Danubia: A Personal History of Habsburg Europe

by Simon Winder

The Empire almost disappeared under naked female allegorical statues representing Plenty, Harvest, Drama, Justice and a variety of river systems. Wandering the streets of Lviv today perhaps the chief hazard is being hit by a falling piece of allegorical woman. Almost every pediment or turret has a tribute to the limber models and girlfriends of late-nineteenth-century sculptors, who must have been working on an industrial scale. City budgets today which should go on hospitals or roads must presumably be redirected to the near-hopeless task of keeping under safe repair the complex stone coiffeurs and sternly pointing fingers of the Spirit of Galicia or Industry Allied to Art. It is odd that a century associated with repression, hypocrisy and buttoned-down reserve should have left behind it such a nubile trail.