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[cjelli]

Друг детства ddt_ru опубликовал в своем ЖЖ замечательно актуальную выдержку про Австрию конца XVIII века из современной (2014) книги о Бетховене :

Franz II... not notably intelligent or curious, by nature conservative and fearful of change... took the [Holy Roman Empire] throne in 1792 opposed to democracy and fascinated by the potential of secret police and censorship to keep his subjects in line. When King Louis XVI was beheaded in Paris in January 1793 and the Terror rolled into motion, Franz responded by declaring any hint of freedom of speech or popular rule a spark to be stamped out. Vienna became the first modern police state, less murderous than later ones but just as relentless, and more efficient than most.

...the very existence of French sympathies was perceived as a mortal threat to the throne and to the privileges of the aristocracy. Soon anyone wearing side-whiskers was viewed as a potential revolutionary. The emperor complained that too many people were reading newspapers. The police would establish relentless control over the newspapers, too.

Eventually Austria became a place where intellect, creativity, any kind of independent thought was officially held to be somewhere suspect and criminal. One day the emperor declared, concerning Beethoven, "There is something revolutionary in that music!" In practice, though, Viennese composers would be among the few beneficiaries of the all-encompassing repression. Try as they might, the police could find no grounds to censor instrumental music, which had always been the city's chief glory. In the end, symphonies, string quartets, piano concertos, and the like became virtually the only kind of free speech left in Austria.