the editorial claims, there is hope in the unity of the Christian people, who must rise up as they did in 1683 to defeat this “more difficult” threat. The article ends with the bold exhortation that, just as the fighters of 1683 defeated the “Turks” with God’s help in fooling and

49 „Zur Säcularfeier,“ Das Vaterland, September 12, 1883; „Der uns auferlegte Kampf ist schwerer wie der des 12. September, 1683.“; Exodus 32: 22-35.

Page | 76 blinding the “overpowering heathens,” “so too will we be rescued through the blinding of the enemies and the confusion of their overreach. […] and like the overreach of the Turks two- hundred years ago provoked the unification of Christendom, so too will the golden calf—without reward/profit—be vanquished through the cross.”50 If heroically and selflessly unified Christians could conquer the besieging “heathens” before, the paper argues, then contemporary Christians could and should conquer the interior challenges to Christendom in the same way.

Bourgeois Jewish Liberals: The Outsiders of the New Equation

Christian unity was not nearly all-encompassing, despite its relatively broad reach when compared to liberal nationalism. Though unity along religious lines did form a near catch-all through which much of Europe could be addressed, there was a vast outlier in the Habsburg

Empire: the Austro-Hungarian Jewish population. Boyer writes that, relative to the 1869

Viennese Jewish population of 40,230, “by 1880 this figure had increased eighty percent to

74,523 (10 percent of the total population).51 In the bustle of political challenges and efforts to reverse changes that the empire had experienced since the 1867 dual monarchist compromise, pushback against the ballooning Jewish population would become a key element of the conservative program. Indeed, conservatives resisted the Jewish minority of Vienna vehemently, decrying them when possible and often equating them with the “heathen” liberals, and vice versa. Political anti-Semitism was growing rapidly in popularity, playing a key role in the triple- pronged conservative program along with anti-capitalism/liberalism and anti-socialism.

The rapidly expanding Viennese Jewish population formed an opportune archetypal

“bogeyman” for the conservative press largely due to the intersections between contemporary

50 “Zur Säcularfeier,” Das Vaterland, Sept 12, 1883. 51 Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 79.

Page | 77

Jewish identity and the commonly understood threats to national cooperation and to

Christendom. In the 1860s, Vienna saw a “classic period of Jewish liberation” wherein many

Jewish people in Vienna “assimilated […] into Viennese culture and society” by mimicking the liberal bourgeois class within the city, mirroring the tendencies of wealthy “Gentiles.”52

However, in the later decades of the nineteenth century, the explosion of Jewish migration into the city was comprised primarily of poorer Hungarian (and other Slavic) Jews, the vast majority of whom were not eligible to vote by the city’s tax qualifications.53 The Jewish population therefore became dually synonymous with liberal-bourgeois assimilation and with impoverished

Slavic ambitions, with religiously reformed secularism and with Orthodox non-Catholic religious practices, all of which represented a departure from conservative-Catholic standards of an idealized European Christendom and an artisan, Catholic, nationally cooperative Viennese

Bürgertum (roughly, upper-bourgeois citizenry).

The Jews of Vienna were at once categorized as exclusive bourgeois elites, unwilling to engage in the non-financial manual labor of the lower classes, and as religiously radical impoverished wanderers who would fundamentally alter the city by engaging in nationally- inflected “Jew-baiting” both through the liberal-dominated press and through their very presence in Vienna.54 Though the Neue Freie Presse was staffed by many Jewish writers at the time, the idea that liberals and Jews were so closely aligned on the whole was not entirely accurate, as

Boyer emphasizes, “the ‘silence’ about the Jewish issue in the 1860s and 1870s, the allegedly idyllic period when many wealthier Jews claimed they even stopped thinking about themselves as Jews, is misleading. If there was silence, it was deliberately cultivated on both sides. Jews

52 Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 76-77; Le Rider, Modernity and Crises of Identity, 3. 53 Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 76-81. 54 Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 70-71; Beller German Liberalism, Nationalism and the Jews, 63-65.

Page | 78 were accepted, but only because their economic and social integration seemed both useful and decent.”55 With the influx of lower-class Jews into Vienna, the class-based and uneasy alliance between liberal and Jewish elements in the city developed cracks, as even the liberal satirical papers published anti-Semitic images of wealth-hungry or impoverished-migrant Slavic Jews

(figures 3 and 4). Yet the connection between Jews and liberals in the decades preceding the

1880s had been so clear that it was easy for the conservative Das Vaterland in the early 1880s to attack liberal news organs as “Judenblätter” or “Jewish newspapers” and to treat both liberals and Jews (under the unified term “Juden-Liberalismus” or Jewish liberalism) as a common threat to Christendom.56 Crucially, the Hungarian origin of many of the poorer Orthodox Jews entering the city also gave conservatives even more ammunition in their continued focus on Hungarian

“anti-Christian” nationalism.

Figure 9: Kikeriki, September 9, 1883. An anti-Semitic caricature of Orthodox Jews in Vienna, with a caption expressing disbelief that the "sons" of such foreign-seeming people want to teach in "Germandom." Kikeriki would later be known for its anti-Semitism.57

55 Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna, 77. 56 „Die Fanatiker der Brandlegung,“ Das Vaterland, Sept 7, 1883. 57“Unerklärliches, was man erlebt,“ Kikeriki, September 9, 1883.

Page | 79

Figure 10: Figaro, September 15, 1883. A caricatured Jewish journalist departs for Agram, current-day Croatia, to cover the national demonstrations taking place there.58

The anti-Semitic dimension of a siege commemoration focused solely on the protection of Europe as “Christendom” can therefore not be denied. Conservative interests could seize on the apparent danger of a non-Christian, Slavic, agitating minority and draw easy and implicit parallels between historic and contemporary encroaching “heathens.” Given the already vested conservative interest in resisting Jews on the basis of their religious differences and bourgeois image, as well as in discrediting the primarily Jewish-operated bourgeois-liberal mouthpiece

Neue freie Presse, Das Vaterland would have much to gain in emphasizing the fundamentally

Christian aspects of the 1683 siege victory, to the direct exclusion of the empire’s Jewish

58 Untitled Caricature, Figaro, September 15, 1883.

Page | 80 population. The omissions of this perspective are clear: the implication of exclusively emphasizing the Christianity inherent in one of the most decisive and important events in the empire’s history is the denial of competing non-Christian claims to representation in that history, legitimating the perspective that non-Christians had never and would never have a rightful place there. If Das Vaterland could convince readers of the legitimacy of its version of the siege legend—that Christianity, not ethnic nationalism or patriotism, motivated the troops who saved the city and, by extension, all of Europe in 1683—then it would establish conservative dominance over a crucial and foundational historical narrative of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, projecting a politically proprietary relationship between the present moment and the distant past.

More than just immediately profiting off of the comparison between the former attacking “Turk” and the contemporary attacking “heathens,” the combined Christian-centric conservative siege- motif would enable a future reading of broader Austrian history which could weaponize the past to justify its exclusion and poor treatment of anyone designated as “outsider.”59 If vigorously rebuffing non-Christian outsiders had worked in the past, as Das Vaterland’s September 12th,

1883 editorial Zur Säcularfeier argues, then it ought to be the preferred model for handling future infringements on Christendom—whether those infringements be political, religious, or economic.

One of the most illuminating moments of the politicized conservative-liberal attempts to essentially recreate the siege legend in their own image for the occasion of the bicentennial was the controversy surrounding Onno Klopp’s Das Jahr 1683 und der folgende grosse Türgenkrieg

59 Johannes Feichtinger and Johann Heiss analyze how memorialization is “only one medium which supports the foundation of an identity, which allows the construction and perpetuation of differences between an alleged ‘us’ and a likewise imagined ‘them.’”; Feichtinger and Heiss, “Wiener ‘Türkengedächtnis’ im Wandel,“ 250; “Denkmale sind somit ein Mittel der Indentiätstiftung, mit dessen Hilfe sich Gegensätze zwischen einem vermeintlichen ‚Wir‘ und einem gleichfalls vorgestellten „Anderen“ konstruieren und perpetuieren lassen.“

Page | 81 bis zum Frieden von Carlowitz 1699, or “The year 1683 and the subsequent great Turkish war until the Peace of Carlowitz, 1699.”60 Healy notes that the publication of Klopp’s book sparked intense outcry as a result of its claims that many bourgeois citizens of 1683 Vienna had fled from the advancing Ottoman-commanded forces, abandoning rather than defending the city, and that a war-weary element in the Gemeinderat or city council had even unsuccessfully attempted to capitulate to Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa shortly before Sobieski and Lorraine’s soldiers had swooped in from Kahlenberg and driven Mustafa’s forces away.61 The political dimensions of these assertions, published by Klopp in 1882, are evident: with the contemporary Gemeinderat and mayor’s seat both under liberal control (in spite of the growing presence of conservative elements) and the primary liberal voting base being the wealthy bourgeoisie, Klopp’s book represented a powerful denial of the liberal claim to a heroic heritage within the siege legend by associating their offices with cowardice.

The weight of his claims did not go unnoticed, as Das Vaterland proudly advertised the book in a show of support for its contents (figure 5).62 The book was not advertised in this way in liberal papers. In 1882 the Vienna Gemeinderat even specifically addressed the controversial book in one of its meetings, which was publicized by the Neue freie Presse on October 21,

1882.63 The council agreed that Klopp had published a work “in which the behavior of the

60 Peter Rauscher, “Die Erinnerung an den Erbfeind. Die ‚Zweite Türkenbelagerung‘ Wiens 1683 im öffentlichen Bewusstsein Österreichs im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert,“ In: Repräsentationen der islamischen Welt im Europa der Frühen Neuzeit, (Münster: 2010),“ 289-293. 61 Healy, “1883 Vienna in the Turkish Mirror,” 108; Franz S. Leithner, Der heldenmüthige kampf Wiens gegen die Türken 1683 und Onno Klopp's ungerechte verdächtigungen der Wiener bürgerschaft, (Krems an der Donau: M. Pammer, 1883), 2-6; Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent, 244-245; Thomas Barker’s 1967 history of the siege, as well as other more recent histories, tend to agree with Klopp’s assertions of upper-class abandonment of the city before the approaching Ottoman forces. Barker writes that, “about 60,000 people, including most of the economic élite, appear to have fled.” 62Leithner, Der heldenmüthige kampf Wiens, X; Historians publishing their own works in reaction to Klopp’s, like Leithner, would take great pains to emphasize German princes’ heroism as well as other vital elements of the liberal siege narrative. 63 „Wiener Gemeinderath,“ Neue freie Presse, October 21, 1882; Healy, “1883 Vienna in the Turkish Mirror,” 108.

Page | 82

Vienna city council and citizenry during the Turkish siege was portrayed in a hateful light,” to which Mayor Uhl responded by arguing against the factual contents of Klopp’s work.64 Uhl contended that Klopp’s assertions could not possibly be accurate, as Kaiser Leopold I himself gave an address shortly after the siege in November of 1683 in which he spoke of how “the city’s municipal authorities as well as the entire citizenry behaved themselves with the utmost enthusiasm and bravery during the recent Turkish siege both for the purpose of pleasing his majesty and for the eternal reputation of their city and their descendants.”65 Invoking the words of the former Kaiser was a powerful strategy for Uhl to employ, as it would be difficult for

Klopp to directly criticize or contradict a Habsburg emperor without facing more universal criticism and undermining his credibility.

64 „Wiener Gemeinderath,“ Neue freie Presse, October 21, 1882; “Es ist in den letzten Tagen ein historisches Werk erschienen, in welchem das Verhalten des Wiener Stadtrathes und der Bevölkerung während der Türkenbelagerung in ein gehässiges Licht gestellt und malevolent angedeutet wird, dass der Stadtrath nicht abgeneigt gewesen, ohne Wissen des Grafen Starhemberg die Stadt Wien den Türken zu übergeben.“ 65 „Wiener Gemeinderath,“ Neue freie Presse, October 21, 1882; “Der Stadtmagistrat sowie die gesammte Bürgerschaft sich bei der jüngsten türkischen Belagerung mit allem Eifer und Tapferkeit sowohl zu Sr. Majestät Wohlgefallen als auch zum ewigen Ruhme der Stadt und ihre nachkommen benommen haben.“

Page | 83

Figure 11: Das Vaterland, September 8, 1883. An advertisement for Onno Klopp's controversial account of the 1683 siege, which painted liberals' predecessors in a negative light.66 Das Vaterland gave Klopp front-page space to respond to the Gemeinderat’s allegations of “hatefulness” in its October 26, 1882 issue. Klopp’s open letter to Mayor Uhl would occupy roughly one and a half full pages of the paper—a significant investment in and endorsement of

Klopp’s perspective by Das Vaterland. Klopp uses the pages of Das Vaterland to reiterate the findings of his research—that some had in fact fled the city in the days before the “Turks’” arrival and that the Gemeinderat had conspired to surrender to Mustafa against the wishes of city military commander Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg—this time referring to his specific sources and claiming that the much more universally accepted history of the siege written by Albert

66“Das Jahr 1683,“ Das Vaterland, Sept 8, 1883.

Page | 84

Camesina decades earlier corroborated his claims. As for the Kaiser Leopold I’s claims to the contrary, Klopp argues, he must have been considering the bravery of the Viennese during the siege as a whole rather than individually considering the shameful moments which came at the beginning and end of the fighting.67 These politically aligned factual disagreements indicate a willingness on the part of one or both parties to specifically choose which parts of the siege were worth acknowledging and commemorating. Unlike the more abstract question of fighters’ siege- time motivations, the matter of Klopp’s allegations of cowardice involved very public competing partisan claims regarding the literal actions of the city’s 1683 defenders, claims which directly implicated contemporary opponents in misrepresenting the history for malevolent purposes.

Conclusion

Both abstract and concrete facets of the siege were subject to intense, politically biased disagreement on behalf of the prevailing political ideologies during the two-hundredth anniversary commemoration celebrations in 1883. The bicentennial came at a moment in Vienna when political legitimacy and secure claims to a consistent voter base were up in the air, as liberals attempted to hold fast to their former prominence and conservatives attempted to speed the liberal downfall by advocating for and legitimating their own political programs through the lens of the siege legend. Situating themselves within the legendary binary of “Turks” versus

“Vienna” enabled political publications and their readers to more clearly imagine their place in the contemporary empire, understanding themselves in a simplified construct of their present conflicts and grounding their commitment to upholding certain versions of their “defender” identity.

67 „Offenes Sendschreiben an Herrn Bürgermeister Uhl,“ Das Vaterland, October 26, 1882.

Page | 85

The conservative take on the story of the siege did not merely vaguely express a gratitude and respect for the Viennese defenders of the past—rather, it drew on a familiar historical analogy toward the alienation of certain elements from the empire’s history and, by extension, the empire’s future, affirming by contrast the rightful place of those elements whom it deemed to belong and attracting the political support of those elements. In latching onto the Catholic motivations within the siege story, conservatives defended clericalism and advocated for national unity, advancing their program with the symbolism the anniversary provided just as liberals invoked certain historical heroes in order to legitimate and represent their own goals and identities. They singled out the elements of the liberal voting base—the upper class, the bourgeoisie, Jews, nationalists, and capitalists—and, through the story of the siege, portrayed each as traitorous or unfaithful to the legacy of their ancestors. The ways in which conservatives and liberals marked the occasion of the bicentennial reflects the contents and goals of their respective platforms. More importantly, whomever could stake the better claim to their place in the siege story had a basis on which to refute the aims of their opponents, and liberals and conservatives took the opportunity over the course of the commemorations—from planning to execution—to firmly associate their perspectives with the empire’s collective history.

Page | 86

Attackers and Defenders Onstage and on the Page:

Dramatic Constructions of Siege History

Introduction

There was never a question of whether the city of Vienna would publicly commemorate the siege for the bicentennial—after all, the city had already celebrated the hundred-year jubilee of the event in 1783, and the memory of the siege still remained solidly ingrained in the minds of the Viennese a hundred years later.1 Rather, the city buzzed with speculation over exactly how the two-hundredth anniversary would be celebrated, with the city council, or Gemeinderat, already beginning to meet in the later months of 1882 to make arrangements for the events of the following year. One of the rumors circulating through the city was that the Gemeinderat planned to hold a competition for the best play written on the subject of the siege, a type of play which contemporary newspapers referred to as a “Türkenstück,” or Turkish piece.2 Yet, despite popular demand, the rumored Gemeinderat-sponsored dramatic competition never actually materialized, to the disappointment and confusion of many.3

The Gemeinderat’s failure to sponsor the dramatic competition was a shock given the contemporary popularity of theatrical productions in late nineteenth century Vienna. As Carl

Schorske expresses in his landmark Fin de Siècle Vienna, the theater was more than just a form of entertainment: it was both a “surrogate form of assimilation into the aristocracy” and,

1 Sandra Bittman,“1683 - und was uns davon bleibt: die zweite Türkenbelagerung als medialer Referenzrahmen,“ SWS-Rundschau 51, no.2 (2001): 145-164, 149; Peter Rauscher, “Die Erinnerung an den Erbfeind. Die ‚Zweite Türkenbelagerung‘ Wiens 1683 im öffentlichen Bewusstsein Österreichs im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert,“ In: Repräsentationen der islamischen Welt im Europa der Frühen Neuzeit, (Münster: 2010), 282; Jerzy Got, "Das Jahr 1683 Im Drama Und Auf Der Bühne," Maske Und Kosthum: Internationale Beitrage Zur Theaterwissenschaft 29, no.1-4 (1983): 1-97, 4. 2 “An die Preis-Türkenstück-Dichter,“ Die Bombe, November 26, 1882; Got, “Das Jahr 1683 Im Drama Und Auf Der Bühne,“ 47. 3 “An die Preis-Türkenstück-Dichter,“ Die Bombe, November 26, 1882; Got, “Das Jahr 1683 Im Drama Und Auf Der Bühne,“ 47; Got, “Das Jahr 1683 Im Drama und Auf Der Bühne,” 4.

