Time travel Heldenberg

The Heldenberg is inextricably linked with the name of one of the most important generals of the Habsburg Monarchy: Radetzky, savior of the empire for some, counter-revolutionary for others.

The Heldenberg in Kleinwetzdorf, where the army supplier Joseph Gottfried Pargfrieder had the tomb of Field Marshal Radetzky erected more than 150 years ago, is a setting that “had remained forgotten and untouched for decades, had lain dormant”, said Governor Erwin Pröll in his speech at the opening of the provincial exhibition. Now it is being filled with life again, the provincial exhibition offers a “journey back in time”. On the one hand, this exhibition in 2005 was about heroes from antiquity to the present day, and on the other about those mysterious circular tombs, which at 6,500 years old are Europe's oldest monumental structures and therefore older than the pyramids and Stonehenge.

The history of the Heldenberg memorial project and its impresario, the factory owner Pargfrieder, the story of the hero Radetzky and the revolutionary year of 1848 formed the starting point of the exhibition. According to the two exhibition curators Wolfgang Müller-Funk and Georg Kugler, there was a turning point in the view of the hero at this time, because “between 1849 and 1859, the greatness of the old monarchy flickered out for perhaps the last time, reflected larger than life in the figure of Radetzky on the Heldenberg”.

Who is a hero, who can call themselves a hero, who is called a hero? “The hero is characterized by a greatness that transcends the human and probably also the humanly possible. He is the figure of an economy of desire, in which our longing to be greater than we are is expressed. The hero does this in two ways: by confronting us as a superman in a fictional space and mobilizing us to be like him, as an offer to identify with him and his heroic goal. Through this identification, his - virtual - greatness is transferred to us in an almost magical way and unites us” (Müller-Funk and Kugler).

So who was a hero? The ones we know from ancient mythology or from the world of Germanic legends? Is it more the heroes of the present - stars from sport, film and pop? Or perhaps the “everyday heroes” who are not even known by name, whether it's a firefighter or an emergency doctor?

Of the 80 circular ditches discovered to date in Central Europe, half are located in Lower Austria, mostly in the Weinviertel region. The sites had a diameter of up to 180 meters and were probably used to observe the orbits of the sun and stars. A Neolithic circular ditch was reconstructed in its original size for the provincial exhibition.

Never before have so many stimulating accompanying projects been initiated in connection with a provincial exhibition as for the Schmidatal region, explained Governor Pröll. The total investment of 27 million euros should be a driving force for the economic and tourist development of this region, but also contribute to the creation of identity, said Pröll.

Heldenberg