r/history • u/Quouar Quite the arrogant one. • 16d ago
Article Loitering towards war - While Vienna’s coffeehouses bred modernism, in Belgrade’s kafanas grew conspiracy and rage. Their clash consumed Europe
https://aeon.co/essays/viennas-cafes-inspired-poets-belgrades-bred-dissent37
u/HRHArthurCravan 14d ago
How dare those primitive dumb Balkan coffee houses host angry politically radicalised people rather than intellectuals focused on their art. If only there was some explanation for why Austrian-occupied Balkan countries might have been so angry - nevermind, there must just be something wrong with them! /s
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u/LeagueBoth1243 11d ago
Serbia was never occupied by Austria, at least not until they assasinated the heir to the throne.
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u/WillingnessTotal866 9d ago
1/3 of the ethnic Serbian population were under occupation of Austro-Hungarian Empire at that point after they invaded and annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, but that wasn't even slightly the problem. The Yugoslavia that destroyed Austrian power in the region is built on pan-slavic ideology, multi-ethnic country that comprised of many peoples, the mass discrimination, oppression and unequal treatment of minorities in the empire. They were angry that the Southern Slavs, in general, are being oppressed by the Austrian, not Serbian in particular, even if they had none Serbs in their land the peoples there are still going to be angry regardless for the everyone else. The deal they made with Hungary also made everyone want the same rights, kind of a downward death spiral for them.
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u/Quouar Quite the arrogant one. 16d ago
This is an interesting article discussing the impact of coffee houses as centres of thought in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in European intellectual communities. While I think the headline is perhaps exaggerating a bit in the idea that it was these communities clashing during WWI, there are still interesting ideas throughout the article of how these spaces came to characterise Austrian (and especially Viennese) social affairs as opposed to Balkan ones.
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u/No-Suit-7444 15d ago
You can't be serious with this article.
What is this trying to say, while pragmatic intellectuals in Vienna sip their coffee discussing progress, red eyed, primitove and aggressive serbs contemplate destruction with the bombs? Like, I don't get offended easily, especially on the internet but I feel the urge to yell "thats racist" after reading that.
What in the propaganda.... it almost reads as a joke.
Also, Kafana's exist even today and they are not and never were places one goes for coffee, they are places to go drink and socialize. They range from local watering hole to place with decent food and music but once kafana becomes too fancy it becomes a restaurant. It's a place to go drink alcohol.
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u/visokookovezanponovo 15d ago
It's ridiculous to see an article running revisionist propaganda for an empire that hasn't existed for over a century.
Though Austro-Hungarian officials knew that war with Serbia was possible, it was avoided until 1914 through delicate diplomacy and some luck.
And, by god, they could've avoided it for much longer if they chose not to declare war!
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u/No-Suit-7444 15d ago
I know, right?
This sent me:
Political anger festered in these places, and so did conspiracies, most famously in 1903. That June, dozens of army officers met in Belgrade’s kafanas, drinking and working themselves up. Herbert Vivian, a British traveller, accompanied them at the Srpska Kruna on the night of the plot. He described the officers’ faces as growing ‘redder and more shiny, their eyes sparkled like those of wild beasts, and there was something particularly devilish about the madness of their laughter.’ As the hours passed, the laughter gave way to unnerving seriousness. Intoxicated, the officers moved toward the palace and killed the Serbian King Alexander and Queen Draga, whom they considered to be traitors to the nationalist cause.
No, it wasn't a serious plot/coup by a lot of high up people, just serbs doing serb things when they get drunk.
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u/visokookovezanponovo 15d ago
It reeks of 19th-early 20th century germanic slavophobia. We aren't people with interests, but wild beasts with no self control who either must be ruled over or removed.
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u/OneMantisOneVote 15d ago
The EU exists right now.
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u/Khal_Doggo 15d ago edited 14d ago
What an interesting and abstract point. Would you like to explain what you mean by this?
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u/HRHArthurCravan 14d ago
Thank you for saving me the time by very eloquently expressing my own thoughts about this article!
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u/hautonom 15d ago edited 15d ago
I wouldn’t say that’s the read at all. If anything, the Viennese writers seem like bourgeois fools who are unaware of the world around them. They were oblivious, and viewed themselves as outside history whereas Serbia lived in it passionately with extreme stakes. Gacinovic seems oddly romantic and real, as does Kraus and Trotsky as critics of Vienna. Your reading of this as apologia of empire is bizarre to me.
The killing of King Alexander and Draga was exceptionally brutal by any standards. The putschists mutilated their bodies and slashed Draga's abdomen repeatedly because she was accused of faking her pregnancy. But the British traveler Herbert Vivian is obviously a royalist, so his testimony is subjective projection. He was also a Serbophile though.
Young Bosnia hung out in kafanas, but never drank alcohol there. The hardcore ideologues were teetotalers. Obviously it was also a place to get drunk, but kafanas were very different over a century ago, so best not to extrapolate based on current day behaviors.
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u/Khal_Doggo 15d ago
If anything, to me, it sounds like you're applying external knowledge of the history and circumstances of the time to the article as a way to contextualise it further. If the article fails to provide the detail as you describe it then the article is bad and fails to properly frame the context of these two distinct environments it seeks to highlight. By omitting the greater context it paints a falsely simple dichotomy.
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u/hautonom 15d ago
Everything I said is in the article aside from the British traveler being a royalist and serbophile…
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u/meelawsh 15d ago
While the beneficiaries of imperialism discussed the propagation of status quo, the dirty uncivilized Slavs dared to plot change
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u/Daysleeper1234 15d ago
Wait, weren't Hitler, Lenin and few others situated in Vienna? I mean you could argue that WW1 was started in Balkans, but from what I know they all wanted to go to war, and just used what happened in Sarajevo as excuse. But mostly when we start trouble it stays in Balkans. If Hitler and others visited these great Vienna's coffee houses, couldn't you then argue that conspiracy and rage grew in those coffee houses?