Top Menu

Tag Archives | Habsburg

Lemberg – Little Vienna in the Ukraine

Lviv, or Lemberg as we call it in German, has been on my radar since I was a kid. I overheard elderly people talking about Austrian soldiers being in sent to Galicia as a punishment. Soldiers of the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy. I listened to stories of people wading in ankle-deep mud, a place at the end of the word, void of any signs of civilization. That got me interested.

Rynok Square surrounded by 44 pretty colorful houses of different styles and periods.

Continue Reading →

0

Sarajevo’s many cemeteries

In Sarajevo cemeteries are everywhere, the patches of white pillars clinging onto the hills can be seen from afar. I have been fascinated with cemeteries since I can remember. The tranquility is one reason that, another one is the history they tell. In Argentina I once found the overgrown grave of an Austrian in the ruins of a deserted Jesuit mission.

Sarajevo Cemeteries

Patches  of white on green slopes are a common sight in Sarajevo – tombstone closely huddled together in Muslim cemeteries

Continue Reading →

0

Sarajevo – the Jerusalem of Europe

Sarajevo – the Jerusalem of Europe – churches and synagogues all squeezed into the tiny center of Sarajevo are witnesses to the turbulent history of what is now Bosnia-Herzegovina. Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain had their synagogues built and so had their Ashkenazi brothers. Ottoman rule lasted till the beginning of the 20th century and then the very catholic Habsburg annexed the area. Religious and secular architecture alike reveal  the varies rulership that  Sarajevo suffered from and strived.

Churches with Muslim cemetery in the background

Continue Reading →

0