Page | 87 increasingly as the turn of the century approached, “an escape, a refuge from the unpleasant world of increasingly threatened political reality.” Theater was taking on an ever-larger role in the city, to the point that, “by the 1890’s the heroes of the upper middle class were no longer political leaders, but actors, artists, and critics.”4 The trend of increasing reliance on and interest in drama as a creative outlet is evident in the reactions against the Gemeinderat for its decision.

One satirical newspaper, Figaro, voiced its frustration with the Gemeinderat by mocking the council’s failed competition, writing a fictional story alleging that, due to the confusion surrounding the process and the equivocations of the Gemeinderat on the question of whether plays would be a part of the official celebration, a private group had decided to hold its own competition. This alternative competition would not solicit plays about the siege, but would rather seek to reward plays written about the confusion in the Gemeinderat itself.5 A similar write-up appeared in the satirical Die Bombe (The Bomb), as well as in other popular humorous newspapers, each highlighting the simplicity of the task before the Gemeinderat and the absurdity that they would not fulfill it.6 The public impulse to mock the city council did nothing to sway them, and in the end no official “Türkenstück” prize was awarded.

Nevertheless, even without public patronage, playwrights still found the siege to be an attractive subject for dramatic interpretation.7 The historical importance, heroic violence, and local patriotic significance of the events all made them ready targets for theatrical production, as playwrights could cash in on the excitement of the subject matter as well as public familiarity with the details of the story to garner support for their own productions. Between 1683 and 1883

4 Carl E. Schorske, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture, (New York: Knopf: Distributed by Random House, 1980), 8. 5 „Findigkeit,“ Figaro, December 9, 1882. 6 “An die Preis-Türkenstück-Dichter,“ Die Bombe, November 26, 1882. 7 Got, “Das Jahr 1683 Im Drama Und Auf Der Bühne,“47-48.

Page | 88 there had already been many Austrian plays written on the subject of the siege.8 As they had since the direct aftermath of the siege in the 1680s, writers in the years leading up to the two- hundred-year jubilee took it upon themselves to reimagine the heroic deeds of Vienna’s siege- time defenders, sometimes even inventing entirely new characters to accompany the legendary cast of heroes on their mission.

Long before the bicentennial, dramatic fascination with “Turks” had proliferated throughout Europe with remarkable frequency. Larry Wolff, considering the operatic depictions of Ottomans between the 1680s and the 1820s, writes that, “the figure of the Turk recurred in every decade on every stage, and constituted an enormous cultural phenomenon,” noting that these depictions were often accompanied by “Turkish” costumes, sets, and musical motifs to complete the image.9 In 1782, even Mozart joined the ranks of composers of “Turkish” operas with his Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio), coordinated to roughly coincide with the hundredth anniversary of the 1683 siege received with great enthusiasm. Wolff writes that, “the Abduction was Mozart’s most successful opera during his lifetime, frequently revived and performed in the Habsburg monarchy and the German states of the Holy Roman Empire during the 1780s,” likely owing to the opera’s comedic elements and the “Viennese preference for comedy.”10 Yet, in spite of the eighteenth century popularity of the

Turkish trope, the early nineteenth century saw decreasing interest in the production of such stage works, potentially owing, as Wolff argues, to the Ottoman Empire’s increasingly

8 Jakob Perl, Der Entsatz Von Wien 1683 [i.e. Sechzehnhundertdreiundachtzig]: Volksstück Mit Gesang in Fünf Aufzügen Zur Zweiten Säcularfeier Der Letzten Türkenbelagerung Wiens, (Wien: Wallishausser, 1883), 8; Got, “Das Jahr 1683 Im Drama Und Auf Der Bühne,“ 2-5. 9 Larry Wolff, The Singing Turk: Ottoman Power and Operatic Emotions on the European Stage from the Siege of Vienna to the Age of Napoleon, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016), 1, 5-7, 154-155. 10 Wolff, The Singing Turk, 146-150; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Christoph Friedrich Bretzner, and Stephanie Gottlieb, The Abduction from the Seraglio, (New York: Dover, 1989), Print, 13.

Page | 89 diplomatic closeness to Europe, a fact which rendered the “Turk” “increasingly unfit for the operatic stage.”11 This fact makes the spike in Ottoman-centered dramatic works in 1883 Vienna all the more significant, as the occasion of the bicentennial enabled the temporary revival of theatrical works which would otherwise not have been possible in light of contemporary relations with the Ottoman Empire.

Given the sharp increase of interest in the dramatic figure of the “Turk” that coincided with the bicentennial of the siege, as well as the political context in which bicentennial

Türkenstücke were released, it is worth considering the contents and implications of these siege plays. These works, whether they were produced onstage or remained on the page, reenacted the story of the siege through the imagination of playwrights living and working in late nineteenth century Austria-Hungary, demonstrating their understanding of the historical event and demonstrating the intrusion of prevailing politicized narratives as well as contemporary notions of what the image of the “Turk” entailed.

As can be expected from a body of work concerning a single event, the plays of 1883 have a number of elements in common. Many of the plots follow the direct events of the siege, dramatizing roughly the approach of the “Turks,” or Ottoman-commanded forces, the hearty self-sacrificing defense of the city by Viennese forces and citizens, the daring heroic acts of a few select big-name heroes, the triumphant rescue of the city from Ottoman clutches by combined German-Polish-Austrian relief troops, and finally, a celebration of the victory within the rescued city.12 Beyond the contours of their plots, the pieces written around the 1883 jubilee also tend to share a few common elements within their casts: Vienna military commander Graf

11 Wolff, The Singing Turk, 360-363 12 Got, “Das Jahr 1683 Im Drama Und Auf Der Bühne,“2.

Page | 90

Rüdiger von Starhemberg, lieutenant general of the Austrian forces Charles, Duke of Lorraine

(Lothringen in its German form), Polish King John III Sobieski, Ottoman Grand Vizier Kara

Mustafa, Austrian Kaiser Leopold I, and Polish merchant-turned-spy/hero Georg Franz

Kolschitzky all tend to be present in the story somehow, even if their roles are small.

Similar as the works may already seem, one final, curious factor further unites the

Türkenstücke of the second centennial: almost none of them were ever performed onstage. To give the playwrights the benefit of the doubt, this limited production of siege-drama could have been the result of diplomatic circumstances, as Wolff argues, or even of oversaturation of their target audience with siege-related media, as well as the well-publicized calendar of other commemoratory events in which the Viennese Bürger could partake.13 So frenzied was the market for commemorations of the siege that, by the week after the bicentennial, the ever- observant satirical and humorous papers had begun to take aim at the ludicrous extent of it all.

Wiener Caricaturen, or “Viennese Caricatures,” a popular humorous weekly, published a faux news bulletin entitled “Die Gedenkfeier-Wuth,” or “The Commemoration-Rage” in its September

23, 1883 issue, announcing new locations of upcoming siege memorials (figure 1).14 Included among these “new memorials” was a commemorative plaque to a place in “Dippelkirchen” where “a few horses of the rescue army were once fed oats.” Out of “Klatschowitz” comes the news that, “because a few Poles have been lingering on this site since yesterday, we will hold our own Türkenfeier [commemoration celebration] with Türkenkranzchen [Turkish garlands].”

13 „Die Säcularfeier,“ Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung, Sept 12, 1883. 14 „Die Gedenkfeier Wuth,“ Wiener Caricaturen, September 23, 1883.

Page | 91

Figure 12: Wiener Caricaturen, September 23, 1883. A fake News bulletin announcing commemorations to minor events, like a horse eating oats. The bulletin was intended to highlight the oversaturation of commemoration activity in September of 1883. That Wiener Caricaturen would feel compelled to write such a bulletin speaks not only to the strength of the siege anniversary’s presence in the collective consciousness of the Viennese, but also to a dawning collective weariness with the subject. After all, the commemoration celebrations (Säcularfeier) had been making news since early in 1882, so the level of public engagement with the subject of the siege may have simply been stretched to its limits and unable to accommodate many siege plays.15

But another possible explanation for the plays’ limited success remains: they were just no good. It seems that, as much as the story of the second Turkish siege had captured the public imagination in the months before the bicentennial, the excitement of the story itself was not enough to make the plays entertaining. Even of the two plays that actually did make it onto the stage in 1883, Carl Costa’s Die Türken vor Wien and Hippolyt Schauffert’s 1683, only Costa’s piece enjoyed a long run and received many positive reviews.16 That only two plays made it to

15 „Belagerung Wien’s 1683,“ Vedette, August 2, 1882. 16 Got, “Das Jahr 1683 Im Drama Und Auf Der Bühne,“ 48-52.

Page | 92 production was not for lack of “fruitless” trying on the part of other playwrights.17 Those that weren’t produced onstage were stale and formulaic, or simply poorly written. Got writes that,

“only a few of the pieces possess the stagecraft of an average lowbrow Volksstück [a humorous form of wide-appeal stage play], and the more seriously they were imagined, the worse the result was.”18 In the case of the commemorative plays, quality desired had little bearing on quantity created, and the rejection of the poor plays by producers did not stop the playwrights from publishing their pieces as books to be displayed in exhibitions on the occasion of the bicentennial and purchased as souvenirs.19 The presence of a couple of the plays’ scripts in Vienna’s public historical exhibition for the bicentennial indicates a high enough level of readership that the pieces were deemed worthy of inclusion, though data on their readership does not seem to be available. However, even if the siege plays had not been purchased and read by participants in the commemorations, they would still provide valuable insight into the contemporary perceptions of the playwrights, illuminating the ways in which literate intellectuals active at the time of the bicentennial digested and reconfigured the politicized narratives of Austro-Hungarian history.

Indeed, while the limited skill of the playwrights damaged their immediate chances for success, it did make the plays more useful at one task: reflecting contemporary biases and prevailing ideologies. As Got and Bittman explore, the mediocrity which stunted the plays at the time of their publication allows them to more clearly reflect the ideas surrounding their production.20 The formulaic nature of the pieces throws playwrights’ deviations from this

17 Perl, Der Entsatz Von Wien 1683, 11. 18 Got, “Das Jahr 1683 Im Drama Und Auf Der Bühne,“ 2; „Nur einige wenige von ihnen weisen die Bühnengeschicklichkeit eines durchschnittlichen anspruchslosen Volksstückes auf, und je ernster sie gedacht wurden, desto schlimmer war die Ergebnis.“ 19 Katalog Der Historischen Ausstellung Der Stadt Wien 1883: Aus Anlaß Der Zweiten Säkularfeier Der Befreiung Wiens Von Den Türken, 2. Aufl ed, (Wien: Gemeinderath, 1883), 402; Perl, Der Entsatz Von Wien 1683, 11. 20 Bittman, „1683 - und was uns davon bleibt,“ 149; Got, “Das Jahr 1683 Im Drama Und Auf Der Bühne,“ 3

Page | 93 formula into sharper relief, helping to illuminate their perspectives and contemporary influences.

Indeed, in spite of the commonalities between them, the Türkenstücke are not quite identical.

Characters who find praise in one work find scorn in another, and characters’ roles within the dramatized siege vary widely depending on the play and playwright. Which figures are invoked, how they relate to other characters, and how they perform as defenders of the city are all signs of the contemporary social milieu in 1883 Vienna. By analyzing the nuances of these retellings of the siege story, it is possible to examine the ways in which public interpretations harnessed the legend of Vienna’s heroic victory to reinforce prevailing notions of what it meant to be

Viennese, exploring the implied criteria for who did and did not belong. This chapter will consider three of the surviving siege plays—Carl Costa’s Die Türken vor Wien (The Turks before Vienna), Richard Kralik’s pay of the same name, and Jakob Perl’s Der Entsatz von Wien

(The Relief of Vienna), examining their similarities and differences in plot and themes, as well as their reflections of contemporary politicized narratives of the siege.

Reinventing the Foe: Dramatic Depictions of the “Turkish” Other21

It would be a gross oversimplification to say that the forces who attacked Vienna in the mid to late summer of 1683 were only comprised of “Turks.” In reality, the troops dispatched by the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and commanded by Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa were a mixture of Crimean Tartars, fighters from throughout the Ottoman empire (including Turkish

Anatolia), and even some Balkan Christians.22 Despite the inaccuracy of the term, however, the catch-all word for these attackers in Austrian documents remained “Türken,” or “Turks,” even as

21 Carl Costa, Die Türken Vor Wien. Vaterländisches Volksstück Mit Gesang in 4 Bildern, Nebst Prolog Und Epilog. Musik Von Paul Mestrozi. (Wien: Wr. Vereins-Buchdr., 1883), 41. 22 Andrew Wheatcroft, The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans and the Battle for Europe (New York: Basic Books, 2009), 20, 48-52.

Page | 94 historians emphasized greater “scientific” accuracy in their histories of the event.23 The idea of a monolithic enemy was particularly useful in the literary expression of dramatic works, as it was much more expedient –and sounded better—to write of a single approaching enemy rather than to incorporate historical nuance. Jakob Perl (who wrote under the pen-name J.P. Ostland) took great pains to acknowledge the extent of his historical research in the introduction to his Der

Entsatz von Wien, citing over a dozen different books on the subject of the siege in his introduction to the play. Yet, the first scene of the play opens with a choir of residents of the

Wiener Vorstadt, or outer city of Vienna, singing in unison that “the Türkenfeind (roughly,

Turkish enemy) approaches,” even as the stage directions for the heralded attack indicate that

“the Tartars draw into the streets, almost as though reconnoitering the town.”24 In all plays analyzed here, the term “Turks” is used in dialogue as shorthand by the playwrights to mean all attacking forces, even if the works acknowledge in the stage directions the actual composition of the forces. Therefore, in instances where the author refers to the written actions of the Turks, it is unfortunately not always possible to distinguish for the reader which “Turks” the playwright may have been referring to.

The general idea of the “Turk” as represented in Western theater had, by the time of the first siege centennial in 1783, transformed from a figure of legitimate terror into a what Paula

Fichtner refers to as the “trivial, ignorant, and hapless fool.” The “erosion of Ottoman military discipline […] made representations of Turks and Muslims as power figures less plausible.”25

Elements of this more frivolous take on the Türkenfeind are visible in the siege plays, as one

23 Maureen Healy, "1883 Vienna in the Turkish Mirror," Austrian History Yearbook 40 (2009): 101-13, 102. 24 Perl, Der Entsatz Von Wien 1683, 15, 21; “Es naht sich schon die Türkenfeind.“; “Die Tartaren ziehen auf der Straße vor dem Hause gleichsam den Ort recognoscirend vorbei.“ 25 Paula S. Fichtner, “Terror and Toleration: The Habsburg Empire Confronts Islam, 1526-1850,” (London: Reaktion Books, 2008), 96-99.

Page | 95 scene from Richard Kralik’s Die Türken vor Wien illuminates. As infamous Hungarian traitor

Count Imre Thököly enters the battle encampment of Kara Mustafa in the play’s second act, the stage directions of Kralik’s unperformed play indicate that the scene would have shown “Turkish warriors, occupied by dancing and games,” to which Thököly remarks, “I see, in the Turkish camp one is not solely occupied with militant things.”26 Thököly had been paid off by the

Ottomans to fight against the Austrian forces in Hungary in the months before the siege of

Vienna, taking out castles and fortresses where royal forces had been operating. In this scene of the play, he has entered the Grand Vizier’s camp to discuss the plans to conquer the city. A

Balkan prince who is fighting alongside the Turks replies to Thököly that the men are dancing and playing by order of Mustafa, who “perceives it to be a game to conquer [Vienna].”27 The camp, rather than housing the bloodthirsty fiend whose devilish reputation is heralded by choirs of their devastated victims, as in Perl’s “Relief,” instead houses jubilant and careless amateurs who take their task so lightly as to dance and play rather than preparing for battle.

Perl’s play is not, however, without reference to the fiend’s more frivolous side—the play simply manifests the image of the comic Turk differently. In the case of Perl’s “Relief,” the comedy of the Turk comes not from the Ottoman-commanded soldiers themselves, but rather from the impressions of the Viennese defenders inside the city walls. In the play, a group of militia men decide to prank a city resident named Dachs, who has consistently bragged about his bravery while simultaneously doing whatever he can to avoid actually having to fight the

26 Richard Kralik, Die Türken Vor Wien: Ein Festspiel, (Vienna: C. Konegen, 1883), 63; “Türkische Krieger, mit Tanz und Spiel Beschäftigt.“; „Ich seh, man ist im Türkenlager nicht mit kriegerischen Dingen nur beschäftigt.“; Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 109. 27 Kralik, Die Türken Vor Wien: Ein Festspiel, 63; “Man thut’s dem Oberfeldherrn nach. Der hält es für ein Spiel, die Stadt sich zu erobern.“; As referenced above, the Ottoman-commanded forces included some Balkan Christians, whose lands were under the indirect control of the Ottoman empire by a system of proxy rule and taxation. This is the type of ruling system which the Ottomans would likely have installed in Vienna, had they been successful.; Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 109.

