Lion It’s John III Sobieski’s 384th birthday. I first learned his name on my first visit to Vienna in 1958. If you took the G2 tram from what had been my mother’s family’s flat before the Anschluss, you came to the terminus near the foot of the Kahlenberg. Sobieski launched his attack that ended the second siege of Vienna from up there – hence the German name for the battle, ‘Schlacht am Kahlenberg’. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Juliusz_Kossak_Sobieski_pod_Wiedniem.jpeg en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sobieskitablica.jpg Historians have argued for decades over the significance of 1683 and the Battle of Vienna in European history, and it has, of course, powerful and inescapable resonances today. But I learned the myths in 1958 too. So when I eat a croissant or drink a Turkish coffee, I sometimes think of Jan Sobieski: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Siemiginowski_Sobieski_at_the_Battle_of_Vienna.jpg
Posted on: Sat, 17 Aug 2013 05:57:25 +0000
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