156
PARTISAN R.EV IEW
and over, reading the newspaper and eating sausage. The longest filibuster
lasted thirteen hours. Fistfights accompanied by outrageous verbal insul ts
would break out during sessions and in the hallways .
The old-style liberals, identified as Jewish, were attacked as internation–
alist, intellectual and out of touch "with the people." The new breed of
politicians emphasized their humble origin, derided academics and attacked
the modernists under the slogan" Art isn 't international, but
v(i/kisciJ,"
which
is to say, nativist, ethnocentric and populist, as opposed to modernist, mean–
ingJewish.
Young H. obviously learned his lessons, among others the proposal by
one representative to brand gypsies with numbers so they could be tracked
in organized camps.
As theatrical spectacles the parlialllL'lltary excesses complimented young
H.'s Wagnerian epiphanies at the oper;l. The Imperial
IlIisc-CII-SCt'l IC
of the
Kaiser's sixty-year reign further contributed to the young man's understand–
ing of poli tical
CcsallllkllllSlllJCrk.
The obligatory grand parade was to be a
spectacular showing of all the Empirc's nations. The Hungarians were the
first to wi thdraw. For them, it wasn't
1H-J.H
that marked the beginning of
Emperor Franz Joseph 's reign, but rather
lH67,
the year the Hungarian con–
stitution was officially acknowledged and the Kaiser crowned king of
Hungary. The Czechs followed suit when they f{)und themselves represent–
ed in the parade as a defeated nation. The Italians backed out because of the
procession's grand finale which would feature the military band playing the
Radetzky March in celebration of the beloved war hero 's defeat of the
Italians in
1R4H.
The Croats were offended by a program note pointing to
their "special talent. .. for the appropriation of foreign property." Unlike the
Hungarians, Czechs and Italians, the Croats could be appeased with a public
apology by the parade coml11i ttee.
The parade went on in undiminished , self-congratulatory glory, cele–
brating the Habsburgs' mili tary victories throughout the centuries wi th
twelve thousand participants, among them four thousand in ancient historic
regalia and eight thousand in national costumes, offering their homage
to
the
Kaiser in their national languages, on horses and floats, accolllpallied by
canons and cattle.
l3ut what came as the biggest shock fiJr the Viennese were the masses of
people fi'om the poorest areas of the Illonarchy who came to participate in
the parade. Never had they confronted so many of their compatriots, impov–
erished "foreigners," most notably fi·olll Calici;1 and Uucovilla. Karl Kraus
attacked their "ugliness" while star architect Adolf Loos publicly complained
about the embarrassing backwardness of some of the partici pating nations.
Anti-Semitism was often indistinguishable fi'om the condescension
toward and hatred of any non -German "f()reigner" ft'om the Eastern
