Vienna - Empire, Dynasty and Dream

Episode
Vienna - Empire, Dynasty and Dream - Episode 3
Broadcast Info
2016 (59 mins)
Description
Episode 3 begins in 1814. Napoleon Bonaparte had lost his empire and his throne. That Autumn, Europe’s most powerful men travelled to Vienna for the ultimate summit meeting: to rebuild the Europe Napoleon had almost brought to its knees. But the Congress of Vienna wasn’t all diplomacy; it turned into the biggest party the continent had ever seen. But while the Habsburg Emperor hosted the Congress and its wild parties, this European summit was dominated and orchestrated by his right hand man: Prince Klemens von Metternich. After Metternich’s triumph at the Congress of Vienna, we visit his palaces and tell how he spent a career dominating Europe by crushing any and all opposition from Vienna. Then in 1848, Metternich was overthrown and a new young Emperor Franz Josef was chosen to pick up the pieces. From his struggles with Napoleon III and Bismarck and the suicide of his son Rudolf, to the assassination of his beautiful wife Sisi and his heir Franz Ferdinand, Franz Josef’s empire and his family proved almost impossible to control. But while the Habsburgs and their empire headed for extinction, Vienna blossomed. The influx of immigrants from around the empire transformed the city into a crossroads of creativity. A modern age dawned. As the theories of Freud and the sensuality of the Secession artists like Klimt and Schiele challenged the very status quo that Franz Josef had so desperately struggled to preserve, a strange dark feeling of desperate foreboding began to stalk his imperial court.
Genre
History; Architecture; Culture; Religion

How to cite this record

The Open University, "Vienna - Empire, Dynasty and Dream". https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ou/search/index.php/prog/227056 (Accessed 10 Jan 2025)