Austria in picture [antikvár]

FOREWORD Every year millions of visitors from all parts of the world flood into Austria, the "Red-White-and-Red Republic", whose happy fate it is to live from other people coming to look at and admire it. Austria is not yet a country in which one has to go to the cinema in order to marvei at nature - here one has it on one's own doorstep. The Austrian greatly values the jewel that he possesses, and sometimes his love for his native land becomes so passionate that the attachment can be highly infectious. The by no means few Germans, Scandinavians and Americans who have settled for good in this country after getting to know it for the first time are teliing evidence that you cannot easily get rid of the Austria bug that persists between the Alps and Laké Neusiedl. Who is it that the esteemed guest meets when he has crossed the frontiers of this small Central European state? Should his route first lead to Vienna, he will probably get the feeling he is still in the powerful monarchy of the days when Czechs, Slovaks, Galicians, Hungarians and Slavs were under the rule of a single throne, that of the Habsburgs. Not only the names in the Vienna telephone directory are a reminder of the many nations that went to make up Austria in the past. In addition to the Viennese, the Styrians, in particular the natives of Graz, are proud of their imperial past. But that should not obscure the fact that Graz is alsó the centre for a courageous, at times even rebellious, avant-garde theatre and that it is therefore an intellectual workshop for modern times in a cosmopolitan setting. Turning to the native of Upper Austria, one finds that he has put on his seven-league boots to make up the lost ground towards so-called economic prosperity. However, he would not be an Austrian if he did not like to think back in pride to the sons who have carried the fame of this federal state out into the world: the great composer Anton Bruckner and the poet Adalbert Stifter with his subtle expression of feeling. The Austrian is said to be easy-going, affable and partial to a sing-song. But Whoever takes this to mean that life for the Austrian is one long round of celebrating and making merry is well wide of the mark. Deep inside, the Austrian is not at all happy with his fate and he likes to flirt with melancholy. Anyone who has had first-hand experience of the Heurige (drinking the new wine) has alsó got close to the "Viennese sóul". A few drops of soulfulness mixed together with somé from the heart and stirred up with a little weltschmerz, all washed down in a few glasses of wine to the strains of those violin virtuosos known as Schrammeln, who sound as though they are wailing to the whole world, and the whole thing degenerates into a mournfulness that can only be compared to the sort of depression that might seize one on a rainy day in Montmartre. Everyone cultivates his melancholy in a different way. The Carinthian sings his sad songs, which pluck at the listener's heartstrings in such a way that tears immediately come to his eyes. The sensible inhabitant of Vorarlberg plunges into his work and as soon as he has achieved somé sort of professional success his depression disappears into thin air. The Tyrolean, with both feet firmly on the ground, is never much troubled by weltschmerz. But perhaps the great number of churches freely offering solace from many hilltops have something to do with that. In any case, they are the reason why this part of Austria is called the "Holy Land of Tyrol". The people from Lower Austria and the Burgenland are the perfect hosts and would suppress any sadness right from the start. The Lower Austrian, who sees the Wachau and the Weinviertel ("Wine District") as part of himself, and the inhabitant of the Burgenland, who has an idylllic corner of Paradise to offer with his thatched roofs, draw-wells, storks and windmills, are delighted at the fact that most of their guests come from their own country. The inhabitant of "Mozart's City" is apparently immuné to melancholy. Those who are not natives of the city jokingly claim that in Salzburg from now on they only cross off the days on which the Festival does not take place. And Salzburg indeed seems to be one long festival of music, the year beginning with the Mozart Week dedicated to the local genius, continuing with the Easter, Whitsun and Summer Festivals, and closing with the Autumn Festival of Culture and the choral concerts in Advent. To many, Austria appears to be a haven of bliss, or even a paradise-on-earth. Here everything still seems to be so wholesome, friendly and full of go. Even the Austrian business world can claim that the darkest clouds on the economic horizon did not gather to discharge their load here, even though a third of the population earn their living in not exactly stable branches of industry like textiles, mechanical engineering, steel production, the iron industry and electronics, to mention just a few. Basically, the Austrian is equipped with a marked optimism that helps him to get through the worst of times and that protects him from any greater misfortune. And what is the slogan that travel promoters in Carinthia have thought up? "A holiday in Carinthia is a holiday amongst friends." Let this welcoming greeting be said of the whole of Austria, a country in which hospitality is cultivated not only for the purpose of attracting foreign currency.