Today, in large part, revolved around the Ottoman Empire, on many levels. While the Ottoman Empire may have never successfully resided in the Vienna or greater Austria area, their impact on Viennese history and culture is absolutely evident. The empire existed from 1299 until 1923 with their most prominent period being the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Ottomans were the only major threat to Habsburg territorial hegemony in the east. This threat manifested mostly notably for the Viennese in the two sieges in 1529 and 1683. While these sieges were crucial points in Austrian history, perhaps the more important impact came to the Habsburg Empire as a whole.
These sieges forced the Catholic and Protestant nations within the Habsburg Empire to unify against the common enemy. While this seems like a logical course of action to fend off an enemy trying to invade the empire, it represents a significant step in the ongoing departure from solely religiously dominated politics. Both in these instances and the Thirty Years War, Catholic and Protestant nations placed the importance of political stability and power balance above religious boundaries that had previously dominated the wars and even basic relations between the different nations of Europe. I feel like this was part of the forging of a new beginning of state politics that still dominates foreign policy today for almost all major nations. The greater balance of power is the major determining force, among many other factors such as trade, defense, etc., in the relations between most western nations today, not religious affiliations. These temporary unifications between the German nations served as a true microcosm for the greater movement towards state building and the subsequent impact on foreign policy in Europe.
The Ottoman Empire had a vast territory, just as the Habsburgs, but had a tradition of religious tolerance not found in the Holy Roman Empire. These Islamic values that dominated the culture of the Ottoman Empire dictated tolerance for Jews and Christians. This not only made them a sanctuary for religious refugees like the Jews from Spain in 1492, but also impacted the artwork that depicts the wars between the Holy Roman and Ottoman Empires.
The Heeresgeschichtliche Museum is a military history museum that focuses mainly on Austrian military history from the sixteenth century through the mid twentieth century. There is a large collection dealing with the wars against the Turks, which includes many paintings of battles between the two empires. The depictions of these battles are both interesting for their symbolism and relationship to similar American artwork. In large part, the Turks are depicted as an evil looking, dirty, foreign, and backwards people invading and trying to destroy the Holy Roman Empire. Meanwhile, the forces of the Holy Roman Empire are portrayed as almost an exact opposite to the Turks. The armies look valiant, white, clean, and brave to form a sharp contrast to their Turkish opponents. I feel like this is an exhibition of the attitude towards the Turks within Austria and the greater Holy Roman Empire. Portraying the Turks in this way, regardless if it is a fair characterization, serves to justify the cause of fighting wars against an evil looking people. While this isn’t quite the case in this particular instance, the Turks laid siege to Vienna and the Empire was compelled to respond. The portrayal of an enemy in war as appearing evil and the association of the painter looking to be good is a theme that extends into American culture as well. For instance, this linked piece of American World War II propaganda is clearly made to make the Japanese look like an evil and diabolical people. While this serves to motivate the people to fight the war in the Pacific during the time, it also serves as a way to pave the legacy of the war. Just as we see here with the portrayal of the Turks, we have no other way of knowing what the Turks looked like or what their intentions were besides what is written in history or displayed in the Heeresgeschichtliche Museum. Among many other cultural artifacts, such paintings have almost complete control over creating the visual image of the Turks for historians today. Just as in American history, we have a perception of various enemies of the U.S. such as the Japanese, Russians, Germans, etc. based somewhat on the artwork from the period. Since the casual observer often times fails to examine cultural artwork regarding wars and general enemies critically, these elements of culture can effectively shape a person or even a greater society’s perception of history and other societies. As what should be done with any element of history, these cultural relics preserved in the Heeresgeschichtliche should be taken with a skeptical mindset in order to prevent as much cultural bias as possible from being inserted into the memory of the Ottoman Empire and their conflicts with the Viennese.
The German word of the day is Beantwarten and it means ‘to answer’
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