Austria

I have to admit, my first awareness of Austria came via The Sound of Music. I’m guessing this is true for many (non-Austrian) children. Many English-speaking children at least. The hills are alive… And you know what? The hills are alive with the sound of music. I mean, look at the facts: Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Bruckner, Strauss Sr and Strauss Jr, Mahler… born in Austria. Beethoven wasn’t born there, but he spent a lot of his life there. What about the fact that we have the First Viennese School and the Second Viennese School? If you asked someone on the street to name a composer Mozart and Beethoven are likely to be the first names that pop into the layman’s mind. My point? Them there hills are doing something right to get the musical juices of the western tradition flowing… So put in some Mahler, sit back with a piece of Strudel and celebrate Austria’s national day. In 1804 the Austrian Empire was declared, in 1918 the First Austrian Republic. Most recently, this day marks Austria’s 1955 Declaration of Neutrality.

Austria’s been around in some form or another for over a thousand years. The part you’re likely to know—at least vaguely—is the Habsburgs. From 1278 until World War I, Austria’s history was really bound up with this ruling dynasty. Oh, and Austria gave France Marie Antoinette. Our mental images of the French Revolution wouldn’t be the same without her…

Oh, and World War I? Well we know that the explanation that it was all sparked by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo is a little simplistic—but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak. On the still darker side, Austria was the birthplace of Hitler, so the World War II also has roots in Austria.

On a completely frivolous tack, the Austrian Tyrol was the original site for the Chalet School of Eleanor Brent-Dyer’s long series of boarding school books. (Another fact that emerges about your tour guide… she is addicted to books set in boarding schools.)

For today’s poem, I have turned to the wonderful Ingeborg Bachman. Please, go find more of Bachman’s work. You’ll be glad you did…


Aria I

Wherever we turn in the storm of roses,
thorns illuminate the night. And the thunder
of a thousand leaves, once so quiet on the bushes,
is right at our heels.

Wherever the roses’ fire is put out,
rain washes us into the river. Oh distant night!
Yet a leaf that touched us now floats on the waves,
following us to the sea.

—Ingeborg Bachmann
from The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry
translated from the German by Mark Anderson