Austrian culture

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Austrian culture has for centuries with the European connected culture and has internationally renowned services produced. Thus arose about in all epochs important buildings, many of which today to UNESCO - World Heritage count. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Austria was one of the centers of European musical life with the Viennese classical music, which is not only expressed in a large number of musician and composer names associated with the country, but also in a large number of opera houses and theaters that still exist today and orchestras as well as diverse musical traditions such as the New Year's concert, numerous festivals and a lively cabaret scene . But Austria also has an extensive tradition in the culinary field, which is expressed, for example, in the Viennese coffee house culture , viticulture in Austria and the Heuriger as well as numerous local dishes of Austrian cuisine .

Cultural-historical context

Cultural heritage of early and prehistory

Venus von Willendorf, one of the oldest sculptures in the world

From the Upper Paleolithic  - the age of the common appearance of the early Homo sapiens together with the latest Neanderthals  - Austria offers three outstanding key finds:

The oldest archaeological finds in Austria relating to human culture are around 100,000 years old.

Earlier Bronze Age phases are attributable to the Urnfield culture , north of the Danube also to the Aunjetitz culture , and the Copper Age mainly to the bell-cup culture. At the transition from the younger Stone Age , the Mondsee culture and the bathing culture , the earlier string ceramics (battle ax people) can only be found outside the Alps in the east. The fact that the Alpine region was also a settlement area in the 3rd millennium is proven by the man from Tisenjoch, who can be attributed to South Tyrol as a find and culturally . In the millennium before that, we find the Lengyel culture . The Neolithic Revolution had Austria in the form of the linear ceramic culture around 5600 BC. Reached. probably up the Danube.

The Celts had advanced from the northwest around 400 BC. A country settled by Illyrians in the east and Raiders in the west. Both these peoples of unclear origin, as well as the early Celtic phases, belong to the Iron Age circle of the Latène culture from the 5th century and the preceding Hallstatt culture from the 8th century.

Even the Romans themselves did not penetrate into the wilderness, but into land settled by Celts . The Regnum Noricum was Rome's valued alliance partner for the first two centuries before Christianity, only 15 BC. The occupation by Rome took place. The Celts are assimilated relatively peacefully, images of their typical costumes can still be found in Roman times, and Celtic roots can also be found in the names of places, fields and waters.

  • Magdalensberg , with extensive late Celtic-early Roman relics, but probably not the old center of Noreia of the empire
Austria Romana
The Roman Heidentor in Carnuntum

After Odoacer recalled the Roman citizens in 487, the Romanized previous residents were probably not native Romans, but they were carriers of Roman culture , as well as early Christianity . Finds from the period of late antiquity show that the Austria Romana  - i.e. the provinces of Noricum, Pannonia and Raetia  - was by no means a pure military border, but also a cultivated land and trading outpost. For example, the Amber Road ran across Burgenland. One should not imagine these Roman cities like the big metropolises of the Mediterranean area, but of the military camp type and the provincial towns that emerge from it, but in Carnuntum with an amphitheater as a symbol of Roman cultural creation. A number of Roman country estates on Austrian soil also show us the areas in between that are not unused.

  • Carnuntum , the most magnificent Roman excavation site in Austria

Although one can speak of an “Austria” - of whatever kind - as an independent duchy from 1156, and even as a purely territorial unit at the earliest with the development of Mark Ostarrîchi, who belonged to Bavaria, in the late 10th century, this structure did not arise in a culture-free area, but a region with a long and unbroken tradition, the tradition and remnants of which are part of Austria's cultural identity as cultural heritage .

This Ostarrîchi itself arose in a no man's land of the Frankish empire opposite the defeated empire of the Avars , who left hardly any traces. The Franconian colonization in Austria met a Romanized population, the place- naming evidence proves that, even Saint Rupert , who began missionary work on the southern border of Australia in Salzburg in 696 , did not find land devastated by the migration of peoples , but Romanized Christians. The south-east of Austria is also based on the tradition of a Slavic empire of Carantania and for many centuries it will go its own way, which can still be felt today. Here, too, contacts to Romanized pre-residents can be assumed.

Outstanding cultural treasures from this Bavarian-Carantan time are:

Austrian culture between 600 years of Habsburg and modern times

Under the rule of Emperor Franz Joseph I, Austria-Hungary experienced an unprecedented heyday of culture

Historically, the roughly 600-year rule of the Habsburgs over Austria and the other crown lands - especially in the Austrian Empire (1804–1866) and in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (1867–1918) - with their diverse cultures and ways of life was formative for the resulting developed Austrian culture, as Vienna , Prague and Budapest were still in lively cultural exchange at that time.