Page | 96 attacking forces. Dachs’ fellow bar patrons, fed up with his rootless bombast, decide to punish him for his cowardice. They enlist the help of folk-singer Augustin, who dresses as a Turk in order to scare Dachs straight and reveal him for the sham he is (figure 2).28 This scene is a central comedic moment of the play, as Augustin has proclaimed himself to be the embodiment of “humor” in the city, and even speaks in Viennese dialect so as to be more relatable and likeable to the audience.29 The stage directions describe Augustin as “costumed as a caricature, with blue pants, a red skirt, and an extraordinarily large turban; on his breast, he wears a large half-moon fashioned from gold paper, and on his face he wears a large moustache and painted stubble, and he wears a militant expression.”30 This manner of costuming resembles the characters in “Turkish” operas of Mozart’s day. When the time for the prank comes, Dachs’

“friends” goad him into an alleyway where they say they have seen a Turk hiding out. Once

Dachs is clearly frightened, shaking in anticipation of the confrontation, Augustin jumps out from his concealed spot and shouts, as though he were crying “boo,” “Allah! Allah,” scaring

Dachs into a sprint away from the alley and eliciting uproarious laughter from the onlookers, since all of the patrons from Dachs’ regular bar have come to see him humiliated.31 The Turk is employed here as a simple bogeyman, his religion an exclamation intended to startle cowards, but his likeness and actions actually used to bring the audience joy rather than fear.

28 Perl, Der Entsatz Von Wien 1683, 40-43. 29 Perl, Der Entsatz Von Wien 1683, 16. 30 Perl, Der Entsatz Von Wien 1683, 50; “Er kommt als Türke, carikirt gekleidet, blaue Hose, rothen Rock, mit einem ungewöhnlich großen Turban; auf der Brust hat er einen großen Schnurbart mit einem angebrannten Stoppel gemalt, und zeigt ein martialisches Aussehen.“ 31 Perl, Der Entsatz Von Wien 1683, 51.

Page | 97

Figure 13: Neue Illustrirte Zeitung, August 19, 1883. A depiction of the folksinger Augustin (center right, on the doorstep) entertaining citizens of battle-scarred Vienna. Presented in a special commemorative edition of the paper.32 Similar instances of Christians masquerading as the fearful, funny Turk often occur through the character of Polish spy Georg Franz Kolschitzky, who appears in Karl Costa’s Die

Türken vor Wien and Perl’s Entsatz von Wien, and other siege-related media.33 In 1683,

Kolschitzky served as a messenger between the besieged city and the waiting relief forces, slipping through enemy lines by costuming himself as a Turk and transmitting vital information.

The story of Kolschitzky is legendary not only because of his siege-time heroism, but because of the alleged (and later disproven) notion that the Pole founded the first coffee-house in Vienna; as a result, many variations of it appear in popular Viennese media between 1683 and 1883. In

Costa’s play, for instance, Kolschitzky and his sidekick Michaelowicz pretend to be half-deaf and half-lame to disguise their true origins, hawking their wares in rhyme as they proceed

32 “Volksänger Augustin,“ Neue Illustrirte Zeitung, August 19, 1883. 33 Katalog Der Historischen Ausstellung Der Stadt Wien 1883, 34; Karl Teply, Die Einführung Des Kaffees in Wien: Georg Franz Koltschitzky, Johannes Diodato, Isaak De Luca. Forschungen Und Beiträge Zur Wiener Stadtgeschichte, (Wien: Verein für Geschichte, 1980), 3-5; Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 188; Georg Franz Kolschitzky’s alleged status as the first café-owner in Vienna would turn out to be false.

Page | 98 through the Turkish camp.34 When they first don their costumes, Kolschitzky and Michaelowicz exclaim, “I am the fearsome Turk, and whomever I capture, I will eat!” in order to further

“authenticate” their impressions of the Türkenfeind as the other onstage characters flee in mock fear of the pair’s appearance (figure 3).35 Clearly, the image of the Turk in these plays is, at least in part, a decorative spectacle of the foreign, to be enjoyed and laughed at, just as Fichtner indicates in her analysis of theatrical works from a century before. Some elements of the 1783 commemorative tendencies survived in the 1883 celebrations, as residents of the city in the late nineteenth century enjoyed amusing, simplified dramatic characterizations of the Turkish foe

(figure 4).

34 Got, “Das Jahr 1683 Im Drama Und Auf Der Bühne,“ 93-96; Costa, Die Türken Vor Wien. Vaterländisches Volksstück Mit Gesang in 4 Bildern, Nebst Prolog Und Epilog. Musik Von Paul Mestrozi, 40-41, 56-57. 35 Costa, Die Türken Vor Wien. Vaterländisches Volksstück Mit Gesang in 4 Bildern, Nebst Prolog Und Epilog. Musik Von Paul Mestrozi, 41; „Ich bin der Türke fürchterlich, und den ich fang‘, den fresse ich!“; It is worth noting here that the German verb „fressen“ refers to the way an animal eats rather than the way a human eats, for which the verb “essen” would have been used. In this context, the use of “fressen” implies that the Turks are not only fearful, but also completely inhuman. This implication is further reinforced through the piece via references to the Turks as “Hunde” and “Ratten,” or “dogs” and “rats.”

Page | 99

Figure 14: Wiener Caricaturen, September 16, 1883. Full-page advertisement for Costa's "Die Türken vor Wien." The ad includes a depiction of Kolschitzky's "Turkish" costume(bottom center), showing how the actor dressed in his role. He is surrounded by other heroes in costume, including Starhemberg and the Duke of Lorraine.36 Yet, crucially, the plays do not present the Turkish enemy as entirely toothless. The historic fiend still strikes fear into the hearts of its victims at various points in the siege dramas, giving the heroes of the pieces a substantial task to perform and further legitimating their legendary heroism. This may have resulted from contemporary perceptions that the city of

Vienna faced a mortal enemy, as claimed by German nationalist liberals and clerical conservatives who invoked national and religious enemies as the replacements of the historic

Ottoman enemy. As Bittman explores, the issue of nationality intrudes substantially into works from late nineteenth century Vienna in a manner consistent with the broader nationalist discourse of the period, informed in part by political showdowns between liberal and conservative interests

36 “Die Türken vor Wien,“ Wiener Caricaturen (Vienna), September 16, 1883.

Page | 100 within the city.37 This political impulse to engage with the issue of nationality and belonging would seep into more politically “secular” spheres like the theater by elevating the once

“implausible” threat of the Turk into a more symbolic and threatening role to resemble that of two hundred years prior. Dramatic art of 1883 expresses steep divides between the Turks and the

Viennese not only in the comedic and superficial sense explored above, but also in terms that emphasize the notion that Turks the Viennese are in fact fundamentally different, and that that difference poses a significant threat.

Figure 15: Wiener Caricaturen, September 23, 1883. Full-page advertisement for Costa's Die Türken vor Wien. The ad includes a generalized depiction of eastern characters with caricatured clothing (top left corner).38

37 Sandra Bittman, „1683 - und was uns davon bleibt: die zweite Türkenbelagerung als medialer Referenzrahmen,“ SWS-Rundschau, 51(2), 145-164, (Vienna: 2001), 155. 38 „Die Türken vor Wien,“ Wiener Caricaturen, Sept 23, 1883.

Page | 101

Kralik’s Türken vor Wien in particular depicts the attacking forces as legitimately dangerous opponents who not only wish to conquer the city, but who also do so for explicitly dishonorable motives. And the brutality of the enemy is depicted with startling levels of detail.

As a group of Vienna’s key defenders including siege-time mayor Johann Andreas Liebenberg, lieutenant general Charles, Duke of Lorraine and city commander Rüdiger von Starhemberg meets to strategize the defense of the city, a messenger approaches with dire news: he has come from a minor outlying town called Hainburg, and has just seen the Turks destroy it. “The proud

Burg is stormed, burned, destroyed […] the Danube runs with corpses and blood.”39 This incident is described in dialogue rather than being indicated in stage directions, but the impact of the image remains striking.

Beyond the plain violence of the enemy in Kralik’s piece, characters on the enemy’s side of the siege are also shown to have no moral basis for their actions. The play’s second scene depicts the traitor Thököly just after his defeat of Austrian fortresses in Hungary, showing him reflecting aloud on how he has managed to play one empire against another to get what he wants.

Given the chance to entertain either an Austrian messenger or an Ottoman one, Thököly opts to hear from the Turk, declaring that, “no further peace is possible between myself and the

Kaiser.”40 The messenger informs Thököly that he has been named “master and ruler of

Hungary” in exchange for his services, but that he is also now expected to aid Kara Mustafa’s forces in the conquest of Vienna. Thököly, a coward who fears that taking Vienna will be too difficult, insists that he only cooperated with the Grand Vizier so far in order to obtain what he believes belongs to him. “I only seek my right,” he insists, openly admitting, in context, to

39 Kralik, Die Türken Vor Wien: Ein Festspiel, 34; “Entstürmt, verbrannt, vernichtet ist die stolze Burg, Die noch dem Türkenheer den Weg verlegen sollt. Die Donau Fließt von Leichen und von Blut.“ 40 Kralik, Die Türken Vor Wien: Ein Festspiel, 23-24.

Page | 102 having betrayed Christendom in search of personal gain.41 Kara Mustafa is shown to be similarly dishonorable, pursuing the city of Vienna against all advice and logic out of a selfish ambition to control the place.42 He even goes so far as to ignore the advice of his own priest, who foretells that the siege will end poorly and that it is God’s will that Mustafa turn back. To this, Mustafa replies that he was once told by another priest in Hungary that his skull would one day be laid to rest inside the city, and he would rather obey the word of God which best fits his goals (an ironic implication since Mustafa would indeed die as a result of his failure to take Vienna).43 Mustafa is depicted as self-seeking, unbending to reality and unwilling to listen to reason. These negative characteristics, by virtue of the contemporary political climate, would be projected onto those new “enemies to Vienna,” casting them as dishonorable and treasonous by association.

In the siege plays of the bicentennial, the “Turks” also stands out among the Christian defenders because of their religion: the Muslim attackers are depicted as fully intent on destroying Christendom and eradicating the cross. The motif of Christendom versus Islam is one of the most powerful devices employed in the Türkenstücke to impress upon readers and viewers the extent to which outsiders could threaten the Viennese lifestyle. In Kralik’s Türken vor Wien,

Mustafa emphasizes this fact while berating a Balkan Christian for erecting a cross within the

Ottoman camp. The Christian insists that he is simply “serving his God,” to which Mustafa retorts, “but you know that this army has been mobilized against the cross, a holy war for our true beliefs.”44 In Perl’s Entsatz von Wien, the character of Mustafa voices similar ambitions,

41 Kralik, Die Türken Vor Wien: Ein Festspiel, 26-27; „Ich suche nur mein Recht.“ 42 This interpretation of Mustafa’s siege ambitions is not unique to dramatic productions. Wheatcroft writes that, “his objectives are always presented as trivial and debased; he only wanted, said his critics, Ottoman and Western, money and land […] As Grand Vizier, his ambition was supposedly overweening, his corruption and avarice gargantuan.”; Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 81. 43 Kralik, Die Türken Vor Wien: Ein Festspiel, 73. 44 Kralik, Die Türken Vor Wien: Ein Festspiel, 68; Ich diene meinem Gotte.“; „Doch du weißt, dass dies ein Heerzug ist wider das Kreuz, ein heiliger Krieg für unser wahren Glauben.“

Page | 103 ranting that, “never shall this city which lays before the wave of my army stop me from inundating Christendom until it sinks to the level of a vassal-state. I will plant the crescent-moon from here until the North Sea.”45 Later in Kralik’s piece, the Turks are taunted for their faith, as the folksinger Augustin exclaims, “dear God, we love you! The city remains Christian. We are strengthened by our beliefs! And we will always remain faithful,” ending his exultation with the remark that, while he will be celebrating with wine, “the blind heathen-dogs [Turks] don’t drink wine!”46 As Bittman explains, the practice of dehumanizing Turks by referring to them as “dogs” or “rats” was one frequently used in the siege literature of 1883, denigrating the enemy on the basis of not just their desire to conquer Vienna, but also their different religious beliefs.47

As imagined for the stage on the occasion of the siege’s bicentennial, the “Turkish” villain was at once a spectacle manipulated for comic relief and a reinforcement of the threat of a besieging other, materializing defensive sentiments from its readers and viewers in spite of the fact of the Ottoman Empire’s relative weakness as of 1883. The image of a threatening other, then, was primarily not intended to raise awareness of the literal threat posed by the Ottomans at the time of the bicentennial.48 Rather, the defensiveness embodied in siege plays represents a reaction to contemporary discourse regarding the national question and threats to clericalism within Austria-Hungary, at the time a remarkably multinational empire. Political publications manipulated the siege story to make thinly veiled comparisons between the former Ottoman

45 Perl, Der Entsatz Von Wien 1683, 25; „Nimmer soll mich diese Stadt die hier des Heeres Woge hemmt, verhindern, das Christenreich zu überfluten, dass es versinkt zum Vasallenstaat. Den Halbmond pflanz‘ ich auf bis an die Nordsee.“ 46 Kralik, Die Türken Vor Wien: Ein Festspiel, 152; “Herr Gott dich loben wir! Noch christlich ist die Stadt. Stärk uns bei unserm Glauben! Treu wollen wir immer sein. Die blinden Heidenhunde, sie trinken keinen Wein!“ 47 Bittman, „1683 - und was uns davon bleibt,“ 155. 48 Though most contemporaries of the siege bicentennial did prioritize the threats of more emergent nationalist threats like those from the Czechs and the Poles of the Austro-Hungarian empire, Bittman notes that the Catholic far-right did literally rail against the threats of “Asian barbarism.”; Bittman, „1683 - und was uns davon bleibt,“ 155

Page | 104 threat and the contemporary national threat. The siege plays and other public commemoratory media make clear that the renewed notion of the barbaric and legitimately threatening Turk was already in place in the public imagination, ready to be leveraged by contemporary interest groups.

Their Mausoleum is the Beautiful, Magnificent Vienna: Bürger Heroism Steals the Show49

A key figure in most siege dramas, the ordinary Viennese Bürger’s heroism often proves instrumental in defeating the attacking Turkish forces, exemplifying for the pieces’ audience how ordinary Austrians are expected to respond to contemporary threats to the city. The playwrights of the bicentennial did more than simply present their audience with the threat of outsiders; rather, these playwrights worked as though rehashing a parable, writing tales demonstrating for the audience how they ought to behave and reinforcing the criteria for a good

Wiener. In the form of cobblers, butchers, and other similarly pedestrian characters, the everyday citizen was elevated from anonymity to receive praise for his heroism.50 In his introduction to

Der Entsatz von Wien, Jakob Perl writes of his intent to present a Gelegenheitsvolksstück

(commemoratory Volksstück) “which will honor the dead and excite patriotism in the living […] in a simple, understandable manner which will demonstrate the heroism and self-sacrificing patriotism of his ancestors of a remarkable time period, and which will excite him to emulate them.”51 This goal of emulation, taken literally, would seem a curious goal for a piece written as late as 1883. But Perl is not exhorting his readers to take on the Ottoman Empire. Rather, in

49 Perl, Der Entsatz Von Wien 1683, 11. 50 Kralik, Die Türken Vor Wien: Ein Festspiel, 105. 51 Perl, Der Entsatz Von Wien 1683, 8; “Ich wollte nämlich zu Ehren unserer Vorfahren ein Gelegenheitsvolksstück zur zweihundertjährigen Säcularfeier der Türkenbelagerung der Stadt Wien im Jahre 1683 schreiben, das die Todten ehren und die Lebenden patriotisch begeistern soll […] dass durch die darstellenden Künstler dem schichten Volksmanne ihm verständlicher Weise die Heldenthaten und der aufopfernde Patriotismus seiner vorfahren in einer merkwürdigen Zeitepoche vorgeführt würde und ihn zur Nacheiferung begeistern könnte.“

Page | 105 context with the piece he presents, he is asking readers to embody a particular definition of

Viennese identity—one which is devout, selfless, lighthearted, and loyal to the monarchy.

