Every year, on January 1, millions of Central European residents religiously turn on their TVs to watch a live concert from Vienna’s Musikverein and hear works by the Strauss family and other Austro-Hungarian composers. Besides seeing a majestic concert hall decorated with statues and frescoes depicting musical legends, the Austrian National Television (ORF) deliberately takes a viewer on a journey through streets of Vienna, countryside, and beautiful Viennese palaces. The concert program, which slightly changes from year to year, echoes, or rather, in musical terms, serves as a crescendo to this visual image of the Austro-Hungarian imperial past. But, most importantly, the two pieces, traditionally played at the end of the concert—the unofficial anthem of city of Vienna, by Johann Strauss, Jr., “An der Schonen Blauen Donau,” and Radetzky March, which immortalizes Field Marshall Radetzky who crashed Italian uprising at the Battle of Custoza (1848)— serve as a reminder of both cultural and political glory of Austria and evoke a nostalgia for the “Golden Age,” to borrow Stefan Zweig words.

However, it would be a mistake to argue that this one day is a single moment when images of the Hapsburg past reemerge in Central European minds. The legacy of this famous—and often forgotten empire—plays an active role in the everyday lives of millions and millions of people residing in former Hapsburg lands. From magnificent Gründerzeit architecture on every corner to coffee houses, Julius Meinl roastery, or chocolaterie and grosskonditorei “Aida” with apple strudel, cremschnitte, and Sacher-torte in a display window, remind people of Austro-Hungarian way of life characterized by hochkultur and gentlemanly manners. Similarly, the old Austrian Civil Code of 1811 [Allgemeines bürgerliches Gesetzbuch], together with many other statutes, predominately concerning education, still in force in many former Habsburg realms, send a message of cooperation, loyalty to one another, and superiority of old Austrian institutions. And then there is strong Viennese economic muscle present. The Austrian Raiffeisen Bank, Erste Bank, and Addiko Bank, as well as retail stores and supermarket chains such as Baumax, Kastner und Oehler, Billa, and Spar, dominate markets from the Czech Republic to Croatia.

Grunderzeit architecture, Ringstrasse, Vienna. Wikimedia Commons.

With that said, it is extremely hard to “miss” the Hapsburgs. Ironically, the empire that collapsed so many years ago still breaths. But, this time, not as a political, or rather a sovereign, creature as it did before a fateful day in November 1918; instead, it lives, and probably will continue to live for generations to come, as Marcel Proust’s madeleine cookie, evoking public and personal images and interpretations of the past.