How Torberg in his aunt Jolesch writes this cultural hegemony is not immediately disappeared after 1918, but has continued to exist during the First Republic until their 1934 by the Austrian civil war levels and the resulting Austrofascism partially and 1938 through the connection to Germany then a terrible end was finally set. A notable proportion of Jewish intellectuals in Austrian culture was almost wiped out through displacement and extermination, from which at least science in Austria has not fully recovered to this day. Nobel laureates such as Walter Kohn , who was born in Vienna and had to emigrate to America in 1938, are all the more proud .

After 1945 the Second Republic of Austria tried - with great zeal and in some cases genuine sadness - to reconnect with this tradition of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. For this reason, Austrian culture, especially in the period immediately after the Second World War , was primarily of a conservative character - with considerable successes, especially for Austrian tourism , but at the same time new developments were blocked for a long time. The mindset of that time is particularly reflected in the 1946 text of the new Austrian national anthem Land der Berge, Land am Strome . This may also explain why many other songs in Austria are now referred to as “secret” national anthems.

Today, Austrian culture is therefore exposed to the everyday tension of adequately reproducing its internationally well-known historical merits - for example in classical music - and yet at the same time being open to modernity and not solely concerned with it to limit “preservation”. Internationally known artists such as the director Michael Haneke , the musicians Falco , Joe Zawinul or Ars Electronica have shown that Austria can also be internationally successful with “new things”. This tension between tradition and modernity is particularly noticeable in Vienna , Graz or Salzburg , with each of these cultural cities pursuing different paths. In 2003 Graz was the European Capital of Culture and Vienna is generally regarded as a cultural metropolis - cities without a relevant history- related profile such as Linz or Sankt Pölten primarily rely on modernity.

art

music

Classical music

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

The classical music is one of the aspects that Austria's image determine the world, and even today still has a high priority in Austria. The country can look back on a large number of (also internationally) famous musicians.

In the early modern period , music was largely influenced by the Netherlands and in the 17th and 18th centuries Italian music was hegemonic. Only at the end of this era was an independent style developed.

From a musical point of view, the late 18th and early 19th centuries were a very formative period, when the Viennese classical music style developed under the composers Gluck, Haydn and Mozart , which Beethoven continued. At that time, Vienna was considered a capital of music, which was made possible not least by imperial and aristocratic patronage. Schubert is considered to be the first representative of the Romantic era in the 19th century, during which music opened up to the bourgeoisie. The great symphonic composers Bruckner and Brahms are particularly important here.

Vienna also provided decisive impetus for the transition from late romanticism to modernism in the 20th century . Around and shortly after the turn of the century Austria's musical life was shaped by composers such as Mahler (director of the Vienna Court Opera 1897–1907), Alexander von Zemlinsky, Franz Schmidt and Joseph Marx. The composers of the New Vienna School , above all Schönberg, Webern and Alban Berg, had a significant influence on modern music . Johann Nepomuk David, Gottfried von Eine and Friedrich Cerha continue to be counted among the leading representatives of Austrian music in the 20th century.

Personalities:

Institutions:

Works:

Popular music of the 19th century

In addition, a popular music trend, the Viennese waltz , developed in the second third of the 19th century , the central figures of which are the members of the Strauss dynasty and which is seen as the second major Viennese musical trend alongside the Viennese classical music and is still today enjoyed a certain popularity.

In connection with this, Vienna developed at the end of the 19th century as the center of the operetta, the " silver era " of which took place here to a large extent.

The New Year's Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic is world famous and takes place every year on the morning of January 1st at the Wiener Musikverein . Masters in their field such as Claudio Abbado , Herbert von Karajan , Carlos Kleiber ( 1989 and 1992 ) and Nikolaus Harnoncourt (2001 and 2003) conducted it. It is broadcast in 44 countries around the world, reaching almost 1 billion people on New Year's morning. Above all, famous waltzes, polka and marches are played, with the works of the Strauss dynasty - especially by Johann Strauss Sohn - being particularly well represented. The Danube Waltz and the Radetzky March are traditionally played at the end.

Folk music and popular music

Willi Resetarits (left), Hubert von Goisern (right) and members of the Hohtraxlecker Sprungschanzenmusi from Bad Ischl

The folk music and popular music have an extensive tradition in Austria. There are great parallels here to traditional music in southern Germany and Switzerland, which enables Austrian performers to be successful in these areas too. There is also a broader folk song tradition, such as the Christmas carol Silent Night, Holy Night or the title song played with a zither to The Third Man by Anton Karas , the Viennese song and the New Folk Music .

Modern popular music

See Austropop

Aside from classical music, especially the Schlager , bands from Austropop such as Austria 3 and their individual artists Ambros, Danzer, Fendrich or STS, the world star Falco , as well as the currently most successful Austrian in the chart sector, the Starmania runner-up Christina Stürmer, the style- defining rock -Formation Drahdiwaberl and of course the folk and world musician Hubert von Goisern or DJ Ötzi known beyond the borders. The singers Peter Alexander and Udo Jürgens from what is now Austria have achieved international fame over the last few decades, as have the jazz musicians Joe Zawinul and Friedrich Gulda. The Linz hip-hop band Texta also achieved national and international fame in their genres .