The identity of the Bürger-turned hero is, after all, not simply a characteristic inherent to everybody in Vienna by virtue of their citizenship.52 Rather, the plays presented examples of right and wrong ways to be a Wiener, showing the audience what was at stake if they failed to live up to the standards set by their heroic ancestors. For instance, rumors of betrayal and cowardice within Vienna abound as Perl’s piece unfurls, harshly emphasizing the shortcomings of some elements of the siege-time Viennese population. As the Türkenfeind encircles the city, a large church in the city center is set ablaze (which actually happened in the early days of the siege), and the heroes of Perl’s play fear that the arsonist may have been a traitorous city-dweller

(figure 5). Starhemberg screams, “the Schottenkloster [Scots Monastery] burns—and is ablaze on all four sides?! And our armory is next door, packed with eighteen-hundred barrels of gunpowder! Righteous God, this could cost us the whole city […] this must be treason! Pain to whomever is responsible for this, may God have mercy on him.”53 Word of the alleged treason spreads, with some Bürger, out of disbelief that one of their own could possibly have tried to sabotage the defense of the city, even claiming that the arson was most likely committed by a

Hungarian, especially in light of the actions committed by the traitor Thököly. In spite of characters’ attempts at denial, the Schottenkloster fire functions as an opportunity for Perl to

52 Bittman, „1683 - und was uns davon bleibt,“ 154. 53 Perl, Der Entsatz Von Wien 1683, 24; “Das Schottenkloster brennt—und lichterloch von allen Seiten?!—und daneben ist das Zeughaus mit achtzehnhundert Fässern Pulver! Gerechter Gott, das kann die Stadt uns kosten […] Es ist Verrath!—Weh‘ dem, der daran Schuld trägt, ihm mag Gott gnädig sein, ich muss ihn schrecklich richten.“; Thomas Mack Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent: Vienna’s Second Turkish Siege and Its Historical Setting, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1967), 254-255; Thomas Barker’s more recent history of the siege reveals that even by 1883, it was unknown who had started the fire in the Schottenkloster, yet the blame was in fact directed towards Hungarian spies allegedly in league with Thököly in 1683.; Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 133- 134.

Page | 106 assert that the Bürger need to be careful whom they trust—need to restrict whom they regard as

Viennese, or at least moderate any notion of inherent Viennese goodness. The audience of Perl’s play, like the historical characters he described, would need to conform to the allegiant heroism that is revered in the play, and be wary of those who did not. The emphasis in Perl’s play on the importance of Bürger acting a certain way reflects common contemporary calls to action in political publications, which exhorted their readers to take up the defense of the city against particular contemporary enemies.

Perl acknowledged in his foreword that his play was specifically designed to reinforce the narrative of earned Viennese heroism, and the play even helpfully provides an exact example of how a Bürger may transform themselves from cowardly to heroic.54 Perl writes that, “the heroic bravery of the Viennese Bürger is embodied through Gregor Pahr […] and the other residents of

Vienna […] and yet the timidity, indeed the cowardice of some individuals remains unforgotten and finds its place in the historical adventures of Hans Dachs.”55 In this manner, the depictions of the Turkish threat within the siege plays embodies what Robert Lemon terms, “Orientalism as self-critique,” “invoking the oriental ‘Other’ not to bolster Occidental imperialism but rather to express concerns” about their own empire.56 The image of the “Turk” was invoked in the siege

54 Among his sources for his historical background, Perl lists Onno Klopp’s Das Jahr 1683 und der folgende große Türkenkrieg bis zum Frieden von Carlowitz, a play infamous in its time for the insinuation that some Bürger were not worthy of their heroic reputation for their actions in 1683. Perl turns this controversy on its head, implying with his piece that, while there were some cowards in Vienna, those cowards weren’t worthy of being called Bürger, this allowing all who considered themselves real Bürger to celebrate their forefathers without shame. 55 Perl, Der Entsatz Von Wien 1683, 9; “Die heldenmüthige Bravour der Wiener Bürger wird durch Gregor Pahr […] und andere Bewohner Wiens, die im Stücke beschäftigt sind, hinreichend zum Ausdruck gebracht […] Dabei bleibt die Furchtsamkeit, ja Feigheit Einzelner nicht vergessen und findet in dem historischen Abenteuer des Hans Dachs seine gehörige Stelle.“ 56 Robert Lemon, “Imperial Messages Orientalism as Self-critique in the Habsburg Fin De Siècle.” In Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture, 101 (Rochester, N.Y.: Camden House, 2011), 1

Page | 107 plays to induce self-reflection in the plays’ Bürger audiences on how they ought to behave in their contemporary circumstances and handle current threats.

The inclusion of Dachs, whose cowardice leads to his amusing encounter with the

Turkish-costumed Augustin, serves as a foil for more esteemed characters, allowing their bravery to stand out in greater relief. One of the great heroes of Perl’s piece, a Bürger officer named

Arthur, is the perfect model of an Austrian, facing off directly with Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa after being captured and brought into his camp. Mustafa offers to pay Arthur handsomely if he will only agree to spy on behalf of the Ottoman forces, smuggling information regarding

Viennese battle plans out of the city walls. “Accord yourself subserviently to my desires, become a Muslim, and I will elevate you to status and honor,” urges the villainous Mustafa, who also threatens Arthur with death or brutal slavery if he does not acquiesce. Arthur retorts, “I am a

Christian and an Austrian officer, and I will remain faithful to the Kaiser and the fatherland, you have no greater honor to offer than that.”57 The selflessness of Arthur’s actions stands in sharp contrast to the dishonorable, materialist motives of Mustafa and Thököly as explored above, and his bravery puts Dachs to shame.

57 Perl, Der Entsatz Von Wien 1683, 28; „Erweise dienlich Dich für meinen Willen, werde ein Moslem, und ich erhebe Dich zu Rang und Ehren.“; „Ich bin ein Christ und österreichischer Offizier, ich bleib‘ dem Kaiser und dem Vaterlande treu, keine größere Ehre hast Du zu vergeben.“

Page | 108

Figure 16: Neue Illustrirte Zeitung, August 19, 1883. A depiction of the burning of the Schottenkloster, produced for a special commemorative edition of the paper. The burning of the church was considered the result of treason. Yet even Dachs is not beyond redemption. While he does run in fear from his first encounter with a “Turk” in Perl’s play, the piece later shows him being carted away from the battlefield, gravely wounded after defending his beloved city, saying triumphantly, “I have corrected my mistakes, haven’t I,” and earning the admiration of his peers as he passes them.58

Folksinger Augustin sings, emphatically, that,” therefore all people ought to know, even after two hundred years, that in the great battle with the Turks, no cowards remained in Vienna.”59

Perl’s audience, even if they did not see their past behavior as defending the empire like their heroic ancestors had done, could see in Dachs’ character the possibility of redeeming themselves by changing their future course. This type of imagery was reflective and supportive of contemporary political calls for Bürger action.

58 Perl, Der Entsatz Von Wien 1683, 62; “Ich hab’ mein Fehler gut gemacht, nicht wahr?“ 59 Perl, Der Entsatz Von Wien 1683, 56; “Dann sollen wissen alle Leut‘ auch nach zweihundert Jahr‘, Dass in dem großen Türkenstreit in Wien kein Feiger war.“

Page | 109

As depicted in the siege plays, however, cowardice is not the only barrier to belonging in the Viennese Bürgertum: in keeping with contemporary nationalist tensions and the liberal emphasis on German nationalism, some plays advocated for, or pushed back against, a German ideal in the Viennese Bürger. As the heroic Polish spy Kolschitzky introduces himself to city commander Starhemberg in Perl’s piece, offering to serve as a messenger to aid in the rescue of the city, Starhemberg replies plainly, “you’re a Pole?” to which Kolschitzky must answer that he is “a Slav, yes, but (doch) I am now a Wiener with my body and soul.” 60 Kolschitzky’s Slavic origins are construed as somehow antithetical to his devotion to Vienna, even though Polish troops are stationed outside of the city ready to come to Vienna’s rescue. The use of the German doch is vital to conveying this perspective. It indicates that the point which follows will be the opposite of what has been expressed, implying that being Polish is, for Kolschitzky, the opposite of being Viennese. Starhemberg is apparently convinced by this reasoning, allowing Kolschitzky to undertake the dangerous mission, for which he is lauded as a hero at the play’s conclusion.

Kolschitzky’s love interest, Leopoldine (interestingly, the feminized version of the 1683 Kaiser

Leopold’s name, potentially reinforcing just how strong Kolschitzky’s love for the empire is), is impressed with Kolschitzky’s deeds, and remarks that they may be enough to convince her father to allow the two to marry. “He was against you because you were aren’t Viennese,” she says,

“but since he heard of the danger you went through to serve our Vaterstadt [roughly, father city, localizing the notion of “fatherland”], and that the commander so highly regards you, he has permitted our love.”61 Kolschitzky thus earns a place among the heroic Bürger, receiving the congratulations of Starhemberg and embodying the notion of Viennese identity as something which is actually attainable through hard work and conformity to Perl’s set of desirable

60 Perl, Der Entsatz Von Wien 1683, 37; “Du bist ein Pole?“. 61 Perl, Der Entsatz Von Wien 1683, 62.

Page | 110 characteristics.62 In other siege plays, however, Kolschitzky is not as welcomed, and the

Viennese identity is not so flexible.

In Costa’s Türken vor Wien, Kolschitzky’s Slavic roots appear to be a much greater hinderance to his success and his sense of belonging in the city, despite the fact that his character is of much greater importance in this play than in Perl’s, occupying a significant portion of the overall plot. In Costa’s interpretation of the events, Kolschitzky is, much to his disappointment, forbidden from marrying his Viennese beloved on the basis of his Polish origin. The betrothed woman’s father berates Kolschitzky for his odd way of speaking German, and tells him that

“whomever would like to become my son-in-law would need to be able to demonstrate in black- and-white that he is a Viennese Bürger,” in spite of Kolschitzky’s assertion that, “I am a Slav from birth, but even so (doch), I have found here a new fatherland, to which I belong with all of my soul. I love this Vienna, as though I were born here on the beach of the Danube!”63

Kolschitzky, who loves and lives in and fights for Vienna, is excluded from consideration as a true Bürger, an assertion which would not have gone unnoticed in the context of 1883’s nationalist political climate. Kralik even chooses to remove Kolschitzky from his Türken vor

Wien altogether, supplanting for him the sidekick Michaelowicz, whose role only occupies a few minor lines.64 Despite his instrumental role in the siege, the ordinary merchant-turned-heroic

Polish spy is either barely accepted as a Bürger, flatly rejected from the ranks of the Bürgertum,

62 Later in this final scene, Kolschitzky is rewarded for his bravery with the coffee beans which the fleeing Turks have left behind in their camps. The importance of his role in Perl’s play may be exaggerated due to the popularity of the café in the late nineteenth century, as the alleged “first café-owner” in Vienna would therefore be a popular and interesting character to coffee-loving readers.; Perl, Der Entsatz Von Wien 1683, 80-81. 63 Costa, Die Türken Vor Wien. Vaterländisches Volksstück Mit Gesang in 4 Bildern, Nebst Prolog Und Epilog. Musik Von Paul Mestrozi. 14-15; “Der mein Schwiegersohn werden will, der Muss’s Überhaupt schwarz auf weiß haben, dass er ein Wiener Bürger ist!“; „Oho, bin ich auch ein Raize von Geburt, so hab‘ ich doch hier ein neues Vaterland gefunden, dem ich mit ganzer Seele angehöre und ich liebe dieses Wien, als wär ich hier am Donaustrand geboren!“; Sandra Bittman, „1683 - und was uns davon bleibt: die zweite Türkenbelagerung als medialer Referenzrahmen,“ SWS-Rundschau, 51(2), 145-164, (Vienna: 2001), 155. 64 Kralik, Die Türken Vor Wien: Ein Festspiel, 99-101.

Page | 111 or excised from the siege story altogether. The heroism of the Viennese Bürger ancestor, then, is a goal for which contemporary audiences ought to strive, but this goal is not without significant qualification and restriction within the siege plays.

Henceforth fight for Honor and Glory: Great Siege Heroes and the Christian Other65

Kolschitzky was not the only Pole to fight on behalf of the Austrian forces. Polish King

Sobieski himself led a significant portion of the relief troops which saved the city of Vienna from conquest in 1683, bringing to Vienna’s aid his powerful cavalry troops, who routed the Turkish forces as they descended down the slopes of the nearby Kahlenberg towards the city.66Sobieski’s contribution to the victory was so impactful that one anonymous observer who witnessed the siege in 1683 wrote:

Their majesties being on Horse-back, complimented each other upon the Victory, which the one attributed to the other; the King of Poland had the greatest share of the glory of this day which he best deserved: for he may be truly stiled[sic] one of the greatest Kings of Christendom, and the most Valiant.67 The reputation of Sobieski as deserving the “greatest share of the glory” would, however, not survive the king’s Polish heritage as the bicentennial approached in 1883. Even as a member of the “Christian” forces, the King is relegated to the status of “other,” placed above the Turks and yet below the German and Austrian heroes in the contemporary hierarchy. In Costa’s Türken vor

Wien, Sobieski is portrayed as an “equivocal, unlikeable person,” whose pessimism in the face of danger threatens to undermine Austrian success.68 Kralik offers a similarly damning interpretation of Sobieski’s legacy. Kralik’s Türken vor Wien describes the final battle of the

65 Kralik, Die Türken Vor Wien: Ein Festspiel, 22; “Nun kämpft um Ehre und Ruhm!“ 66 Wheatcroft, Enemy at the Gate, 164, 179-186. 67 A True and Exact Relation of the Raising of Siege of Vienna and the Victory Obtained over the Ottoman Army, the 12th of September 1683, Early English Books Online, (London: Printed for Samuel Crouch, 1683), 5. 68 Got, “Das Jahr 1683 Im Drama Und Auf Der Bühne,“ 48-49.

Page | 112 siege, wherein Sobieski’s forces joined with those of the Duke of Lorraine as well as a few

German princes to descend the Kahlenberg in a surprising and successful rescue effort, as though

Sobieski were the least impactful contributor to the relief forces—a contention which directly contradicts the factual events of the siege. Polish cavalry forces played a significant role in driving out the Ottoman-commanded forces from the city, and the denial of this basic fact demonstrates the willingness of contemporary observers in 1883 to reshape the narrative of the siege for personal purposes.

The reticence to give Sobieski his due in siege plays may have resulted from contemporary agitation in Polish/Habsburg Galicia, agitation which had faced strong condemnation from political forces in Vienna. In the context of Polish demonstrations, the elevation of the Polish king’s heroism was feared to fuel sentiments of Polish nationalism. The satirical weekly paper Wiener Caricaturen (Viennese Caricatures) published a fictional dialogue between different heroes of the siege a year and a half before the bicentennial on April 16, 1882, as excitement surrounding the commemoration celebrations was mounting.69 In the dialogue, while German heroes like Starhemberg complain that their memory is not being honored highly enough, “Sobieski” instead complains that his memory is being manipulated too much, saying that:

The times have changed tremendously, I can see it in my Poles! Now they want to use me as a means to manifest their German hate (Deutschenhass). If we had thought like that back then, then Vienna today might be – In Wiener Caricaturen’s imagining, Sobieski cannot even bring himself to describe what Polish nationalism would have done to Vienna in 1683. It is too painful, too catastrophic, to consider how drastically Poles have transformed from their formerly helpful and heroic status to such

69“Was sich die Wiener Momunente Erzählen,” Wiener Caricaturen, April 16, 1883.

Page | 113 opponents of the Germans (in which term Wiener Caricaturen includes both Austrian Germans and Germans to the north of the empire). There was a defined interest, then, in diminishing the legacy of the Polish icon: if Sobieski could be made to seem insignificant or cowardly, then

Polish nationalist agitators in Galicia would lack ammunition to justify their calls for greater provincial power.

Kralik’s play manifests the reduction of Sobieski’s heroism by portraying him as flighty and unreliable in battle. In the heat of the battle, the Duke of Lorraine exclaims angrily,

Where is Sobieski dawdling! We cannot allow the Turk any room to breathe! If we do not make it to Vienna today, we will lose. Where is Sobieski dawdling! If I could only wish him into place here out of the forest. Berg, spit him out! O King, don’t destroy our chances of victory!70 The implication here, that Sobieski not only contributed underwhelmingly to the relief effort but that he actually almost sabotaged it, is an invention of Kralik and his contemporaries which Got explains as belonging to “the playwright’s excitement for Germanism.”71 Even Perl, whose piece treated Kolschitzky’s legend the most leniently, cannot help but portray the Polish king as

“pious” and “pacifistic,” completely lacking ambition and deferring on important matters to

Lorraine, Starhemberg, and the German princes.72 These princes take up a much larger share of the victory in siege plays than they did in the actual siege, likely owing once again to trends in contemporary national politics.73 Political publications and other public commemorations would indeed employ similar methods in interpreting the siege legend, emphasizing the role of German and Austrian heroes over those of Slavic ones.

70 Kralik, Die Türken Vor Wien: Ein Festspiel, 146. 71 Got, “Das Jahr 1683 Im Drama Und Auf Der Bühne,“ 55. 72 Got, “Das Jahr 1683 Im Drama Und Auf Der Bühne,“ 57; Perl, Der Entsatz Von Wien 1683, 71, 81. 73 Got, “Das Jahr 1683 Im Drama Und Auf Der Bühne,“ 57-58; Kralik, Die Türken Vor Wien: Ein Festspiel, 18-22, 154-159.

Page | 114

Conclusion

Broad elements of the bicentennial siege plays illuminate which parts of the siege story in particular captivated the attention of Austria-Hungary in 1883. The city was besieged and outnumbered, and the people of Vienna had to come together to face the enemy, unifying in spite of class (and national) differences to take on the challenge facing them. Ordinary people collaborated with people of importance and social stature, and the result was an improbable victory which earned each everyday Bürger defender the lasting gratitude of their descendants and established the city of Vienna and the Austro-Hungarian Empire as it was in 1883. The legend was entertaining and patriotic, evidence of Viennese greatness and further proof that the people of Vienna could take on existential challenges and win.

