History-Political Publics: “Türk_innenritte” (Turks Astride) in and around Vienna

Organized by Platform History-Politics, the Pressure Group for the Reconfiguration of the Lueger Memorial and AG “Nachdenkmal”

At the beginning of the workshop, which will span over several days, we aim to supply an overview of which historical images of the so-called “Turk Memorials” are represented in public space in Vienna. We will investigate to which extent contemporary discourse stands in relation to images of history as well as which roles those images play in the construction of present-day images of political enemies with the help of the so-called “Turks Astride” (a historical procession for the defamation of the Ottomans in Vienna-Hernals), which was abolished under Joseph II and reanimated in the 1980s by an ÖVP district council. Furthermore, artistic positions will be gathered, which make those continuities visible both spatially, socially and content-wise and which intervene into the construction of contemporary racialized and ethnicized stereotypes in public space.