See also : Amadeus Austrian Music Award

literature

Arthur Schnitzler
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
Franz Grillparzer

Main article : Austrian literature

The best-known (old) Austrian writers include the Biedermeier authors Grillparzer and Nestroy, Joseph Roth, Robert Musil, Karl Kraus from Viennese Modernism and the First Republic , as well as Bertha von Suttner, who was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905 , and from the Second Republic to this day Friedrich Torberg, Felix Mitterer, Thomas Bernhard, Peter Handke, and Elfriede Jelinek , who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2004 .

Writer:

The best-known non-German writers include Janko Ferk , Gustav Januš and Florjan Lipuš , who was translated into German by Peter Handke.

Works:

See also famous dramas and plays or popular comedies and antics in the theater section

Awards, competitions, literary festivals etc .:

See also: List of Literature Prizes # Austria

theatre

Burgtheater (front view)

As in other European countries, the theater goes back to medieval consecration plays . From the pictorial representation of the Easter liturgy , increasingly complex forms of the passion play developed in the late Middle Ages , which are still practiced in some places today. After the Reformation period, which was hostile to the theater, the theater experienced a tremendous boom in the Baroque period. Above all, the Jesuits, the intellectual spearhead of the Counter Reformation , recognized the propagandistic possibilities of this medium and also listed matters not directly related to the liturgy (although of course with a moralizing tendency). There are also a secular flow of theater, especially with public entertainment, especially in the Carnival has to do. They find their climax in the late medieval carnival games . A more intellectual branch of the theater are the homage plays that emerged mainly in the Renaissance , for example the Scottish abbot Benedictus Chelidonius .

The most significant influence on the Central European theatrical tradition is the Baroque opera at the beginning of the 17th century ; the first performances north of the Alps took place in Salzburg under Prince Archbishop Markus Sittikus von Hohenems . This art form turned out to be ideal for the representational needs of absolutism , because of the complexity of the productions alone, a large part of the court could be included. The opera was considered the most distinguished art form throughout the 18th century and in Vienna, especially during the rule of the "composing emperors" ( Ferdinand III , Leopold I and Charles VI ), the cream of Italian composers, librettists and theater engineers worked.

In addition, the folk theater, which is mainly used by traveling troops, persisted, the best-known figure is Josef Anton Stranitzky , the inventor of the buffoon figure . This theater in Vienna was able to hold out against the theater reformers inspired by Gottsched for a longer period of time - the popular theater of the Biedermeier period derives directly from this. In general, the theater experienced a tremendous boom in Vormärz, which was also reflected in the establishment of new theater buildings - the Theater an der Wien is still preserved from this period. The popularity of the theater in Vormärz can also be explained by the fact that social criticism was often carried out here in a hidden form, especially with the “Viennese Shakespeare” Johann Nepomuk Nestroy . Because of his ambiguity, Nestroy is still the most played author of this tradition today, he knew (after Egon Friedell ) how to use the comedy forms as “emballage” (camouflage for smuggled goods) in order to bring the “forbidden goods, namely philosophy, to the theater ".

In 1776 the Hofburgtheater was declared a German national theater by Joseph II , not least to promote the German-speaking theater over the Italian-speaking. In the middle of the 19th century, the Burgtheater became a pure spoken theater, which was primarily based on the works of world literature.

The opera also retained its importance and remained a phenomenon of mass entertainment well into the 20th century, despite its upper-class aristocratic flair. More popular was the form of the operetta , which came to Vienna in the 1860s and immediately found a home here and also found a new center. However, this is a theater tradition that came to an abrupt end when the National Socialists seized power and many composers and musicians were driven out.

Everyone and Death,
Salzburg Festival 2014

In the twentieth century the theater also treaded new paths in many places; the Salzburg Festival , founded in 1920, represented a milestone in theater history, the form of a return to the late medieval consecration plays. Based on this model, numerous theater festivals were founded in Central Europe, such as the Wiener Festwochen .