When considered in context with the liberal and conservative interpretations of the siege, the plays further demonstrate the ways in which the political instrumentalization of the siege story permeated contemporary Vienna in the time of the bicentennial. Themes of Bürger heroism and belonging and Hungarian treason, external threats and internal quashing of those threats, align with the narratives advanced by interest groups across the spectrum. Nonetheless, since these plays were not publicly produced but were rather the products of the individual playwrights, there was not formal political control over the contents of the pieces, so the narratives blurred. For instance, Perl’s play which depicts Bürger heroism in line with liberal attempts at nominal class unity also cites Onno Klopp’s anti-liberal siege history as one of its main sources of information. It imagines Kolschitzky as eventually marrying a Viennese girl in spite of his Polish origins, but depicts Sobieski as lackluster in battle. The way these narratives filtered through the dramatic works of the day demonstrates that the works were not produced in a vacuum and were in fact influenced by the prevailing politicized versions of the siege story.

Page | 115

Yet, political narratives, while they were further propagated by works like the siege plays, were not perfectly reproduced through the stories they impacted.

Page | 116

Moving within Memory:

Public and Participatory Commemoration in 1883 Vienna

Introduction

On the evening of September 11th, 1883, huge crowds gathered in Vienna’s largest city park to sing the praises of their ancestors.1 It was around dusk when the festival, called the

Praterfest, started, and the darkness suited the coming festivities perfectly, throwing the dazzling fireworks overhead into even sharper relief. Performers sang popular songs with patriotic lyrics, leading the crowd in encores of “O’ you, my Austria!” and a folk ballad to the famed soldier

Eugene of Savoy called “Prince Eugene, the Noble Knight.” The people in the crowd had come together to celebrate with one another the victory of their predecessors in the “Turkish” siege of the city two-hundred years prior, and the mood, according to contemporary observers, was jubilant.2 Even in events like the Praterfest, however, underlying messages and narratives were the subject of heated debate, and traces of that political disagreement found expression in the planning and subsequent news coverage of the festival. Political interests competed for the attention of participants in these much-anticipated festivities, leveraging public events to shape the broader narrative of the siege legend in the minds of the general populace.

Public events and publicly sponsored memorials played significant roles in determining the way in which the everyday Viennese interacted with and understood the story of the siege on the occasion of the bicentennial. After all, not all residents of Vienna would have had the opportunity to visit the limited run of siege play performances, nor would all have had the means

1 “Die Säcularfeier,“ Neue Freie Presse, Sept. 11, 1883. 2 Ibid.

Page | 117 to purchase the published scripts of un-produced plays. The much cheaper and more abundant newspapers would have intruded more heavily on individuals’ understanding of the bicentennial, which would lead to the vehement competition of politicized siege narratives in politically associated publications like the liberal Neue freie Presse (New Free Press) and the conservative

Das Vaterland (The Fatherland).3 More prevalent still, however, would have been the material ways in which the everyday Viennese encountered the siege legend: the physical memorials and visible commemoration celebrations which would reincarnate elements of siege history within the everyday lives of city residents, bodily representing one or another memory from 1683 in the world of 1883. As such, the city government gave careful consideration to the types of memorials it wanted to erect and the types of festivities it wanted to support. The mass and enduring audience of these forms of commemoration meant that the messages they conveyed would be attractive opportunities for narrative control, a fact which led to substantial controversy and public consideration of which monuments would be built and which festivities would occur.4

These physical and participatory modes of commemoration warrant special consideration here due to their fundamental differences from the other modes of commemoration considered in this thesis. Physical objects reveal their interpretations and biases in vastly different ways from written ones. Rather than verbally explaining why one version of the legend or another is preferable, they rely on commonly accessible symbolism to convey their messages, giving them a much more passive narrative role in the formation of public understanding of a historical event.5 Memorials are certainly a form of interpretive media, but they are less explicitly

3 Maureen Healy, “1883 Vienna in the Turkish Mirror,” Austrian History Yearbook 40, (2009): 101-113, 109. 4 Johannes Feichtinger and Johanna Witzeling, „Stefansdom, Türkenbefreiungsdenkmal,“ Türkengedächtnis, https://www.tuerkengedaechtnis.oeaw.ac.at/ort/turkenbefreiungsdenkmal-im-stephansdom/. 5 Johannes Feichtinger and Johann Heiss, “Wiener ‘Türkengedächtnis’ im Wandel. Historische und anthropologische Perspektiven,” Austrian Journal of Political Science 38, no. 2 (2009): 249-263, 250.

Page | 118 interpretive than, say, a speech or a newspaper editorial. Their reliance on symbolism means that they depend on the personal preconceptions of their viewers, and they therefore must carefully employ certain images and arrangements of figures to get their messages across. The same can be said for museums and exhibitions: the physical objects contained therein can be imbued with particular messages when arranged intentionally.6

More so than plays and newspapers, physical memorials also enter into the everyday lives of viewers. In the case of Viennese bicentennial siege memorials, the objects would be encountered casually and unintentionally by pedestrians and passersby as they went about their normal business, even if they did not set out to consider the history of the siege (though data on commemoration festivity participation shows that many people did just that during the festival week in September of 1883).7 Physical memorials’ intrusion would also be more permanent than that of a textual narrative interpretation or commemoration, since a stone memorial would hold its place and form within the city for longer than an individual issue of a newspaper would hold the attention of its readers. The connotations of this permanence weighed heavily on the minds of siege commemorators in the years leading up to the 1883 siege bicentennial: whatever memorial work they decided to produce would not simply exist in the historical moment of its creation but would carry forth its message and narrative for the interpretation of future generations.8 Vienna’s 1883 memorial planners were careful, therefore, to construct narratives which they would be content with passing along to future generations. They were facing an

6 Richard Rabinowitz, “Eavesdropping at the Well: Interpretive Media in the Slavery in New York Exhibition,” The Public Historian 35, no. 3 (2013): 8-45, 9; Rabinowitz notes that museum spaces are inherently “mediated spaces,” altering objects themselves via framing and positioning within exhibits. 7 „Historische Ausstellung der Stadt Wien,“ Das Vaterland, September 16, 1883; Johannes Feichtinger and Johanna Witzeling, "Historische Ausstellung Im Wiener Rathaus 1883," Türkengedächtnis, https://www.tuerkengedaechtnis.oeaw.ac.at/feierlichkeit/historische-ausstellung-im-wiener-rathaus-1883/. 8 Feichtinger and Witzeling, „Stefansdom, Türkenbefreiungsdenkmal.“

Page | 119 opportunity to define the historical narrative for observers of their creations for the foreseeable future.

A further distinguishing element of the bicentennial commemoration celebrations and memorials was their participatory nature relative to other forms of commemoration. In 1883, city dwellers who chose to take part in the public festivities or who viewed the memorials constructed for the occasion brought themselves to physical places and encountered the historical memory of the siege with their attention and literal presence, participating in the commemoration rather than simply considering its implications (like readers of newspapers would). This purposeful involvement of the self in public history signals the presence and importance of the siege legend within the collective memory and consciousness of the Viennese in the late nineteenth century.9 Any complete consideration of the texture of the 1883 siege commemorations would therefore be negligent if it did not discuss the contents and implications of physical and participatory public commemorations.

This chapter will examine the most famous and controversial of the publicly commissioned siege memorials, as well as the events of the “Türkenwoche” or “Festwoche”

(“Turkish week” or “festival week”) which the city of Vienna hosted for the bicentennial of the

“Turkish” siege. This discussion will also include an analysis of the contents of the remarkably popular and similarly controversial Historische Ausstellung der Stadt Wien or “Historical

Exhibition of the city of Vienna” which opened in the Rathaus on September 12th, 1883, and will

9 Richard Rabinowitz, “Eavesdropping at the Well: Interpretive Media in the Slavery in New York Exhibition,” The Public Historian 35, no. 3 (2013): 8-45, 9; Rabinowitz explores how an individual’s participation in an event or perception of particular media within an exhibit is shaped by “their own experiences, expectations, and habits of mind, not to say the circumstances of the visit and the social interactions they have with companions.” Participatory commemoration, then, speaks as much to the intentions of its designers and creators as it does to the “experiences and expectations” of participants.

Page | 120 analyze its reception among contemporaries.10 Textual commemorative interpretations like those seen in plays and newspapers would advocate for particular historical narratives of the siege, and elements of those opposing narratives are visible in the physical and festive memorial media created for the occasion of the bicentennial; observing these media illuminates the ways in which politicized historical narratives were “instrumentalized” and marketed toward the general public, and the ways in which these political showdowns manifested in the context of historical commemoration.11 Beyond politicized history, the public events and memorials also offer a window into the manner in which the general public sought to insert their own identities into the events of 1683. By attending one or another bicentennial festivity, the public could assert their own personal connections to the glory of centuries prior and also become exposed to the political messages put forth by the governing bodies who had planned the events.

Political Interventions in Monuments and Festivals: Siege History Comes Alive

Instead of the highly anticipated but ultimately doomed dramatic competition, Vienna’s

Gemeinderat planned a series of commemorative events and memorials to mark the bicentennial of the siege, in some cases initiating memorial projects in 1882-3 that would not be completed until the 1890s. The collection of events and memorials was termed the Säcularfeier (centennial celebration). The most controversial and politically charged of the Gemeinderat’s bicentennial memorials was the Türkenbefreiungsdenkmal (Memorial of Turkish Liberation) in Vienna’s

Stephanskirche (St. Stephen’s Cathedral) in the city center. That the city ought to create a

10Healy, “1883 Vienna in the Turkish Mirror,“ 103; “Nach der Festwoche,” Figaro Sept 15, 1883; Katalog Der Historischen Ausstellung Der Stadt Wien 1883: Aus Anlaß Der Zweiten Säcularfeier Der Befreiung Wiens Von Den Türken, 2. Aufl ed. (Wien: Gemeinderath, 1883). 11 Feichtinger and Heiss, “Wiener ‘Türkengedächtnis’ im Wandel,“ 249; Johannes Feichtinger and Johanna Witzeling, “Historische Ausstellung im Wiener Rathaus 1883,“ Türkengedächtnis, https://www.tuerkengedaechtnis.oeaw.ac.at/feierlichkeit/historische-ausstellung-im-wiener-rathaus-1883/; Sandra Bittman, “Der mediale Diskurs um die zweite Türkenbelagerung Wiens zwischen 1683 und heute,” Master’s Thesis, (Vienna: University of Vienna, 2008), 135-136.

Page | 121 memorial to the heroes of the siege had been the idea of historian Karl Weiss in 1878, and by

1882 the specific details of the memorial were being finalized by the city of Vienna’s

Ministerium für Kultus und Unterricht (Ministry for Cultural Affairs).12

Johannes Feichtinger notes that, when it came to memorials of the 1683 siege of Vienna, planners deciding exactly what and whom they were memorializing had to navigate a minefield of fraught symbolism and political intention to create something with which the city as a whole could be content.13 The Türkenbefreiungsdenkmal would need to tread a fine line between the will of (liberal) nationalists who wished to emphasize a patriotic sense of gratitude towards heroes of certain nationalities, and the will of (conservative) clericalists who would rather give the siege a broader connection to Europe and Christendom than solely praise Germandom or

Vienna in particular. The result was a bitter showdown that Feichtinger terms the

“Denkmalstreit” or “Memorial Quarrel” which found expression in politically associated newspapers on both the liberal and conservative sides.14 Satirical papers would take aim at the complexity of the memorial brawl, including the weekly paper Kikeriki (figure 1). Kikeriki’s

April 20, 1882 issue would include an address to the

“Türkenbelagerungsbefreiungserinnerungsfestfeierarrangirungskommission,” roughly

“Commission for the Commemorative Festival Arrangements of the Liberation from the Turkish

Siege,” an exaggerated imaginary version of the Ministerium für Kultus und Unterricht, mocking them for fretting so much over which memorial to support. After all, the paper claims, “the

12 Werner Telesko, Kulturraum Österreich Die Identität Der Regionen in Der Bildenden Kunst Des 19. Jahrhunderts, (Wien: Böhlau Verlag, 2008), 35-36; Feichtinger and Heiss, “Wiener ‘Türkengedächtnis’ im Wandel,“ 251. 13 Feichtinger and Heiss, “Wiener ‘Türkengedächtnis’ im Wandel,“ 250; Feichtinger and Witzeling, „Stefansdom, Türkenbefreiungsdenkmal“; “ Zur Diskussion stand, wer für die Errichtung des Monuments zuständig sei, welche Helden repräsentiert und welcher Standort gewählt werden sollte.“ 14 „Wien und die Säcularfeier,“ Neue Freie Presse, April 12, 1882; „An die Türkenbelagerungserinnerungsfestfeierarrangirungskommission!“ Kikeriki, April 20, 1882.

Page | 122 heroes already erected a memorial” in the form of the Linienwällen, the outer fortifications which the city built after the end of the 1683 siege.15 Although the memorial debate was a drawn-out affair which political pundits took seriously, the satirical papers added a little levity to the discussion.

Figure 17: Kikeriki, April 20, 1883. An address to the memorial commission mocking them for the disagreement over which memorial ought to be erected. Another satirical paper, Die Bombe, similarly mocked the memorial proceedings in the

Gemeinderat and its subcommittee, publishing a depiction of a fictional memorial to the

Gemeinderat itself in the paper’s April 2, 1882 edition (figure 2). The image shows an obelisk- monument adorned with the lazy, sleeping figures of unnamed members of the Gemeinderat, with a plaque praising the “wakkeren” (an antiquated form of the adjective wacker, which means brave) men, an adjective which in this case is likely a play on the word “wach,” which ironically

15 „An die Türkenbelagerungsbefreiungserinnerungsfestfeierarrangirungskommission!“ Kikeriki, April 20, 1883.

Page | 123 means “awake.”16 Those involved in the memorial proceedings were targets of scrutiny along with the memorials themselves.

Figure 18: Die Bombe, April 2, 1882. A depiction of a fictionalized monument to the Vienna city council, mocking their controversy over the siege memorials. Perhaps more ludicrously, the humorous weekly paper Figaro published a mock conversation between members of the embattled Gemeinderat regarding the Denkmalstreit.17 Figaro’s April

15, 1882 issue included an exchange between “Gemeinderat X” and “Gemeinderat Y,” in which

Gemeinderat X refers to the plans to construct a memorial to commander Starhemberg (likely the

Türkenbefreiungsdenkmal) as “fatal.” To this assertion, Gemeinderat Y responds that there is

16 „Aus der Woche,“ Die Bombe, April 2, 1882. 17 “Gemeinderäthliches Auskunftsmittel,“ Figaro, April 15, 1882.

Page | 124

“only one revenge”: to build a counter-memorial to siege-time Ottoman Grand Vizier Kara

Mustafa.18 There was in fact no actual monument to the historic enemy, but Figaro’s message is plain: the intense politicized disagreement over what may have otherwise been an occasion for public unity was not necessary and seems to have gone too far in the case of the bicentennial

Denkmalstreit.

The first memorial planned by the Ministry for Cultural Affairs was the

Türkenbefreiungsdenkmal in the Stephanskirche. Once completed, the memorial would depict several famous figures from the 1683 siege.19 At the peak of the five-meter-wide and fifteen- meter-tall memorial, the sculptor Professor Edmund von Hellmer positioned the Virgin Mary holding Christ, alongside siege-time Kaiser Leopold I and his contemporary, Pope Innocent XI.20

Giving these figures the highest share of the honor clearly emphasized the role of the Church and of God in the siege. Underneath the pope and Kaiser stood a row of Vienna’s defenders centering on city commander Rüdiger von Starhemberg, who was depicted riding a horse that was reared up to trample a “Turk” underfoot. Next to Starhemberg stood Charles, Duke of Lorraine, the

Polish King John Sobieski, German Princes Johann Georg II and Max Emmanuel, and Viennese

Doctor Paul Sorbait “who stood for the civic (bürgerlich) defense of Vienna.”21 In an era of contentious national politics, the depiction of the Polish Sobieski on equal footing with the

German heroes Starhemberg and Lorraine was a bold statement of national unity and inclusivity.

Yet, all figures regardless of their nationality were subordinated to the Virgin Mary, Kaiser, and

18 Ibid. 19 Peter Rauscher, “Die Erinnerung an den Erbfeind. Die ‚Zweite Türkenbelagerung‘ Wiens 1683 im öffentlichen Bewusstsein Österreichs im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert,“ In: Repräsentationen der islamischen Welt im Europa der Frühen Neuzeit, (Münster: 2010), 293; Feichtinger Heiss, “Wiener ‘Türkengedächtnis’ im Wandel,” 251-252 20 Rauscher, „Die Erinnerung an den Erbfeind,“ 293; Feichtinger and Heiss, “Wiener ‘Türkengedächtnis’ im Wandel,“ 251. 21 Feichtinger and Heiss, “Wiener ‘Türkengedächtnis’ im Wandel,“ 252; Telesko, Kulturraum Österreich, 35-36.

Page | 125 pope, and had their Christianity further emphasized by their placement within the iconic

Stephanskirche. The memorial was destroyed in 1945 near the end of World War II, and only parts of it remain on display to this day.

