RoT

Vienna. Just hearing the name starts a mental reel for many. But this city is so much more than a postcard idyll. Behind the facade of coffeehouses, imperial kitsch, and Heuriger* wine culture lies an urban force that is hard to find anywhere else in Central Europe.

For centuries, Vienna has been a political, cultural, and economic hub: Around 1900, the Danube metropolis already crossed the two-million-inhabitant mark, acting as the seismographic epicenter between Western Europe, the Balkans, the Ottoman sphere, and Eastern Europe, attracting all kinds of people – whether soldiers of fortune, refugees, driven souls, day laborers, or radicals:

In 1913/1914, figures including Joseph Stalin (1878 or 1879 –1953), Leon Trotsky (1879 – 1940), Adolf Hitler (1889 – 1945), and Josip Broz Tito (1892 – 1980) lived in this city, while Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939) was inventing psychoanalysis just a few neighborhoods away. Naturally, they didn’t intentionally see or meet each other.

5 reasons why, at least for me, Vienna is the New York of Eastern Europe:

1) The discrete transit gate.
For generations, New York was the undisputed first stop for people from all over the world to pursue their “pursuit of happiness.” Whether during the Cold War, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, or following more recent crises: Vienna is the place where uprooted biographies, dissidents, agents, or oligarchs from the East often land first to reinvent themselves. Unlike the US metropolis, Vienna is not a melting pot, but rather a discrete waiting room for elites in transition.

2) The invisible financial empire.
New York has Wall Street, making it the heart of global capitalism. In Vienna, a clearing house mentality prevails: To this day, many threads of wealth, foundations, trade structures, and restructurings for numerous Southeastern and Eastern European countries flow through Viennese law firms, banks, and trustees. Until Austria’s EU accession in 1994, the Alpine republic’s neutrality made Austrian law popular for international contracts. But even today, Austrian law (in particular the General Civil Code, ABGB) is still frequently preferred for international agreements. Beyond that, Vienna is a top-tier address for East-West arbitration (e.g., the Vienna International Arbitral Centre).

3) The freedom of anonymity.
The classic motive for people moving to big cities is the freedom of anonymity – away from the suffocating pressure of a village or small town. Vienna fulfills this exact function for Eastern and Central Europe. Historically, and to a lesser extent today, Vienna has been the go-to place for artists, intellectuals, and bohemians from Prague, Budapest, Zagreb, or Bucharest: the nearest place where one can unfold in anonymous, metropolitan air without having to cross an ocean to the New World. Furthermore, Vienna historically had to govern a multi-ethnic multinational state (Austria-Hungary). The resulting bureaucracy, diplomacy, and subtle handling of power structures continue to shape the local mentality to this day.

4) The urban vernacular.
New York has its unmistakable slang, mixed from Yiddish, Italian, Spanish, and English. The Viennese dialect is fundamentally similar: an aggressively warm-hearted code composed of Czech, Yiddish, Serbo-Croatian, Hungarian, and Old Bavarian, among other influences. It is an urban survival slang born from the daily clash of various language groups on the streets around the turn of the century.

5) The capital of shadows.
In the 20th century, the emigration of intellectual giants from Europe (especially before National Socialism) turned New York into a global engine of innovation. Vienna was (often) the germ cell of this exodus – carrying this intellectual DNA out into the world as its legacy. During the Cold War (and beyond), Vienna evolved into Eastern Europe’s equivalent of New York as an international stage. New York has the UN as a tower of global politics. Vienna has the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the headquarters of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Yet the true New York equivalent probably takes place in Vienna’s Beisln (local pubs), Heurigen, and hotel bars. It is the capital of unofficial world politics. Here, a Kremlin envoy, a US diplomat, and a Ukrainian negotiator might sit at the very same neighboring table – a density of covert diplomacy and global crisis management that arguably only exists near the East River elsewhere. While the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) exerts massive pressure and closely monitors or expels spies in New York, intelligence services in Vienna traditionally operate in a legally looser or more discrete environment.

Of course, there are also important differences: While a New Yorker inhales their to-go cup on the sidewalk, some Viennese sit for hours in front of the exact same Melange** coffee while analyzing the world. Instead of the New York bagel, the Kaisersemmel (round bread roll) or Leberkässemmel*** dominates here – the culinary staple for the urban jungle.

The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy was, on a small scale, what the USA is on a large scale: a multinational state. The traces of this – from surnames and culinary influences to the prevailing mentality – give Vienna its cosmopolitan character to this day. So, I am in love with Vienna.

* Heuriger is a traditional tavern where local wine is served.
** A traditional Austrian coffee specialty that combines a shot of espresso with steamed milk and is topped with milk foam
*** A Leberkässemmel is a popular Austrian/Bavarian street-food sandwich consisting of a thick slice of warm, finely ground meatloaf tucked into a bread roll, often seasoned with mustard.

Picture Credit: Michael OJ Gärtner