Whose Austria? 996-1996
Gordon Marsden reviews the millennium exhibition that challenges preconceptions about the European nation state.
Worldwide, people are gearing up with thoughts of the coming millennium. But for the people of Austria thousand-year commemorations have been decreed four years early. All through 1996 celebrations have been based upon the fact that on November 1st, 996, the Holy Roman Emperor, Otto III, issued a document – a deed of investment for his vassal in the central Danube, Henry of Babenberg, which contains the earliest extant use of the term 'Ostarrichi' – Old High German for 'Osterreich'. The term 'Austria' had come into being – but what has it meant over this thousand-year period?
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