Once the Ministry announced in 1882 that the Türkenbefreiungsdenkmal was to be placed within the Stephanskirche, the liberal mouthpiece Neue freie Presse strongly condemned the move as politicizing the commemorations unnecessarily.22 Because there was not full agreement on whether the bicentennial ought to commemorate the more broadly Christian aspects of the siege or opt to emphasize the German/Viennese achievements therein, the choice to host the city’s public memorial within a church, a Catholic space, was understandably controversial.23

The Neue freie Presse wrote, somewhat ironically, that:

The festival ought not to be a political one, because otherwise our political disputes would come to the most lively of expressions. It is quite clear that the clerical party would indeed like to celebrate the ‘salvation of Christendom,’ and the government is going along with them with the plan to erect a memorial in the Stephanskirche, which we speak out against on the basis of artistic, factual, and spatial grounds. The protestant German princes and their armies who came running to the defense would not be respected by that [memorial]. The Polish party would like to use the occasion of the memorial in order to exploit the great merit of King Sobieski, merit which they systematically overexaggerate.24 Conservatives did indeed seek to portray the successful defense of Vienna in 1683 as the defense of all Christendom, and liberals whom the Neue freie Presse represented disagreed with this interpretation in favor of a more German-focused narrative. Placing the memorial in the

22 “Wien und die Säcularfeier,“ Neue freie Presse, April 12, 1883. 23 Feichtinger and Heiss, “Wiener ‘Türkengedächtnis’ im Wandel,“ 254; Rauscher, “Die Erinnerung an den Erbfeind,“ 291-294. 24 “Wien und die Säcularfeier,“ Neue freie Presse, April 12, 1883; „Das Fest soll kein politisches sein, denn sonst kämen dabeie unsere Parteistreitigkeiten zum lebhaftesten Ausdrucke. Ganze deutlich will ja die clericale Partei ‚die Rettung der Christenheit‘ feiern, und die Regierung kommt ihr mit dem Plane entgegen, ein Denkmal in der Stephanskirche zu errichten, wogegen wir uns aus künstlerischen, sachlichen und localen Gründen aussprechen. Die protestantischen Reichsfürsten und ihre Kriegsvölker, die zur Rettung herbeieilten, wären dabei nicht berücksichtigt. Die polnische Partei will den Anlass dazu benützen, um das grosse Verdienst König Sobieski’s, das sie gerne uns systematisch übertreibt, tendenziös auszubeuten.“

Page | 126

Stephanskirche would favor the conservative narrative, excluding liberal heroes (German princes) and including the Catholic Polish followers of siege hero Polish King Sobieski, Poles whom liberals opposed because of their nationalist political demands. The process of the monument’s creation, therefore, was a matter of intense political disagreement, even if the completed memorial itself would not be unveiled until September 13, 1894.25

Instead of (or in addition to) the Türkenbefreiungsdenkmal, the Neue freie Presse proposed a memorial in a more “public” location, potentially in the soon-to-be-opened Rathaus or somewhere near it. Such a memorial would be more accessible and would follow the leads of more “artistic” cities like Venice and Florence.26 This other memorial, according to the Neue freie Presse, ought to also represent the everyday Bürger defenders who fought in 1683, the low citizens of Vienna who defended the city with “heroism, self-sacrifice, and undying Bürger- virtue,” because it was “not about the relief army, or the Poles, or the German aid troops, but rather the achievements of the Viennese Bürger.”27 By localizing the narrative of the siege to specifically concern the historic citizen-defenders of Vienna, this liberal version of a commemoratory monument would allow liberals to legitimate their German-nationalist agenda and excuse their general disregard for the issues involving the lower-class Viennese.

Liberals did eventually get their way, and in addition to the Türkenbefreiungsdenkmal in the Stephanskirche, the city would plan and construct another siege memorial across from the newly-constructed Rathaus, out in the open rather than enclosed in a religious space.28 The memorial would be an obelisk dedicated to siege-time Vienna Mayor Johann Andreas von

25 Rauscher, „Die Erinnerung an den Erbfeind,“ 292. 26 „Wien und die Säcularfeier,“ Neue freie Presse, April 12, 1883. 27 Ibid; „Nicht um das Entsatzheer, die Polen, die deutschen hilfsvölker, handelt es sich, sondern um die That der Wiener Bürger.“ 28 Feichtinger and Heiss, “Wiener ‘Türkengedächtnis’ im Wandel,“ 254.

Page | 127

Liebenberg, a figure who was allegedly meant to represent the achievements of the Viennese

Bürger but who may more likely have been chosen in order to fulfill the desires of contemporary liberal mayor Eduard Uhl (since Liebenberg had, in fact, died of illness rather than battle wounds during the siege and had been too sick for the majority of the siege to contribute to the fighting).29 In connecting the office of the mayor with the heroism of siege defenders, Uhl could manipulate the narrative of the siege for personal gain. The Liebenberg memorial directly answered the most clerical aspects of the Stephanskirche’s Türkenbefreiungsdenkmal both in its location and in its symbolism. Not only was the memorial located in a secular public place, but it also lacked the kind of explicit religious imagery that characterized the enormous

Türkenbefreiungsdenkmal. Instead of the Virgin Mary and the pope at its peak, the Liebenberg obelisk depicted Victoria, the Roman goddess of Victory, an image which harkened back to

Vienna’s much more distant past as a Roman outpost and which refuted the primacy of God and

Christendom in the narrative of the siege.30 The Liebenberg obelisk would be completed and unveiled four years earlier than the Türkenbefreiungsdenkmal, on September 12th, 1890—one year after the end of Eduard Uhl’s tenure as mayor. Yet, the planning of the monument in 1882-3 still speaks to the political conflicts of the early 1880s, and helps to demonstrate the ways in which political bodies and figures “instrumentalized” the memorialization and commemoration of the 1683 siege.31

While the memorials would end up as long-term projects, in the short term the

Gemeinderat also prepared a slate of events which it termed “Säcularfeier,” creating

29 Rauscher, „Die Erinnerung an den Erbfeind,“ 292; Feichtinger and Heiss, “Wiener ‘Türkengedächtnis’ im Wandel,“ 254; Thomas Mack Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent: Vienna’s Second Turkish Siege and Its Historical Setting, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1967), 268-269. 30 Rauscher, „Die Erinnerung an den Erbfeind,“ 292. 31 Feichtinger and Heiss, “Wiener ‘Türkengedächtnis’ im Wandel,“ 250.

Page | 128 opportunities for city residents and visitors to mark the occasion of the bicentennial. The

Säcularfeier comprised a set of commemoratory celebrations which took place throughout the city of Vienna beginning on September 10th, 1883. The first of these was a ceremonial “requiem” for the fallen heroes of the siege in the Schottenkloster (Scots Monastery) which had famously been set on fire as the Ottoman forces approached in 1683, and which also hosted the remains of siege-time city commander Rüdiger von Starhemberg.32 At the morning service, Mayor Eduard

Uhl delivered a speech to the gathered crowd, which included the descendants of some siege defenders, and then laid a laurel wreath on Starhemberg’s coffin.33 Adorning the laurels was a message reading, “the great-grandchildren of those Bürger for whom you were a blazing model of valor and love for the fatherland two-hundred years ago lay this wreath on your coffin in grateful remembrance.”34 The emphasis on lineage and inheritance of the former heroism of siege defenders, both through the publicized presence of the heroes’ descendants and through the message included on the wreath, would be a key element of the bicentennial commemorations as individuals sought to stake a personal claim to their land’s legendary history, a move which

Johannes Feichtinger argues amounted to adhering themselves to an “us” in order to avoid being categorized with “them”—the contemporary enemies of the city.35

The next day, on the morning of September 11th, 1883, the city held a “festival mass” and memorial plaque dedication atop the Kahlenberg on the outskirts of Vienna. On the same date in

1683, the combined Polish/German/Austrian relief forces had gathered on the Kahlenberg to plan

32 Johannes Feichtinger, Johann Heiss, and Johanna Witzeling, „Die Wiener Säkularfeierlichkeiten 1883 – Überblick,“ Türkengedächtnis, https://www.tuerkengedaechtnis.oeaw.ac.at/feierlichkeit/die-sakularfeierlichkeiten- des-jahres-1883-im-uberblick/; „Die Säcularfeier,“ Neue freie Presse, Sept 10, 1883; „Wiens Ehrentage,“ Morgen Post, Sept 11, 1883. 33 „Die Säcularfeier,“ Neue freie Presse, Sept 10, 1883. 34 Ibid, „Die Urenkel jener Bürger, welchen du vor 200 Jahren ein leuchtend Vorbild der Vaterlandsliebe und des Heldenmuthes warst, legen in darkbarer Erinnerung diesen Kranz auf deinem Sarg.“ 35 Feichtinger and Heiss, “Wiener ‘Türkengedächtnis’ im Wandel,“ 249-250.

Page | 129 their rescue of the city from attacking Ottomans, and the Kahlenberg festival mass commemorated the event by gathering some of the most powerful people in Vienna for a church service, speeches, and songs surrounding the memorial plaque’s unveiling. Nearly six hundred people attended the 1883 ceremony, including almost all members of the Gemeinderat, many ministry leaders, Vienna Mayor Eduard Uhl, and even the distant descendants of some of the heroes of the siege.36 Attendance at events like this was closely monitored in the press, and one’s participation seems to have been interpreted as a kind of personal endorsement. Contemporary

Viennese exhibitions like the International Pharmaceutical Exhibition, the International Electric

Exhibition, and even more minor events like individual art exhibitions would be carefully monitored for high-profile attendees, and their participation would be publicized in the press relating to said exhibitions.37 The siege events were no exception in this regard, as newspapers kept track of important visitors throughout the initial Türkenwoche and then throughout the duration of the Historische Ausstellung until its closing later that fall. News outlets took notice of the presence of so many members of the Gemeinderat at the mass and ensuing memorial dedication and made sure to emphasize the attendance of the descendants of siege heroes.38 The notion of an inherited history was therefore not only explored metaphorically, but was rather embodied through the literal presence and press coverage of those with family ties to the siege.

Mayor Uhl gave a speech summarizing the events of the siege and emphasizing the former threat posed by Ottoman force, saying that, “from the east lurked a menacing enemy, which wanted to establish its power here in the Occident (Abendland), an enemy not only to the

36 “Die Säcularfeier,“ Neue Freie Presse, September 11, 1883; „Die Säcularfeier,“ Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung, September 12, 1883 ; „Die Familie Liebenberg,“ Das Vaterland, Sept 12, 1883. 37 „Hofnachrichten,“ Das Vaterland, August 23, 1883; „Die Säcularfeier: Das Fest auf dem Kahlenberg,“ Das Vaterland, Sept 12, 1883. 38 „Die Säcularfeier,“ Das Vaterland, Sept 12, 1883; „Die Säcularfeier,“ Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung, Sept 12, 1883.

Page | 130

Christian religion, but also to Occidental culture.”39 He went on to remind the audience of the importance of the location in which they were gathered, explaining how, on that very spot, the leaders of the relief forces gathered and prepared for their mission. He describes the roles of

King Sobieski, the Duke of Lorraine, and the German Princes (giving Lorraine primary credit for leading the whole force), before unsurprisingly praising the Viennese Bürger, acclaiming them for their remarkable “resilience in the face of bitter hardship and plight.”40 Uhl’s speech emphasizes similar themes to those expressed in the siege plays, elevating the threat posed by

Mustafa’s men as well as emphasizing the bravery of the Austrian, German, and Polish troops who rebuffed them, while also toeing the party line of emphasizing the local heroism of the

Viennese Bürger.

Also included in the program of events for the September 11th Kahlenberg festival mass was a Fest-Hymne (festival song) composed specifically for the occasion, to be performed for the gathered guests by the Vienna Men’s choir.41 The text of the hymn similarly emphasizes the heroism of the Viennese Bürger, a fact which speaks to the contemporary importance placed on their role in the siege victory. As in the siege plays, the Bürger is depicted as courageous and self-sacrificing, even deserving of its own term: Bürgermuth, or Bürger bravery.42 The choir sang:

How the Janissary stood, the prince of battles, The Turkish elemental force, excited only for victory, Accustomed to viewing the world as its prize,

39 “Die Säcularfeier,“ Neue Freie Presse, September 11, 1883. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid. 42 The practice of adding an “h” after the letter “t” was common in Austrian German in the late nineteenth century, resulting in the word for Bürger bravery being spelled as “Bürgermuth” rather than the modern “Bürgermut.”

Page | 131

Suckled on the horror of blood and vomit,43 The Wiener—one in deed and in thought, They tread boldly, following the German blows, As warriors against slavery in restraints, […] How Bürgermuth decided the day for us!44 The deciding element, according to the hymn’s narrative, were the lowly Bürger, who rose up as heroes for the sake of their beloved city. The song likely reached fewer people than did the siege plays, with an audience of only six hundred, but listeners included the most powerful people in the city, magnifying the impact of the hymn’s message through news coverage which emphasized the important figures’ presence at the fesitivities and included the text of the song.

The next event took place later that day in the Prater, a large public park across the

Danube from the city center. The event, called the Praterfest, or Prater festival, included more choir performances and drew a larger crowd, despite the apparently poor weather for the mostly outdoor celebration.45 The gathered crowd witnessed performance after performance on a stage decorated with multicolored flags and garlands, all donated for the occasion by the Kaiser himself. One of the highpoints was the performance of the popular song “Prinz Eugen,” dedicated to one of the heroes of the siege who would go on to play an instrumental role in the capture of Hungarian lands from Ottoman control. Military choirs and music groups also took to the stage, continuing to play crowd favorites and even giving an encore of the popular “O du, mein Österreich,” or “O you, my Austria.”46 To close out the evening, the Gemeinderat gave a

43 From the German Würgen, meaning to retch or gag. In context, the author interprets this as referring to vomit. 44 “Die Säcularfeier,“ Neue Freie Presse, Sept. 11, 1883; „Wie stand der Janitschar, ein Fürst der Schlachten, der Türken Urkraft, nun zum Sieg erzeugt, Gewöhnt die Welt als Beute zu betrachten, im Gräu’l des Bluts und Würgens grossgesäugt, die Wiener—Eins in Thaten und Gedanken, Sie traten kühn nach deutscher Männer Schlag, Als Krieger gegen Kechtschalt in die Schranken.“ 45 „Säcularfeier der Stadt Wien,“ Wiener Zeitung, September 12, 1883. 46 Ibid.

Page | 132 large firework show over the Prater at 7:30 in the evening, mimicking the cannon fire of the siege the crowd was gathered to commemorate. Coverage of the Praterfest in the liberal press seems to have been mostly positive, emphasizing the joy and patriotism of the occasion.

Public excitement for the event would, however, have been dampened by some disappointment, as many in the city had hoped for a much more boisterous Volksfest, or

“peoples’ festival,” in place of the more reserved Praterfest. Similar to the backlash that followed the decision to not hold a dramatic competition, satirical newspapers and conservative outlets would mock the Gemeinderat for its failure to hold a Volksfest once the decision was made public in the summer of 1883. The satirical weekly Figaro published a message from the

“ghosts” of Starhemberg, Liebenberg, and Lorraine entitled Aus dem Jenseits or, “From the

Other Side,” in which the spirits expressed their own disappointment at the suppression of the

Volksfest, saying that, “everything that we did in the September days of 1683 was done not only for Vienna, but rather for all of Europe,” so that on the two-hundredth anniversary of their actions there could be a lively Volksfest.47 The conservative Das Vaterland seized on the opportunity of the failed Volksfest to criticize the liberal Gemeinderat for ignoring the will of the people in order to follow the wishes of the liberal Hetzpress (roughly, agitator-press or baiting- press). In a defiant September 12th, 1883 article entitled “Das Volksfest im Prater” or “The

Volksfest in the Prater,” the paper would note that, “luckily, the disputes in the Gemeinderat had no influence on this evening. What played out in the Prater today from 4 o’clock onwards was

[…] a genuine and rightful Volksfest.”48 Calling the Praterfest a Volksfest stood in direct opposition to the liberal Gemeinderat’s planning; even in acknowledging the success of the

47 “Aus dem Jenseits,” Figaro, July 28, 1883. 48 „Das Volksfest im Prater,“ Das Vaterland, Sept 12, 1883.

Page | 133 festivities and emphasizing how exciting the fireworks and musical performances were, the political writers of the day could not resist attributing this success to some kind of “failure” on the part of their opposition—in this case, the liberal failure to stop the Volksfest from happening.

The Historische Ausstellung: Interpretive History as Property and Decoration

Once September 12th, 1883 arrived, the disappointment of the people at the lack of a true

Volksfest would be overshadowed by excitement for the final Gemeinderat event: the grand opening of the new city hall, or Rathaus, combined with a gigantic historical exhibition showing relics from the siege (figure 3).

