The authorities of the Austrian capital informed about their final decision and refused to allow a monument to John III Sobieski to be erected on Kahlenberg Hill. In their view, a monument commemorating the defence of Vienna against the troops of the Ottoman Empire in September 1683 would contribute to the rise of “Islamophobic and anti-Turkish sentiments”.

“Today, the Sobieski monument must be a sign of peace and international understanding, which rejects the rhetoric of victory,” Vienna’s councillor for culture Veronica Kaup-Hasler of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPOe) said.

A pedestal for the Jan III Sobieski monument was erected on the Kahlenberg Hill back in 2013. The object now has an inscription “peace and international understanding” in German, Polish and English. In 2018, the sculpture of King Jan was ready to be installed but the process faced formal obstacles.

Vienna authorities said at the time that a statue could become “an object of controversy”. 

Since then, the Austrian Freedom Party (FPOe) and several other organisations have campaigned for the monument to be erected. More recently, councillors of the Christian Democrat OeVP and the liberal NEOS have joined that effort.

The decision to forbid the placement of the John III Sobieski monument on the Kahlenberg was explained with objections reported by a group of Austrian and Polish “experts”.

After a request from the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth led a military campaign against the Turkish army that besieged Vienna and crushed the Ottoman forces on 12 September 1683. The victory ended the expansion of the Ottoman Empire in Europe.

Photo: Daniel Schultz John III Sobieski with the Order of the Holy Spirt, 1676. Wikipedia, public domain

Source: PAP

Tomasz Modrzejewski