In the later 20th century there was a new theater boom, especially in the 1970s, with the emphasis here on experimental pieces and forms, which were often played by independent companies.

cabaret

The cabaret scene has a special cultural significance in Austria . She manages to develop her own flair between comedy , theater and entertainment in the context of a cultural event, usually with political or everyday, sometimes also critical content , using the national Austrian humor , which is country-specific in this form. Well-known contemporary cabaret artists include Lukas Resetarits, Josef Hader, Alfred Dorfer, Roland Düringer, Alf Poier, some of whom have been on the relevant stages for decades and are also received in German-speaking countries. Austria can also look back on a long tradition of cabaret, even if it was suddenly interrupted between 1938 and 1945 and suffered irretrievable losses, for example through the murder of Fritz Grünbaum in the Dachau concentration camp . The most famous Austrian cabaret prize is the Salzburg bull .

architecture

Schönbrunn Castle

There has been (post-ancient) architecture that has existed today since around the Romanesque era . The best-known example of a Romanesque sacred building on Austrian soil would be the Gurk Cathedral in Carinthia . This epoch is replaced by the Gothic , which only prevailed in Austria after 1250 but remained hegemonic until after 1500. The St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna is the most important, significant by international standards, example of the Gothic style. There is hardly any renaissance in the east of Austria, because of the constant wars against the Ottoman Empire, there were no means of building. This architectural style is therefore more likely to be found in Graz or Innsbruck (at that time residences of Habsburg branch lines) or in small country towns that experienced an economic decline in the subsequent period. The baroque style is all the more distinctive in Austria . It did not begin until 1690 (almost a hundred years later), but dominated the image of the vast majority of city centers. At that time, Austrian architecture was not only experiencing a tremendous building boom, it was also gaining European recognition for the first time. In addition, almost all of the older sacred buildings (including those listed above as examples) were redesigned in a baroque style. After every boom there is usually a phase of exhaustion: accordingly Rococo and early classicism are relatively weak. In the first half of the 19th century, new construction tasks came, such as residential houses and office buildings; they were built in a classic, simple style that is very much appreciated today. From the 1860s, there was a second major construction boom, particularly in Vienna, with the construction of the Ringstrasse and the regulation of the Vienna River . Not only were there splendid historic buildings, but also the factories and apartment buildings in the suburbs, which were often placed on green fields and allowed the cities to expand rapidly. At the end of this phase (around 1900), Art Nouveau experienced its brief, meteoric hegemony, only to pass into a new objectivity that was trained in classicism. All of this went off with severe irritation from the audience. This neo-classicism remained dominant until the 1950s. In recent times, the current (not yet delimitable) styles of modern and postmodern construction have been used, and here, too, something of international importance has been built, for example on the Danube plate or on the WU campus in Vienna.

See also :

painting

The oldest surviving paintings in the Eastern Alps are the frescoes of Romanesque churches, which are relatively numerous in Austria. Well-known examples are the frescoes by Lambach ( Upper Austria ) and Pürgg ( Styria ).

The frescoes in Gurk Cathedral (Carinthia) are of great importance as a representative work of the transition to Gothic . In the following epoch painting turned more towards panel or glass painting; in Austria centers of this style only developed at the end of this period (in the 15th century). With the portrait of Duke Rudolf IV, one of the first (half) frontal portraits in the West was created in Vienna. Another center of painting is the Tyrol / Salzburg / South Tyrol / South Bavaria region , where numerous winged altars were built in the late Middle Ages . The best known is the winged altar in St. Wolfgang by Michael Pacher . At the end of the Middle Ages, the Danube School - so called because of its sphere of influence from Regensburg to Vienna - was already showing its way towards realism, especially in its lively and dramatic representation of nature.

Portrait of Rudolf IV.

Renaissance and early baroque painting is relatively poorly represented in Austria. In the 17th century, most public commissions were carried out by Italians, who in this way established a connection with the artistic developments there. From 1690 onwards, as in architecture (and with it going hand in hand) there was an explosion of creativity in painting - Central European artists are suddenly in demand and a specific regional expression of baroque painting emerges, which is one of the highlights of art in Austria in general counts. The centers of this art are not only the imperial city of Vienna, but also numerous monasteries in Lower and Upper Austria, which are being completely redesigned.

At the beginning of the 19th century there was the patriotic-heroic painting of classicism (a period in which the Vienna Academy gained international attention) and the romantic countercurrents, such as the Nazarenes . The following period of the Biedermeier was already bourgeois: portraits and genre scenes (mostly small-format) emerged, whereby (especially with Waldmüller ) there was always slight social criticism. In the historicism phase, the focus was again on large interior decoration - here, too, painting goes hand in hand with a building boom. The defining figure of this era is Hans Makart , whose painting is already regarded by contemporaries as the epitome of the understanding of art at that time.

Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907), one of the most expensive paintings in the world

Painting in Austria reached another high point around 1900, when Vienna became a center of Art Nouveau , which was reflected institutionally with the establishment of the Vienna Secession in 1897. Klimt's painting in particular is highly valued internationally today and is also considered an important milestone in the development of modernism. A few years later, the Austrian variant of Expressionism developed from parts of this movement. In addition, loners related to Expressionism such as Egon Schiele or the “peasant painter” Albin Egger-Lienz can be found in this period .

