Pelycosaur24

I first learned about the existence of this show when I accidentally stumbled on one of the sets in Vienna on my birthday last year... In case you did not know "Vienna Blood" is a three-part British-Austrian television show which aired in December 2019. It’s a detective story best described as Austro-Hungarian Sherlock. That’s literally what it is. So if you like Sherlock, definitely watch it. But of course its most distinguishing feature it its setting. Austria-Hungary is not very often featured in main-stream media and thus often overshadowed by the more well-known british-victorian settings. So I am extremely happy for this shows existence.

Set in Vienna in 1906 the show actually does a really good job at capturing Austro-Hungarian culture. From the look and architecture (it was actually filmed on scene in Vienna) to the quirks of Viennese mannerism and the face palm moments of early 20th century reality. All facets of what you would expect from an Arthur Schnitzler novel are accounted for (yes there even is a duel at dawn and no shortage of suicides).

I also applaud the series for hiring mostly Austrian actors who actually can pronounce most of the names correctly.

Of course those who know me can guess that the character I am most excited about is Amelia Lydgate. In the series she is a scientist at the Natural History Museum in Vienna (which is my all-time favorite museum in the world). And while I really love the idea of a female scientist at this particular museum being one of the main characters I have to say... it’s kinda obvious her character was not written by someone whit a lot of understanding of what a scientist does. 

In the first episode Amelia claims to be involved in restauration, particularly "restoring archaeological finds". Now this would actually be a very plausible job at the natural history museum in 1906 as it had a very busy department of prehistoric archaeology (headed by Josef Szombathy - who actually is a main character in my own sci-fi story) after all this very museum staff would make one of the most well-known prehistoric discoveries in 1908 - the Venus of Willendorf. However it becomes clear very fast that the whole "restoring archeological finds" thing on Amelias part is less a clever period appropriate job actually tailored to the historical situation at the NHM in 1906 but rather someone stringing vague museum related terms together.

In the next episode Amelia claims to be a research scientist and is shown to have significant knowledge in chemistry and microbiology (she is often shown looking through a microscope claiming to study "prehistoric microorganisms"). Research scientist and restaurateur are two very very distinct professions. Both equally important at a museum, but very different.

But the funniest scene comes from the second episode where Amelia presents her findings to one of the detectives and is asked: "Forgive me, what is the area of your expertise?" To which she replies: "I am a scientist" I was like Girl, he obviously knows that... that’s why he asked for your AREA OF EXPERTISE. But nevertheless I really love her character as well as the rest of the cast. Overall it’s a really great show and I can absolutely recommend watching it.

I just read on Wikipedia that a second season is already planned. I can't wait to see more.

It’s that time of the year again. I noticed that in recent years Americans have shown interest in the Krampus. And while I am happy to see that something from my own cultural background seems to be popular overseas, I can’t help but to notice some misconceptions…. But as you know I love nothing more than to inform where information is wanted/needed. So here we go with some misconceptions about the Krampus.

I start of with a very big one.
Krampus has NOTHING to do with Christmas.

Nothing. Yes, he does accompany St. Nikolaus. But that is the thing. In Austria (and the rest of central Europe) St. Nikolaus has nothing to do with Christmas either. He just happened to be celebrated in December. Over here he has no connection to Santa Claus. That is because we don’t have Santa Claus over here but that is a different story.

Traditionally on the eve of December 6^th, children will be visited by a man dressed as St. Nikolaus (usually hired from the local church or hired by the parents). That is dressed in the garb of a Late Antique bishop with a bishop's crozier (staff), a colobium (cloak) and a bishops mitra (hat). He will tell the children his story – how he as bishop of the city of Myra helped the people in the 4^th century AD – and present them with a burlap bag (secretly given to him by the parents on arrival) filled with nuts, apples, clementine’s and various chocolate versions of himself (you can see some examples in the image below). Then the children will usually perform poetry or sing songs and they will talk about the good and bad things they did. That’s it. There is no connection to Christmas.

That said, Krampus can be associated with St. Nikolaus but does not have to. Sometimes, Krampus will accompany St. Nikolaus to “punish” bad kids.

 Krampus gets his own holiday the previous day. Usually young men will dress up in traditional Krampus gear which consist of a cape made from goat fur, huge cowbells, hooved wooden shoes and huge (and most often very valuable) wooden masks. They then “run” down the main streets of villages and cities in events known as “Krampuslauf” which can get pretty violent but nevertheless are a huge draw (in Klagenfurt for example, usually more than 50.000 people attend). No Christmas here either.

Now a second misconception I often hear is calling Krampus “German” or “Germanic” or “Slavic”. Each of these denominations is wrong. It would be correct to call the Krampus an “Alpine” phenomenon since it seems to be strongly influenced by the culture of the mountains and it is common in areas of several central European countries. He is not linked to any modern culture or ethnicity but rather the Alps as a geographic region. 

It is hard to tell where the Krampus comes from. Most likely he dates to a time even before the romans and represents an ancient custom to scare away the winter (however sources older than the 16^th century are scarce). In several regions in the alps today similar customs still survive that involve dressing up and dancing to influence the weather.