Page - 293 - in Österreich-Ungarns imperiale Herausforderungen - Nationalismen und Rivalitäten im Habsburgerreich um 1900

© 2020, V&R unipress GmbH, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783847110606 – ISBN E-Lib: 9783737010603 Thesovereigngaveaudience toall communities;hevisited theAshkenazi syn- agogueandtheGaziHrusevBeymosque;he receivedall associationsandcon- stitutive bodies. The consuls from Italy (Count Giacchi whomFrancis Joseph addressed in Italian), Great Britain, Germany, France andRussia attended the ceremony.Before leaving, theemperorwent totheIlidzˇa thermalbathsresort.56 The press was of course silent about the protests and polemics that the visit caused amongSerbs outraged at the 1908 annexation.The visitwas even con- sideredriskyfortheemperorcouldhavebeenvictimofanassassinationattempt. EventheCroats tried touse theoccasiontomake their claimsagainstHungary heard. All these reasonsmayexplainwhy the initiative launched in1908 to erect a statueoftheemperorneverconcretized.Theideawasproposedbylocalarchitect IgnazLangerwhofoundimmediatelysupport; acommitteewasconstitutedon 22 October at the house of associations (Vereinshaus).57On the next day the municipalityjoinedtheproject:Vice-mayorNikolaMandic´wroteaneditorialon that topic in the Sarajevoer Tagblatt and it was later announced that mayor Kulovic´ would be the chairman of the committee.58 So everything seemed to proceedunder the best auspices. But in 1909 nothing hadhappened: the Sar- ajevoerTagblattwasregularlyappealingtomakedonationstothecommittee.In Septembera fund-raisingconcertwasorganized inIlidzˇa inorder toaccelerate theprocessbut after that therewasnoothermentionof themonument. In the meantime the state ideologypromotedby formerFinanceministerK#llayhad proven a failure: the constructed local identity based on the adhesion of the Muslims did not rally all of them and alienated Croats as well as Serbs who neither wanted to be assimilated to themnor to be deprived of their already elaboratednationaldiscourse.TheHabsburgarchitectureof Sarajevo combin- ingmodernitywith ‘oriental’patternsremainsasamutewitnessof thisproject. But no specificHabsburgmemorial was built in the townbefore the 1914 as- sassination.Onthe followingdaysan initiativewas takento commemorate the deathsofFrancisFerdinandandSophie.The idea came fromMajorHugoPiffl whowasa teacherat theboys’militaryboardingschool (Militärknabenpensio- nat).Hisappealtobuildanexpiatorymonument(Sühnedenkmal)waspublished inthepressandthefirstfundswereimmediatelycollected.59Therewasnodebate about the location: thememorialwas to be erected on the corner of the Latin bridge(Latinskimost) in frontof thesidewalkwhereGavriloPrinciphadstood andfiredat thecar.EugenBoriwascommissionedtobuild themonument that 56 SarajevoerTagblatt,Kaisernummer(31.05.1910), S. 1. 57 SarajevoerTagblatt 123 (23.10.1908), S. 2. 58 DasKaiserFranz Josef-Denkmal, in: SarajevoerTagblatt 124 (24.10.1908), S. 1. 59 BosnischePost147 (02.07.1914), S. 1. ImperialChallenges inAustro-HungarianMulticulturalCities 293