With the First World War , Vienna also lost its position as an artistic center; modern painting of all shades is received, but no more significant impulses come from Austria. In the second half of the 20th century, the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism achieved a certain popularity with a popularized variant of Surrealism . Friedensreich Hundertwasser also belongs in this environment with his rather abstract, decorative pictures, who has also made a name for himself as a house builder and "beautiful man".

See also : List of Austrian visual artists

Viennese actionism

An independent, genre-breaking phenomenon is the actionism of the 1960s, which developed in the border area between theater and painting. The theme of this art form is the human body as the interface between sexuality, pain and death, which the artists also use as the most important material. These (often theatrical staged) actions ranged from body painting to self-harm and the use of excrement and their radicalism has not been caught up to this day.

Related to this is the art of Hermann Nitsch, whose theater of orgies and mysteries strives for a total work of art made up of music, painting, sacrificial rituals and consecration play. It was precisely this actionism, now regarded as the most important artistic contribution from Austria from the second half of the 20th century, that aroused extreme irritation in the public. Even around the turn of the millennium, Nitsch was honored by the tabloid press with campaigns against him and his art.

sculpture

The pulpit in St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna is a masterpiece of Gothic sculpture

The sculpture in Austria is (as with all art forms) can not be separated from that of the Central European region as a whole, especially influences from Bohemia (the Middle Ages) and Italy (in later years) are typically decisive. The material is the same as in architecture, i.e. above all sandstone, limestone and marble , with the one from Salzburg being of very high quality.

Romanesque and Gothic sculpture is subordinate to the architectural ensemble. Crucifixes and statues of the Virgin Mary in particular have survived from the Romanesque and early Gothic periods. Plastic art developed its first high point in the late Middle Ages , not least in connection with Sankt Stephan , where a lively exchange with Bohemia can be proven from the middle of the 14th century. In competition with the cultural metropolis of Prague, Vienna is developing the renowned ducal workshop and, above all, the productions in the courtly style of the time around 1400 (the “beautiful” or “soft” style) have a European format. The same applies to the subsequent “heavy” (more realistic) late Gothic style, where Graz and Innsbruck join Vienna. The cathedral of Sankt Stephan remains an important framework for sculpture - the cathedral pulpit or the tomb of Emperor Friedrich III. belong to the most important late Gothic works of art. There are also winged altars in which carving and painting usually form a unit. One of the most famous masters of this art is Jakob Kaschauer .

In the Renaissance , figure sculpture became independent, and with metal casting , a new technique found its way into art. One of the first examples of monumental sculpture, where the sculptures are not set in the architecture, are the Black Knights at the tomb of Emperor Maximilian I represent.

Like the other branches of art, sculpture reached a new high point in the Baroque period , although here too the baroque solutions were adopted several decades late. The tendency towards a total work of art , which is inherent in baroque art , in which the individual parts of a work are related to one another or arranged in a center, partially reverses the emancipation of architectural sculpture from architecture, although the sculpture also becomes a kind of architecture. The plague column in Vienna , in which the figures are grouped around a cloud column, sets the tone in this direction . These baroque traditions continued well into the 19th century, even if from the middle of the 18th century a certain tendency towards classical sobriety cannot be overlooked.

In the period between the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, the orders were relatively sparse - during this time mainly small sculptures were created . It was only with the monumental buildings of historicism that the number of commissions for sculptors rose again. At the same time, a huge number of monuments were created to furnish the cities - contemporaries spoke of a real " monument plague ". In terms of style, they were mostly based on baroque models.

With Secessionism , as in painting, an attempt was made to achieve an independent formal language; There are also movements related to Expressionism that had an impact throughout the interwar period.

Alfred Hrdlicka's memorial against war and fascism was erected in 1988

In the course of the 20th century, abstract forms of representation gained more and more ground; Best known is the work of Fritz Wotruba, which undergoes a logical development towards ever simpler basic forms. In the last few decades, experiments with new materials and the search for new forms of expression have come to the fore.

new media

In the field of media art , Austria has produced one of the most important international festivals with Ars Electronica in Linz . There, with the Klangwolke , a bridge is being built between the classical tradition of Austria and the new art media of global importance.

Museums

The exhibition house of the Vienna Secession

See also : List of Austrian museums by location

Movie and TV

Main article : Cinema and film in Austria

Another profession of successful Austrians is the fields of film and theater, in which Max Reinhardt , Karl Farkas , Curd Jürgens , Maximilian Schell , Romy Schneider , Senta Berger , Oskar Werner , OW Fischer , Otto Schenk , Klaus Maria Brandauer , Martin Kušej, among others . Gained fame. Well-known film directors from Austria were or are u. a. Erich von Stroheim , Billy Wilder , Fritz Lang , Josef von Sternberg , Otto Preminger , Robert Dornhelm , Michael Haneke , Ulrich Seidl , Hans Weingartner .