Figure 19: A poster advertising the Gemeinderat's historical exhibition, depicting examples of the types of artifacts to be displayed at the exhibition.49

49Feichtinger and Witzeling, „Historische Ausstellung im Wiener Rathaus 1883.“

Page | 134

The Gemeinderat began preparations for the Historische Ausstellung, or “historical exhibition,” on December 5th, 1882, appointing a special committee to coordinate the planning and execution of the event.50 The committee decided to combine the opening of the exhibition on September

12th, 1883, with the laying of the final stone of the newly built Rathaus, whose structure was located in the space once occupied by the city walls which had protected Vienna from the Grand

Vizier’s forces.51 The Gemeinderat invited visitors to view over 1300 items, including Turkish weapons and portraits of Austrian, German, and Polish heroes in the very place where their ancestors fought to the death to keep the encroaching enemy out of the city center (figure 4). The catalog of the exhibition appeared in print in advance of its opening, including a lengthy introduction from historian Karl Weiss (who had also planned the public memorials) explaining the purpose of the exhibition along with an itemized description of each piece presented in the exhibition.52 Half of the total revenue for the exhibition came from the sale of this nearly 400 page long catalog, which went through at least three separate printings and of which many copies survive.53 The other half of the revenue would come from the admission fees of the more than

163,000 total visitors to the exhibition, which was intended to span from September 12th until

October 15th of 1883 but was in fact extended until November 5th due to the extremely high level of interest.54

50 Katalog Der Historischen Ausstellung Der Stadt Wien 1883, III. 51 Schorske, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture, 7; Katalog Der Historischen Ausstellung Der Stadt Wien 1883, III. 52 The item descriptions contained a remarkable amount of political weight. Weiss goes to great lengths to identify which historians wrote the descriptions for which types of items, noting that the descriptions have been prepared as exactly as possible, “even in cases where descriptions do not support the narratives preferred by the owners of the items.”; Katalog Der Historischen Ausstellung Der Stadt Wien 1883, X. 53Feichtigner and Witzeling, „Historische Ausstellung im Wiener Rathaus 1883.“ 54 „Historische Ausstellung der Stadt Wien,“ Das Vaterland, September 16, 1883; Approximately 9500 people attended the exhibition within three days of its opening.

Page | 135

Figure 20: Neue Illustrirte Zeitung, September 16, 1883. A depiction of the types of "Turkish trophies" presented in the Rathaus exhibition, including the weapons, flags, and shields of Ottoman troops.55 In his introduction, Weiss indicates that the exhibition is intended to express “gratitude to the famed defenders and liberators of the city of Vienna.”56 In this way, both the exhibition itself and the published catalog of the collection follow along the same lines as the Kahlenberg festival mass and the Praterfest, as well as some elements of the siege plays, interpreting the siege legend in a manner which bolstered the patriotism of participants and readers and emphasized the strength of the participants’ ancestors. Yet it remained a matter of personal, and often partisan, preference which ancestors a participant would have liked to see represented in the exhibition, as was also the case with the more permanent public memorials erected to mark the occasion. Certain historical figures became representative of different political perspectives

55 “Türkische Trophäen,“ Neue Illustrirte Zeitung, September 16, 1883. 56 Katalog Der Historischen Ausstellung Der Stadt Wien 1883, V.

Page | 136 in the context of the bicentennial: German princes and ethnically German Austrian defenders were the preferred brand of the newly German-national liberals, while conservatives chose to emphasize Christian figures like the siege-time pope and even God himself.57

The methodology of the exhibition’s collection allowed for people of many backgrounds and political bents to have a say in its contents, therefore impacting its historical narrative. In the months preceding the exhibition, the Gemeinderat committee put out a call for objects from collectors all over Austria and Europe, promising to insure the items against fire and other types of damage to put the various collectors at ease.58 The result was an exhibition comprised of items donated by sixty-eight separate contributors, ranging from public libraries and military archives to private collectors throughout Germany, Austria, and, to a lesser extent, Poland.59 In the index of the contributors to the exhibition, organizers gave special consideration to four men in particular: contemporary Austro-Hungarian Kaiser Franz Josef I, King Albert of Saxony, Grand

Duke Friedrich of Baden, and Habsburg Archduke Albrecht.60 All other contributors are listed alphabetically by location rather than name, and are not even categorized by type (i.e., libraries, museums, and personal collections). It is a reflection of the national dynamics of the time that the location of the objects’ heritage within Europe and within the empire was deemed more important than the actual identity of the items’ contributors.

Two of the halls of the exhibition, sections IV and V of the catalog, were devoted to depictions of the heroes of the siege, including personalities like Sobieski, Kolschitzky, and

57 „Wien, 11. September,“ Neue freie Presse, September 12, 1883; „Zur Säcularfeier,“ Das Vaterland, September 12, 1883; Feichtinger and Heiss, “Wiener ‘Türkengedächtnis’ im Wandel,“ 250-255. 58 Katalog Der Historischen Ausstellung Der Stadt Wien 1883, VI-VIII. 59 Katalog Der Historischen Ausstellung Der Stadt Wien 1883, XIII-XVIII; Poland is noted as having contributed fewer items because there was a separate set of commemoratory events taking place within Poland at the same time as Vienna’s exhibition. Contemporary liberal news sources complained of the use of the siege legend by Poles in the Habsburg Empire to legitimate their calls for greater provincial authority. 60 Katalog der Historischen Ausstellung der Stadt Wien, XIII.

Page | 137

Starhemberg.61 Notably, the catalog description of Sobieski’s portraits denies him praise in a similar manner to the depictions of the Polish king in the siege plays, highlighting his shortcomings (by noting that he entered the city with his troops after the victory without waiting for the arrival of Kaiser Leopold I) rather than praising him for his contributions to the effort.62

Descriptions of images of the Austrian commander Starhemberg, on the other hand, note the commander’s heroism, prioritizing his actions over those of the Polish forces in their willingness to more fully acknowledge Starhemberg’s courage.63 In fact, the Rathaus building itself had been constructed to include a permanent statue of Starhemberg as well as statues of other Austrian siege heroes, further reinforcing their greater importance within the context of the siege exhibition.64

The big-name heroes were not the only ones honored in the exhibition halls. Descendants of minor participants readily offered relics related to their ancestors’ stories of bravery. Prime

Minister Eduard Taaffe even donated a portrait of his ancestor, Count Franz Taaffe, capitalizing on his personal connection to the heroism of the city’s forefathers in the same way the liberal mayor, Uhl, had done through the creation of a mayoral siege monument.65 Many of the individual donors to the exhibition were private collectors who, like Taaffe, had kept relics of the siege as family heirlooms and who wished to see their own families’ stories represented within the broader siege narrative.

61 The portrait of Kolschitzky is accompanied by a lengthy description in the exhibition catalog. The description casts doubt on the idea that Kolschitzky was indeed the first café owner. 62 Katalog Der Historischen Ausstellung Der Stadt Wien 1883, 44. 63 Katalog Der Historischen Ausstellung Der Stadt Wien 1883, 43; In addition to differences in content, Starhemberg’s description is more than twice as long as that of Sobieski. 64 Franz Scheidl, Denkmale und Erinnerungszeichen an die Türkenzeit in Wien, (Wien: Franz Scheidl Verlag, 1908), 13-25. 65 Katalog der Historischen Ausstellung der Stadt Wien 1883, 50, 362.

Page | 138

While the exhibition served as an opportunity for the city to praise its siege heroes, it also served another purpose: showing off items left behind by the retreating Ottomans, who fled too quickly to pack up their camps as the relief troops swept over the city on September 12, 1683. In fact, the vast majority of the objects displayed actually fell into this category of “Trophäen,” or

“Trophies,” a grouping which encompassed all manner of objects including rugs, weapons, and even a skull which was (falsely) alleged to have been that of Kara Mustafa himself (figure 5).66

The types of objects included, and the way in which they were organized within the exhibition hall, prioritized the spectacle of the items over their actual historical contexts, drawing in onlookers who were impressed and fascinated by the apparent threat represented by the items.

Figure 21: Neue Illustrirte Zeitung, September 16, 1883. Depiction of an exhibition visitor viewing a skull which was alleged to have belonged to Kara Mustafa.67

66 Healy, "1883 Vienna in the Turkish Mirror," 104; Katalog Der Historischen Ausstellung Der Stadt Wien 1883, 170-173; This is very unlikely to have been Mustafa’s skull. 67 “Das Schädel Kara Mustapha’s,“ Neue Illustrirte Zeitung, Sept 16, 1883.

Page | 139

But as a result of its massive collection, and despite its popularity, the exhibition did face criticism from some contemporary intellectuals and historians, who were unimpressed by the

“unscientific” layout and poor organization of the nominally “historical” exhibition.68 To historians like the conservative Josef Helfert, the vast halls seemed to be organized only haphazardly, in a manner which seemed to trivialize the more “heroic” objects and separate them from their authentic historical contexts, placing equal weight on every item by not carefully planning how the collection as a whole would be presented. It would be difficult to argue against

Helfert’s contention in this case. Contemporary depictions of the exhibition show overwhelming quantities of “Turkish” artifacts strewn about as if intended for decorative rather than informative purposes, a fact which would have made it especially difficult for the general public do glean any kind of organized narrative from the presentation of the objects themselves (figure

6). In fact, Weiss’s introduction to the exhibition catalog even specifically mentions the fact that:

For the decoration of the exhibition halls it was necessary to incorporate objects from the Municipal Arms Museum which did not directly relate to the occasion of the second Turkish siege of Vienna.69 The portrayal of the “Turkish” enemy, then, was not organized according to chronology, historical accuracy, or any other expected organizational schematic, but was rather designed decoratively, and included objects which were only tangentially related to the siege itself in order to improve the aesthetics of the exhibition.

68 Feichtinger and Witzeling, „Historische Ausstellung im Wiener Rathaus 1883.“ 69 Katalog der Historischen Aussteullung der Stadt Wien, X; “Zur Decorirung der Ausstellungsräume war es übrigens nothwendig, aus dem städtischen Waffenmuseum auch gegenstände einzubeziehen, die auf das Ereigniss der zweiten Belagerung Wiens durch die Türken nicht unmittelbar Bezug haben.”

Page | 140

Figure 22: Neue Illustrirte Zeitung, August 19, 1883. A contemporary artists' depiction of the bicentennial historical exhibition. Artifacts appear strewn about decoratively.70 In this manner, the exhibition and the exhibition catalogs are similar. Aside from vague categorical groupings (maps, portraits, Turkish trophies, etc.), the catalog, like the exhibition, lacks an organizational schematic, listing the items in numerical order, but apparently arbitrarily assigning each object its number. A visitor to the exhibition and a reader of the catalog would have had little or no reference point on which to center their experience, with objects presented in a manner which divorces them from their meaning and from their importance relative to other objects.

70 “Die Historische Ausstellung der Stadt Wien: der Große Mittelsaal,“ Neue Illustrirte Zeitung, August 19, 1883.

Page | 141

A visitor entering the exhibition with a view similar to that presented in figure 6 would likely have been impressed by the spectacle of the items; after all, the siege anniversary was the subject of so much advanced planning and speculation that seeing it represented materially would have undoubtedly been an exciting experience. Additionally, “Turks” are sometimes presented only abstractly in siege literature (as even the plays lack detailed physical descriptions of the enemy almost as a rule). The presentation of physical artifacts relating to Ottoman customs and culture would have essentially had the effect of putting a face to a name. After hearing so many accounts, factual and fictional, of the barbarism of the “Turkish” other, the visitor viewing these materials would have been confronted with the fact of the literal existence of the Turks of

1683 on a scale much larger than they would earlier have encountered. Even those families who had kept personal collections of relics would not have had access to such an impressive and massive range of artifacts, and the fair halls of the new Rathaus would certainly have re- contextualized the scale of the exhibit even if it failed to present a unified siege narrative.

The exhibition’s lack of a cohesive historical narrative allowed visitors to impose upon these objects whatever preconceived interpretation of the siege legend they may have already believed. Rather than correcting false notions or informing the uninformed by exposing them to a truth grounded in material culture, the mere jumble of images which the exhibition chose to present served as a canvas upon which other actors could—and did—enforce their own preferred, and often biased (read: nationalized), interpretations of the events of 1683. This is in part the result of the Gemeinderat’s methodology in preparing the exhibition. Gathering artifacts essentially by chance, putting out a call for objects and simply awaiting whichever ones contributors chose to send in, would have made the imposition of any kind of unified narrative exceedingly difficult, especially considering that the organizers would have had the contents of

Page | 142 sixty-eight individual collections to contend with. The exhibition was not constructed with any intentionality or structure, so the end result was a collection of objects without any apparently intentionality or structure.

Conclusion

Reading the object descriptions in the historical exhibition catalog provides some level of interpretation and guidance as to which figures ought to be honored and for what reasons, but the visitors to the exhibition would be seeing the objects themselves and not their corresponding catalog entries; what’s more, even a catalog reader at the time would have read each of the objects as having equal weight if skimming the catalog at a glance, since the catalog itself was also quite arbitrarily organized aside from the aforementioned broad categorical groupings. That the lack of a cohesive narrative received criticism from the exhibition’s contemporaries speaks to an impulse to impose certain versions of the siege story on public interpretations. Yet, the overwhelming popularity of the exhibition in spite of this lack of a unified narrative also demonstrates a willingness on the part of visitors to bring in their own organizing narratives, drawn from outside sources like the plays, newspapers, events, speeches, and monuments discussed here.

Those visitors who had engaged with political debate or read politically associated publications since early in 1882 would have entered the Historische Ausstellung and later encountered the public monuments having already been exposed to the controversies regarding the nature of the commemoration at hand. Their minds would have been primed to at least see different narratives reflected in the artifacts, even if almost no guidance were given by the exhibition itself. The same went for the monuments in the Stephanskirche and across from the

Rathaus as well as the Praterfest and the Kahlenberg festival mass. Political jockeying for the

Page | 143 establishment and recognition of a particular version of the 1683 siege narrative determined the ways in which contemporaries engaged not only with written and politically explicit media, but also with physical and participatory media which advanced its cause through symbolism.

Assertions of political identity within the context of the siege commemoration established a set of charged associations with siege symbols including particular heroes and places within the city.

The participatory public interpretations in the form of events and physical monuments, though like the siege plays in that they were not necessarily the explicit products of partisan political interests, were heavily influenced by political narratives. Those cultural interpretations which advanced a narrative did so primarily along either national or religious (liberal or conservative) lines, both re-expressing and reinforcing prevailing contemporary issues which, when applied to the siege legend by political bodies, would become even more extremely exaggerated and visible. The political disputes over what exactly defined the siege in 1683, the

German or Catholic dimensions, were disputes informed by contemporary disagreement regarding what exactly united or divided the people of Vienna and, more broadly, the people of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1883. In their attempts to establish their political primacy, different interests in Vienna transformed the siege legend from inert common history to a powerful political instrument.

Page | 144

Conclusion

In 1883 Vienna, the modes of commemoration of the “Turkish” siege transformed the history of the event in the minds of those who partook in the commemoration, shaping the way contemporary observers approached and understood the story and rendering the factual events into legends that essentially divided the figures of the history against themselves. Whatever the true motivations of the defenders of Vienna in 1683, they were likely neither solely inspired by the superiority of Germans nor purely motivated by faith, and yet the vast readerships of political publications and the masses of participants in commemoratory celebrations were exposed to rhetoric which presented pared down narratives of the siege, reduced from its vast complexity into one or another track of preferred interpretation. Through a stretch in the imaginations of writers, politicians, and artists, the bicentennial became not about the former Ottomans themselves, but rather about the implications of the story of their demise when projected onto contemporary circumstances vis-à-vis national challengers and other class-based and religious opponents—opponents whose apparent threat level was elevated through comparisons to the city’s once mortal enemy. When liberal publications described Vienna as besieged by Czechs, and when conservative papers likewise infused the story with the notion of “floods of heathens” even from within their own empire, the end result was the application of a perceived binary dynamic to contemporary circumstances that, while politically expedient, belied the multinational and multi-confessional cooperation that had characterized both sides of the 1683 siege they were commemorating.

Page | 145

In this way, the history of 1683 was modified and remolded, upended and framed against itself by opposing bodies with opposing interests. Within the context of contemporary challenges in the late nineteenth century, the legend itself became a renewed battleground. The liberal positioning of national enemies in the place of the “Turks” and the attempt to establish German figures at the top of a constructed hierarchy of heroes reframed the story for liberal adherents into a cautionary tale of nationalist ambitions creeping in from the fringes of the Austro-

Hungarian Empire. The opposing conservative subordination of the secular players in the siege to the pope, Kaiser, and God, combined with their contemporary emphasis on the unity of

Christendom, detached the story of the siege from the actions of the city’s literal defenders and attempted to gloss over contemporary national challenges with the invented notion that national divisions had not impacted the events of the commonly revered siege victory. These particular framings of the narrative lived on for decades after their originators in the form of the public monuments erected in the city, the Türkenbefreiungsdenkmal and the Liebenberg obelisk, for all to see and learn from. The politicization of Vienna’s history in reaction to immediate challenges would leave enduring impressions on both the layout of the city it pertained to and on the people moving within that city, far outlasting the particular problems which had inspired it.

It remains difficult to ascertain, given the immense popularity of the commemoration festivities and the simultaneous politicization of their contents, whether the political fervor entangled in the occasion simply took advantage of the popularity of the legend in nineteenth century Vienna, or whether the politicization in fact sparked that popularity. Whichever was the case, contemporaries of the bicentennial who expressed their interpretations of the history of the siege enjoyed a sizeable audience to absorb or react to their narrative. Though the siege had happened two hundred years earlier, what was at stake in the bicentennial disagreements over the

Page | 146 interpretations of the event was the control over what exactly would come to constitute the legitimate, historically grounded identity of the Viennese in the decades to follow. The concern for the controlled projection of this identity is evident in the particular attention devoted to commemorating the behavior of the everyday defenders of the siege, the low-Bürger fighters who held the city walls supposedly without attention to class or nationality. What these projections of contemporary circumstance onto distant history demonstrate is that the instrumentalization of history as a reaction to contemporary threats can transform the commemoration of that history beyond its own contextual constraints into a simulation of comfortably precedented triumph through adversity. Observers in 1883, with the full benefit of hindsight, could reflect on their circumstances through a version of the siege story that accepted them and reinforced their preferred worldview, anachronistically imposing their contemporary identities and challenges onto the narrative as though such comparisons between their present circumstances and those of two hundred years prior were appropriate.

