Almost as if on cue, the Austrian Embassy in India recently kicked off a ten-day long celebration in the Capital. They have a rather momentous reason to celebrate "" Austria is turning a thousand years old this year. Delhi will be a privileged guest at an extended birthday bash of sorts with a bag full of goodies ranging from art to music to scholarship and business.
Dr Johannes Wimmer, first secretary at the Austrian Embassy is harassed but courteous. I cant tell you how much we have spent on the event, because you would laugh, he says. Austrian missions across the world are participating in the celebrations to mark their coming of millennial age. But this worldwide bash, though vast, is a low-key affair. As Wimmer says, It has only been made possible by generous personal contributions by Austrians around the world.
And the contributions havent just been monetary. Karlheinz Essl, the owner of one of Austrias largest business houses and also of Austrias largest collection of modern art was in the Capital last week. That he welcomes visitors to Austria to his Schomer House, which doubles up as both corporate headquarters and art gallery, a sign of the Austrian times.
Last week, he was here to inaugurate the first and largest ever exhibition of Austrian contemporary art in India, currently on display at the Capitals National Gallery of Modern Art.
No less luminous are the other participants in the festivities. Marianne Koberer-Hoetzl and Ernest Hoetzl gave a virtuoso performance on the flute and piano. Radha Anjali (and yes, she is Austrian), performed Bharatnatyam with a degree of aplomb that rivalled many a currently successful artiste. Bert Gstettner and Zdeno Dhlos represented contemporary Austrian dance. And events still to come include Shadow Theatre by Klaus Behrendt and Franz Hillebrand. Plus there is a series of lectures, seminars and workshops scheduled to be held, on a huge palette of subjects.
Wimmer says, You could say that there are two main pillars of the celebration. The first are the cultural events, and the other is the Austrian-Indian Symposium.
There is a definite logic to the choice of topics chosen in the Symposium. They are the conclusion of months of mutual exploration between the two countries and signify what is of shared interest, he continues. And speaking of sharing, the Ta-pho Buddhist monastery in Himachal Pradesh is also celebrating a thousand years of its existence. The Institute of Tibetology and Buddhist Studies in Vienna has seized the opportunity to make presentations on the subject.
Theres an interesting range of topics that form part of the Symposium "" from discussions on The Organisation of an International Art Exhibition conducted jointly with the National Museum, New Delhi to Mediating Austrian Literature to Indian Readers in collaboration with the School of Languages at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. And to prevent o.d.ing on culture they have thrown in a seminar on Austrian Foreign Investment in and Co-operation with India to be held with the Confederation of Indian Industry.
The prelude to this Great
Millennial Birthday Bash took the form of carefully prepared brochures that bespeak a certain scholarly attitude to the whole affair. Austrians consider a worn piece of parchment that was the first documented reference to Ostarrichi as a name for a place as the collective birth certificate, so to speak, for their country. For the historically curious, this was the record of the event of German Emperor Otto III investing ecclesiastical authorities with a stretch of land that is the contemporary Austrian province of Lower Austria. The date was November 1, 996.
We have had no successful revolutions, victorious wars, great leaders. But what they have had a lot of is cultural achievement. Their current project is in part an attempt at disabusing people of the stereotype of Austria and Austrians as narrow-minded, xenophobic and anti-intellectual. Instead, they are a land of heterogeneous cultural influences, from the strongly Germanic to Latin-Mediterranean and Slavic. Wimmer explains the religious profile of the country ranges from Roman Catholic, Protestant, Jewish to Islamic.
And what kind of a bash is it without food, Wimmer is asked. Especially since one of the things the land in question is famous for is its desserts. Wimmer pauses for a second, and instead of expressing possible affront he says, We were thinking about it. But, er, we found we didnt have enough sausages to go round. But those fortunate enough to be invited to the private reception hosted by the Embassy this week can savour some of the delectable fare sure to be on offer.
All in all, theres much to please the glitterati, literati and the otherwise lowly who can claim nothing more than an interest in the arts and thoughts of a culturally rich society. Only, unlike certain unnameable sections of Delhi society, the accent here is on introspection rather than commotion, considered culture rather than mindless extravagance. While this birthday bash may be without flash, it certainly has that degree of style. Happy thousandth birthday, Ostarrichi!