From the pioneering days of film at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries until the European film crisis in the 1920s, Austria was one of the leading countries - both in terms of inventiveness and filmmaking itself. The Tyrolean Simon Stampfer developed the “ wheel of life ” in 1832 , and as early as 1847 Ludwig Döhlinger was performing “moving pictures” in the Josefstädter Theater . The first documented public film screening took place on March 20, 1896 in front of an invited audience in the teaching and research institute for photography and reproduction processes with the Lumière cinematograph . However, "Living Pictures" are said to have been shown a little earlier in a show booth in Vienna's Prater. From then on, more and more owners of show booths or curiosity and abnormality demonstration locations bought cinematographs. The first cinemas in today's sense, in which no other activities are carried out besides the announced film screenings, did not come into being until between 1900 and 1905. The Erika Kino in Vienna , which closed in 1999 after 99 years of operation, was the oldest cinema .

The international trade in silent films flourished. Austria's importance in the world’s rapidly growing film industry decreased sharply with the First World War , but recovered quickly afterwards and reached its peak in 1921 with around 140 films produced. Many directors and actors were also, or mostly, working in Germany at this time. Director Fritz Lang, for example, filmed for Ufa , the largest German film company based there , who achieved a worldwide success with Metropolis in 1927 . At the latest with the increasing suppression of free filmmaking in Germany in the mid-1930s, and a little later also in Austria, many domestic filmmakers emigrated to the United States - sometimes with intermediate stops in England or France - to help build up the Hollywood film industry and pursue a career there like Billy Wilder or Otto Preminger.

After the Second World War, film production reached a second high point in the 1950s, but Austrian films only played a minor role outside of German-speaking countries. Music and homeland films were produced for German-speaking countries with audience favorites such as Peter Alexander , Gunther Philipp , Marika Rökk and Hans Moser . An essential director, whose career spanned more than fifty years, is Franz Antel , who combines the most diverse film genres in his work.

After the decline of musical comedy and Heimatfilm making, the most unproductive decade in Austrian film history followed in the 1970s, with only about five films a year. In the 1980s, domestic filmmaking recovered and film funding was introduced. Several cult series emerged, such as A true Viennese does not go under or Kottan determined . Even television shows were at that time very popular, and presenters such as Heinz Conrads were among the favorites of the nation. In the 1980s, Karl Moik achieved great fame in the entire German-speaking area with his program Musikantenstadl .

In the 1990s, the work of New Austrian Films , which from the beginning produced socially critical productions, continued to develop and reached new heights, which have been recognized with more and more film awards since the turn of the millennium. Since then, mostly young and little-known directors and actors have been making creative films, often with socially or socially critical content. In particular, Michael Haneke , who has been active since the 1980s, has managed to establish himself internationally as one of the most important contemporary filmmakers with his films that dissect the human condition. His works The Piano Player and Caché have received multiple awards and are considered essential components of world cinema. Also noted is much Ulrich Seidl , whose in Venice premiere of the excellent work dog days found a great echo. Barbara Albert ( Nordrand ), Michael Glawogger ( Slumming ), Jessica Hausner ( Hotel ), Wolfgang Murnberger ( Silentium ), Paul Rosdy , Stefan Ruzowitzky ( Anatomy ) and Hans Weingartner ( The fat years are over ) are also worth discussing contemporary filmmakers. recommended.

A rich tradition has developed in the experimental film sector since the 1950s, ranging from Peter Kubelka , Valie Export and Kurt Kren to Virgil Widrich . Austrian producers were also heavily involved in successful co-productions such as the award-winning film Esma's Secret - Grbavica . The annual film festival in Cannes is an important forum for presenting Austrian filmmakers to the public .

The TV series Kommissar Rex by the Viennese producer Peter Hajek proved to be a great international success and was sold in numerous countries.

See also : Austrian film history , film festivals in Austria , list of Austrian film production companies , list of Austrian films , Austrian film and television award Romy

Well-known cultural events, festivals, etc.

The Last Days of Mankind by Karl Kraus , co-production of the Burgtheater and the Salzburg Festival , 2014

science

Famous Austrian scientists and engineers

Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961), founder of quantum physics
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), founder of psychoanalysis
The nuclear physicist Lise Meitner (1878–1968)

Austria was, especially in the early years of the 20th century, one of the leading scientific nations in the world and produced thinkers and researchers such as Wolfgang Pauli and Erwin Schrödinger , who are considered the founders of quantum physics . The inventor Viktor Kaplan and Ludwig Boltzmann , one of the pioneers of thermodynamics, are also known.

In the 1920s, Vienna was briefly a center of philosophy . The Vienna Circle around Moritz Schlick and Otto Neurath , in which logical positivism was developed, put the theory of science on a new basis. The critically revised form by Karl Popper also received international attention. Loosely associated with this school is Ludwig Wittgenstein , whose considerations on language profoundly shaped the philosophy of the 20th century and who is undoubtedly one of the best-known philosophers of Austrian provenance.