Such is the power of the bad analogy. Participants in the 1883 siege commemorations were encouraged to see similarities that did not exist between their present circumstances and the events of their heroic past. Anything about the siege story could be made to resemble contemporary life in 1883 if the one or both were subtly modified, nudged closer to one another to make the comparisons easier. In the context of 1883, the analogies of the politicized siege interpretations were also not entirely harmless. If a reader of Das Vaterland accepted the paper’s premise that Christianity was indeed the most important uniting factor of the Austro-Hungarian

Empire and that, like the defenders of 1683, they ought to take all possible measures to resist encroaching “heathens” or non-Christians, it would not be a far leap for them to more boldly push back against the empire’s Jewish minority. If liberal readers of the Neue freie Presse were

Page | 147 convinced of the primacy of ethnic Germans within the empire by virtue of their own supposed similarities to heroes like Starhemberg, Lorraine, and the Prussian princes of the relief army, then non-German national minorities would face similar resistance.

The power of that analogy, of that control over the historical narrative, cannot be overstated. Comparisons like the ones made by liberal and conservative publications had real, immediate impacts on the form of the bicentennial commemoration, filtering through different facets of the festivities and changing the way people chose to remember their common history— and by extension, the way in which they would imagine their place in the future. With a reformed understanding of where they came from, contemporaries of the bicentennial were confronted with a reframing of where the city of Vienna ought to be heading.

Page | 148

Bibliography

Primary Sources A True and Exact Relation of the Raising of Siege of Vienna and the Victory Obtained over the Ottoman Army, the 12th of September 1683. Early English Books Online. London: Printed for Samuel Crouch ..., 1683.

Ahlander, Johan and Lannin, Patrick. “Norway’s Mass Killer Pursing Anti-Islam Crusade.” Reuters, July 24, 2011. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-norway-manifesto/norways- mass-killer-pursuing-anti-islam-crusade-idUSTRE76N0X820110724.

Bayrhammer, Bernadette. “Ein Kipferl, von Mythen umrankt: “Presse”-Gründer August Zang sollen die Franzosen das Croissants verdanken,” Die Presse. February 18, 2017.

Chavez, Nicole, Helen Regan, Sandi Sidhu, and Ray Sanchez. “Suspect in New Zealand Mosque Shootings was Prepared ‘to Continue his Attack,’ PM says.” CNN, March 16, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/15/asia/christchurch-mosque-shooting- intl/index.html.

Costa, Carl. Die Türken Vor Wien. Vaterländisches Volksstück Mit Gesang in 4 Bildern, Nebst Prolog Und Epilog. Musik Von Paul Mestrozi. Wien: Wr. Vereins-Buchdr., 1883.

“Counterjihad Archive.” Gates of Vienna. https://gatesofvienna.net/category/counterjihad/.

“History of the Counterjihad.” Gates of Vienna. https://gatesofvienna.net/notable/history-of- the-counterjihad/.

Das Vaterland. “An unserem ehrwürdigen Bruder.” September 12, 1883.

Das Vaterland. “Das Jahr 1683.” September 8, 1883.

Das Vaterland. “Das Volksfest im Prater.” September 12, 1883.

Das Vaterland. “Die Familie Liebenberg.” September 12, 1883.

Das Vaterland. “Die Fanatiker der Brandlegung.” September 7, 1883.

Das Vaterland. “Die Säcularfeier.” September 12, 1883.

Das Vaterland. “Die Säcularfeier: Das fest auf dem Kahlenberg.” September 12, 1883.

Page | 149

Das Vaterland. “General Versammlung der Katholischen Deutschlands.” September 7, 1883.

Das Vaterland. “Historische Ausstellung der Stadt Wien.” September 16, 1883.

Das Vaterland. “Hofnachrichten.” August 23, 1883.

Das Vaterland. “Liberale Gleichberechtigung.” July 27, 1883.

Das Vaterland. “Ungarn und die Wiener Septemberfeste.” September 12, 1883.

Das Vaterland. “Zu den Agramer Demonstrationen.” August 21, 1883.

Das Vaterland. “Zur Säcularfeier.” September 12, 1883.

Das Vaterland. “Zur Säcularfeier.” September 12, 1883.

Die Bombe. “An die Preis-Türkenstück-Dichter.” November 26, 1882.

Die Bombe. “Aus der Woche.” April 2, 1882.

Die Bombe. “Für Historiker.” June 24, 1883.

Die Bombe. “Wann haben die Polen mehr erobert: 1683 oder 1883?” June 24, 1883.

Die Bombe. “Welt-Ärgerliches von Dr. Bombus.” June 17, 1883.

Die Presse. “Papst Leo XIII.” September 12, 1883.

Die Presse. “Wien den 2. Juli.” July 3, 1848.

Die Presse. “Wien, 10. September.” September 11, 1883.

Die Presse. “Wien, 2. Juli.” July 3, 1883.

Die Presse. “Zur Vollendung des Rathausbaues.” September 11, 1883

“Ein Gedenkblatt der Neuen freien Presse, 1864 – 1914,” In: Neue freie Presse, 1914. Vienna: Drückerei der Neuen Freien Presse, 1914.

Figaro. “Anfrage an Leo XIII.” September 8, 1883.

Figaro. “Aus dem Jenseits.” July 28, 1883.

Page | 150

Figaro. “Festprogramm für das Volksfest am 12. September.” July 28, 1883.

Figaro. “Findigkeit.” December 9, 1882.

Figaro. “Gemeinderäthliches Auskunftsmittel.” April 15, 1882.

Figaro. “In Böhmen sollen die Deutschen doppelzüngig gemacht werden.” July 28, 1883.

Figaro. “Menü für das düstere Stimmungs-dejeuner des Wiener Gemeinderathes.” July 28, 1883.

Figaro. “Nach der Festwoche.” September 15, 1883.

Figaro. “Wiener Luft.” July 28, 1883.

Figaro. Untitled Caricature. September 15, 1883.

Gambrell, Jon. “Mosque Shooter Brandished White Supremacist Iconography.” Associated Press, March 15, 2019. https://www.apnews.com/597933f5d8454f448db02d1fc077730d.

Helfert, Joseph Alexander. Die Jubiläums-Literatur der Wiener Katastrophe von 1683 und die Kaplir-Frage. Prague: 1884.

Helfert, Joseph Alexander. “Die Weltgeschichtliche Bedeutung des Wiener Sieges 1683.” Das Vaterland, September 7, 1883.

“Homepage.” Gates of Vienna. Last modified April 12, 2019. https://gatesofvienna.net.

Juergensmeyer, Mark. “Why the Year 2083 is the Title of Norwegian Terrorist Andres Breivik’s Manifesto.” Huffington Post, September 27, 2011. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/anders-breivik-manifesto_b_910229.

Katalog Der Historischen Ausstellung Der Stadt Wien 1883: Aus Anlaß Der Zweiten Säcularfeier Der Befreiung Wiens Von Den Türken. 2. Aufl ed. Wien: Gemeinderath, 1883.

Kikeriki. “An die Türkenbelagerungserinnerungsfestfeierarrangirungskommission.” April 20, 1882.

Kikeriki. “Unerklärliches, was man erlebt.” September 9, 1883.

Kikeriki. “Wiens Todesangst 1883.” August 9, 1883.

Klopp, Onno. “Offenes Sendschreiben an Herrn Bürgermeister Uhl.” Das Vaterland,

Page | 151

October 26, 1882.

Kralik, Richard. Die Türken Vor Wien: Ein Festspiel. Vienna: C. Konegen, 1883.

Morgen Post. “Wiens Ehrentage.” September 11, 1883.

Neue freie Presse. “Das Buchdruckerfest in der ‘Neuen Welt.’” June 26, 1883.

Neue freie Presse. “Die Säcularfeier.” September 10, 1883.

Neue freie Presse. “Morgenblatt.” September 12, 1883.

Neue freie Presse. “Wien und die Säcularfeier.” April 12, 1882.

Neue freie Presse. “Wien, 10. September.” September 11, 1883.

Neue freie Presse. “Wien, 11. September.” September 11, 1883.

Neue freie Presse. “Wiener Gemeinderath.” October 21, 1882.

Neue Illustrirte Zeitung. “Das Schädel Kara Mustapha’s.” September 16, 1883.

Neue Illustrirte Zeitung. “Die Historische Ausstellung der Stadt Wien: Grosse Mittelsaal.” August 19, 1883.

Neue Illustrirte Zeitung. “Türkische Trophäen.” September 16, 1883.

Neue Illustrirte Zeitung. “Volksänger Augustin.“ August 19, 1883.

Perl, Jakob. Der Entsatz Von Wien 1683 [i.e. Sechzehnhundertdreiundachtzig]: Volksstück Mit Gesang in Fünf Aufzügen Zur Zweiten Säcularfeier Der Letzten Türkenbelagerung Wiens. Wien: Wallishausser, 1883.

Shane, Scott. “Killings in Norway Spotlight Anti-Muslim Thought in U.S.” New York Times, July 24, 2011. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/us/25debate.html.

“The Islamophobic Signs that Defined the Christchurch Terrorist.” TRT World. March 15, 2019. https://www.trtworld.com/asia/the-islamophobic-signs-that-defined-the- christchurch-terrorist-24982.

Vedette. “Belagerung Wien’s 1683.” August 2, 1882.

Wajahat, Ali. “The Roots of the Christchurch Massacre.” New York Times, March 15, 2019.

Page | 152

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/opinion/new-zealand-mosque-shooting.html.

Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung. “Die Säcularfeier.” September 12, 1883.

Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung. “Österreichische Kunstverein.” June 18, 1883.

Wiener Caricaturen. “Die Gedenkfeier Wuth.” September 23, 1883.

Wiener Caricaturen. “Die Türken vor Wien.” September 16, 1883.

Wiener Caricaturen. “Was sich die Wiener Monumente Erzählen.” April 16, 1883.

Wiener Caricaturen. “Zukunftsbild au seiner Ausstellung des Kunstvereines im Jahre 2083.” July 8, 1883.

Wiener Zeitung. “Säcularfeier der Stadt Wien.” September 12, 1883.

Secondary Sources Barker, Thomas Mack. Double Eagle and Crescent: Vienna's Second Turkish Siege and Its Historical Setting. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1967.

Beglaw, Jeffery W. “The German National Attack on the Czech Minority in Vienna, 1897–1914, as Reflected in the Satirical Journal “Kikeriki”, and its Role as a Centrifugal Force in the Dissolution of Austria-Hungary.” Master’s Thesis, Ann Arbor: Simon Fraser University, 2004.

Beller, Steven. "German Liberalism, Nationalism and the Jews: The Neue Freie Presse and the German-Czech Conflict in the Habsburg Monarchy 1900–1918.” Bohemia 34. (1993): 63-76.

Bittman, Sandra. “Der mediale Diskurs um die zweite Türkenbelagerung Wiens zwischen 1683 und heute.” Master’s Thesis, Vienna: University of Vienna, 2008.

Bittman, Sandra. „1683 - und was uns davon bleibt: die zweite Türkenbelagerung als medialer Referenzrahmen.“ SWS-Rundschau 51, no.2 (2001): 145-164.

Boyer, John W. Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna: Origins of the Christian Social Movement, 1848-1897. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.

Page | 153

Brown, Karin Brinkmann, and William Hardy McNeill. Karl Lueger, the Liberal Years: Democracy, Municipal Reform, and the Struggle for Power in the Vienna City Council, 1875-1882. London: Garland Pub., 1987.

Feichtinger, Johannes and Heiss, Johann. “Wiener „Türkengedächtnis“ im Wandel. Historische und anthropologische Perspektiven.” Austrian Journal of Political Science 38, no.2 (2009): 249-263.

Feichtinger, Johannes, Heiss, Johann, and Witzeling, Johanna. “Die Wiener Säkularfeierlichkeiten 1883 – Überblick.” Türkengedächtnis. https://www.tuerkengedaechtnis.oeaw.ac.at/feierlichkeit/die-sakularfeierlichkeiten-des- jahres-1883-im-uberblick/.

Feichtinger, Johannes and Witzeling, Johanna. “Historische Ausstellung im Wiener Rathaus 1883.“ Türkengedächtnis. https://www.tuerkengedaechtnis.oeaw.ac.at/feierlichkeit/ historische-ausstellung-im-wiener-rathaus-1883/.

Feichtinger, Johannes and Witzeling, Johanna. “Stefansdom, Türkenbefreiungsdenkmal.” Türkengedächtnis. https://www.tuerkengedaechtnis.oeaw.ac.at/ort/turkenbefreiung sdenkmal-im-stephansdom/.

Fichtner, Paula S. Terror and Toleration: The Habsburg Empire Confronts Islam, 1526 1850. London: Reaktion Books, 2008.

Got, Jerzy. "Das Jahr 1683 Im Drama Und Auf Der Bühne, 1: Österreich." Maske Und Kosthum: Internationale Beitrage Zur Theaterwissenschaft 29, no. 1-4 (1983): 1-97.

Gronberg, Tag. "Coffeehouse Orientalism." In The Viennese Cafe and Fin-de-Siècle Culture, edited by Gronberg, Tag, Ashby, Charlotte, and Shaw-Miller, Simon, 59-77. New York: Berghahn Books, 2013.

Halbwachs, Maurice, and Lewis A. Coser. On Collective Memory. The Heritage of Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Healy, Maureen. "1883 Vienna in the Turkish Mirror." Austrian History Yearbook 40 (2009): 101-13.

Judson, Pieter M. "Rethinking the Liberal Legacy." In Rethinking Vienna 1900, edited by Beller Steven, 57-79. New York: Berghahn Books, 2012.

Judson, Pieter M. Exclusive Revolutionaries: Liberal Politics, Social Experience, and National Identity in the Austrian Empire, 1848-1914. Autre Tirage ed. Social History, Popular Culture, and Politics in Germany. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999.

Page | 154

Judson, Pieter M. The Habsburg Empire: A New History. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press, 2016.

Le Rider, Jacques. Modernity and Crises of Identity Culture and Society in Fin-De-Siècle Vienna. New York: Continuum Intl. Publishing Group, 1993.

Leithner, Franz S. Der heldenmüthige kampf Wiens gegen die Türken 1683 und Onno Klopp's ungerechte verdächtigungen der Wiener bürgerschaft. Krems an der Donau: M. Pammer, 1883.

Lemon, Robert. Imperial Messages Orientalism as Self-critique in the Habsburg Fin De Siècle. Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture. Rochester, N.Y.: Camden House, 2011.

Mayer-Hirzberger, Anita. “Die Türken vor Wien (‘The Turks at the gates of Vienna’): Music and drama for the 200th commemoration day of the Second Turkish Siege of Vienna – between patriotism and entertainment.” Mousikos Logos 1, no.1 (2014): pages not numbered.

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, Christoph Friedrich Bretzner, and Gottlieb Stephanie. The Abduction from the Seraglio. New York: Dover, 1989. Print.

Okey, Robin. “The Neue Freie Presse and the South Slavs of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1867- 1914.” The Slavonic and East European Review 85, no.1 (2007): 79-104.

Rabinowitz, Richard. "Eavesdropping at the Well. Interpretive Media in The Exhibition." The Public Historian 35, no. 3 (2013): 8-45.

Rauscher, Peter. „Die Erinnerung an den Erbfeind. Die ‚Zweite Türkenbelagerung‘ Wiens 1683 im öffentlichen Bewusstsein Österreichs im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert.“ In: Repräsentationen der islamischen Welt im Europa der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. Gabriele Haug-Moritz, Ludolf Pelizaeus. Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2010.

Scheidl, Franz. Denkmale und Erinnerungszeichen an die Türkenzeit in Wien. Wien: Franz Scheidl Verlag, 1908.

Schorske, Carl E. Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture. New York: Knopf: Distributed by Random House, 1980.

Secklehner, Julia. “Bolshevik Jews, Aryan Vienna? Popular Antisemitism in ‘Der Kikeriki’, 1918–1933.” The Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 63, no.1, (2018): 157–178.

Page | 155

Skalnik, Kurt. An Der Wiege Der Österreichischen Journalistik; Die Wiener Presse Im Jahre 1848. Österreich-Reihe, Bd. 55. Wien: Bergland Verlag, 1958.

Skalnik, Kurt. Die Österreichische Presse: Vorgestern, Gestern, Heute. Österreich-Reihe, Bd.221. Wien: Bergland Verlag, 1964.

Telesko, Werner. Kulturraum Österreich Die Identität Der Regionen in Der Bildenden Kunst Des 19. Jahrhunderts. Wien: Böhlau Verlag, 2008.

Teply, Karl, Die Einführung Des Kaffees in Wien: Georg Franz Koltschitzky, Johannes Diodato, Isaak De Luca. Wien: Verein für Geschichte, 1980.

Wheatcroft, Andrew. The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans and the Battle for Europe. New York: Basic Books, 2009.

Wolff, Larry. The Singing Turk: Ottoman Power and Operatic Emotions on the European Stage from the Siege of Vienna to the Age of Napoleon. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016.