The medical research of Sigmund Freud , who with the foundation of psychoanalysis, fundamentally renewed the science of the soul and is considered one of the most important thinkers of the European tradition , also developed in the border area to philosophy .

In economics one speaks of an Austrian school that is the successor to Carl Menger and Eugen Böhm von Bawerk . In the 20th century it was mainly carried on by Joseph Schumpeter and Friedrich August von Hayek . It made a significant contribution to the shaping of neoclassical economics at the end of the millennium.

See also: List of Austrian Nobel Prize Winners

Important universities and university research institutions

See also : List of universities in Austria

Main building of the University of Vienna

Larger universities of applied sciences

See also : List of universities of applied sciences in Austria

Non-university research institutions

See also: European Forum Alpbach

Everyday culture

media

Main article: Media in Austria

See also: List of Austrian Newspapers , List of Austrian Journalists

language

Bilingual place-name sign in Oberwart (Hungarian: Felsőőr ) in Burgenland

Main article : Austrian German

See also : Austrian dictionary , list of Austrianisms , Viennese , dialects in Tyrol , Carinthian dialect , minority languages ​​in Austria , Bavarian language

Austria belongs to the German-speaking area in Central Europe. About 98% of the local population have German as their mother tongue . German is therefore set out in Article 8 of the Austrian Federal Constitution as the official state language , whereby the minority languages ​​are also recognized in the Federal Constitution:

"Article 8 of the Federal Constitutional Law (B-VG)

  • (1) Without prejudice to the rights granted to linguistic minorities by federal law, the German language is the state language of the Republic.
  • (2) The republic (federal, state and local authorities) is committed to its growing linguistic and cultural diversity, which is expressed in the autochthonous ethnic groups. Language and culture, existence and preservation of these ethnic groups are to be respected, secured and promoted. "

The term “Austrian German” means nothing else than the use of the pluricentric German language in Austria, which also differs in the standard German form from the use in other German-speaking countries. In Austria, in addition to standard German, several Upper German dialects (Central and South Bavarian such as Viennese and Alemannic dialects in western Austria) are spoken. Since the Austrian state border is not a language border, the southern German dialects spoken in Austria share some linguistic peculiarities with the rest of the Bavarian language area in Bavaria and the Alemannic-Swabian language area on all sides of Lake Constance (see also the German dialect continuum ).

The autochthonous population groups in Austria and their minority languages are taught in some schools. These include Hungarian , Slovenian , Burgenland-Croatian , Czech , Slovak and Romanes . Due to the fact that this part of the German-speaking area belonged to the Habsburg Monarchy or Austria-Hungary , some loanwords from Czech, Hungarian, Italian, Yiddish, South Slavic etc. have been adopted into Austrian German (especially into Viennese).

In contrast to countries such as France , Austria has accepted the importance of the English language for international communication, and English is actually no longer seen as a threat to the German language, but as the “key to the world” . Rather, the English language is the first and most important foreign language taught and spoken in Austria.

Customs and folk culture

See also : Holidays in Austria , Austrian folk dance

  • New Year's Eve : Traditionally, on New Year's Eve, the New Year is welcomed with the Blue Danube Waltz at midnight after the pummerin (church bell of St. Stephen's Cathedral ) has been struck. Most radio and television stations broadcast the sound of the Pummerin live and then play the Blue Danube Waltz. Also very popular is “lead pouring”, a joke form of fortune telling, where pieces of lead melted on a flame will reveal what will bring the New Year.

dress

Especially in the rural and alpine regions of Austria - such as the Salzkammergut - there is a pronounced tradition for traditional costumes such as dirndls and lederhosen . In recent years, these garments have also become more widespread in urban areas, whereby the modern versions of these traditional costumes, some of which have flashy colors, should not be confused with the traditional forms in alpine areas. Gold bonnets are a part of traditional festive clothing , especially in regions on the Danube.

religion

The basilica of Mariazell , Austria's most important Catholic pilgrimage site

See also: History of Christianity in Austria , Recognized Religions in Austria , Religious Freedom in Austria , Catholic Church in Austria , Baptists in Austria , Buddhism in Austria , List of Israelite Religious Communities in Austria

64% of the population belong to the Roman Catholic Church . Around 8% belong to different Muslim faiths. Around 5% each are members of a Protestant (predominantly Augsburg Confession , less often Helvetic Confession ) or Orthodox Church. For Judaism , about 8140 people confess (as of 2001 census); according to the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien there are even 15,000. A little over 10,000 people profess Buddhism . 20,000 people are active members of Jehovah's Witnesses . About 17% of the population do not belong to any religious community.

Counter-Reformation and re-Catholicization in the 16th and 17th centuries had almost completely suppressed Protestantism in Austria under the rule of the Habsburgs . Since 1650 the country was almost entirely Roman Catholic. To this day Austria's customs are shaped by the country's Catholic tradition.

However, the social importance of the church declined sharply in the 20th century and especially in the decades after the Second World War.

Culinary

Kitchen culture and gastronomy

schnitzel
Sachertorte with whipped cream

The Austrian cuisine - especially the Viennese cuisine - stands in the field of tension between the southern German cuisine (before that of Bavaria ) and the cooking tradition of earlier states of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy . In addition to the independent regional traditions, it was mainly influenced by cooking traditions from Hungary , Bohemia and Italy . Dishes and methods of preparation were often adopted and integrated and adapted into one's own kitchen, goulash is an example . It is internationally known primarily for Wiener schnitzel , pastries and confectionery. In addition, a new regional cuisine has developed in recent years, which also prefers regional products and a light method of preparation.

Viticulture and wine culture

Viticulture in Austria is practiced on an area of ​​almost 50,000 hectares. Around 32,000 companies, including around 6,500 bottling companies, produce an average of 2.5 million hectoliters of wine per year on this site.

The wine-growing areas are divided into four wine-growing regions and these are then divided into 16 wine-growing regions.

  • Wine-growing region Weinland Austria : This wine-growing region, with the wine-growing areas of the federal states of Lower Austria (approx. 30,000 ha) and Burgenland (approx. 14,600 ha), comprises almost 92 percent of the wine-growing areas of the entire federal territory. Together they represent 12 of the 16 wine-growing regions.
Viticulture in the south of Styria
  • Wine-growing region Steirerland : Styria covers an area of ​​3280 ha, which corresponds to approx. 6.8% of the total area under vines in Austria. In the wine-growing region of Steierland, there are still 3 wine-growing areas, whereby many of the places have merged to form the Styrian Wine Route for marketing purposes .
  • Vienna wine-growing region : The Vienna wine-growing region lies within the city limits. The cultivation area of ​​almost 700 hectares corresponds to 1.4% of the total vineyard area and makes Vienna the only capital in the world with significant wine production, with the City of Vienna itself also maintaining a winery.
  • Bergland winegrowing region : This region combines the growing areas of the 5 federal states of Upper Austria, Carinthia, Salzburg, Tyrol and Vorarlberg. With a total of 21 hectares, these play a subordinate role and only make up approx. 0.05% of the total wine-growing area in Austria.

Brewing culture

Classic beer mat

See also : Beer in Austria

Austria has a brewing tradition that goes back centuries. Originally, every large community had at least one local brewery, often attached to restaurants and dance floors. In 1879 there were 2,297 breweries in Austria-Hungary, which produced a total of 11,180,681 hectoliters of beer. Franz Anton Dreher , master brewer of the imperial and royal capital Vienna, bought the Schwechater brewery in 1796 , his son Anton Dreher switched to bottom fermentation and developed cooling processes in cellars with ice. This made it possible for the first time to store and consume beer in large quantities outside of the cold season. Eventually the brewery acquired further breweries in Budapest, Saaz and Trieste and became the largest brewery in Europe at the end of the 19th century. The country's other traditional brands were also created through mergers or takeovers of several microbreweries.

Well-known beer brands, divided into regions: Carinthia: Hirter , Villacher ; Lower Austria: Schwechater , Wieselburger , Zwettler ; Upper Austria: Grieskirchner , Zipfer ; Salzburg: Stiegl , Trumer ; Styria: Gösser , Murauer , Puntigamer ; Vorarlberg: Fohrenburger , Mohren .

Coffeehouse culture

In the Viennese Café Central

See also : Viennese coffee house

A Viennese specific is the culture of the coffee house, which belongs to the category "culture" insofar as many coffee houses, such as the Café Griensteidl or the Café Central, were also meeting places for writers and other artists, who not only spent their days here, but also worked. This was a phenomenon to which there were parallels in Prague and Budapest, but not in the smaller cities of the Alpine country.

tourism

Intangible culture

In all Austrian federal states there are a number of intangible cultural assets that are also recognized as such by UNESCO . The classical art of riding , as practiced by the Spanish Riding School in Vienna or the Vienna Boys' Choir , is very well known internationally .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Stadler: A contribution to the absolute chronology of the Neolithic in Austria based on the 14C data. In Lenneis, E., C. Neugebauer-Maresch, E. Ruttkay, New Stone Age in Eastern Austria. In: Research reports on the original and Early history 17. Niederösterreichisches Pressehaus u. Verlagsgesellschaft, St. Pölten / Vienna 1995 pp. 210–224
  2. ↑ See for example Welsche , on onenology
  3. ^ Egon Friedell, Kulturgeschichte der Neuzeit, p. 1106.

literature

Web links