Famous Austrians VI: Felix Salten

Felix Salten is less famous than his work of fiction, Bambi, a Life in the Woods.

Yes, the Disney movie Bambi is actually originally Austrian! Who'd a thunk?

Salten was born in Budapest in 1869 to a Jewish family, but moved soon after with his family to Vienna. At the turn of the 20th century, he was involved in the Young Vienna movement (Jung Wien, promoting art noveau ventures) and various other artistic endeavors. He made his living as a theater critic, but wrote and published plenty of original poems, plays and stories.

Perhaps this comes as no surprise to those who know how much Austrians love nature and the natural world. Bambi: eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Wald is similar to the movie in many ways, excepting that Bambi is a roe deer in the Austrian version, but a white-tailed deer in the American version (the difference in species being the difference in continents). The novel also goes into much more detail about Bambi's life, following him into old age, having him philosophize about life, death and the mysteries of the universe. The novel was also meant for an adult audience, and after translation became a huge book club success in the United States in the 1930s. Hitler believed the story was an allegory for the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany (and occupied Austria) and banned the book in 1936.

While in exile in Switzerland during the Nazi occupation, Salten wrote a sequel, Bambi's Children. He also sold the rights to Disney at this time. The film version came out in 1942. According to legend, Disney originally wanted to create a live-action version, but discovering it would be too difficult to film deer (um, duh?) he opted for a cartoon feature. Bambi: eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Wald is also considered one of the first environmental novels. Environmentalists can disagree all they want; the Bambi Effect has turned plenty of people into vegetarians.

Naturhistorisches Museum - Vienna

If you, like me, contemplated becoming a paleontologist at the tender age of - six? Maybe nine - you, too, will love one of Europe's oldest collections of rocks and junk. Otherwise known as the Vienna Natural History Museum.

They have a Darwin exhibit going on now, which was relatively interesting. I actually read On the Origin of Species in high school, and read up on Darwin's personal life, so most of it was not new. But, hey, I liked it, and it was worth the effort.

The permanent exhibits date from about 250 years ago, when Emperor Franz I (Maria Theresia's hubby) bought a bunch of stuffed animals off of the Florentine scholar Johann Ritter von Baillou.








Later, the collection was enriched with Montezuma's Emeralds (supposedly brought back from Mexico by Hernan Cortez - and you know how the Hapsburgs got their fingers into everything in Europe). Maria Theresia kept them by her bed...

Also interesting is the Planetenmaschine - Astrolabe in English? it is the oldest in the world, built in 1750 by Johann Georg Nesstfell.

Awesome, huh? You are not supposed to touch it, and I don't know if it works anymore, but in 1750, it could see four of Jupiter's moons and five of Saturn's! High-tech for the era, no?

Other things of interest, of course: dinosaurs!

Pterodactyl

Sauriersaal

Icthyosaurus

Precambrian seashells

They have several rooms devoted to dinosaurs...not, perhaps, a Sue like at the Field Museum in Chicago (who can beat Sue, right?) but nevertheless, I was wandering around going: "Cool!" Or, as one might say in German, "Kool!" Just kidding...people would probably think you're asking for a menthol cigarette...

AND, the building itself is spectacular! WOWIE! It's worth it just to go to the museum to see the great room, and the staircase:

And this delightful guy (some sort of amphibious tetrapod) is coming out of the case...just like he would have in the late Devonian period! LOL. This really was just too funny...

Another thing the museum is noted for is its HUGE collection of meteorites...quite a bit bigger than its dinosaur collection, actually:

And this is a piece of moon rock brought home in 1973 from one of the Apollo missions.

more meteorites

And, last but not least, the Venus of Willendorf (ca. 25,000 years ago) : 

The Ice Age conception of beauty...well, she who can store fat survives the winter, right? Which is probably where the modern problem of having too much fat and not enough lean winters is hitting the current human population in the gut (pun intended :) ).

She is one of the oldest instances of sculpture in existence - by no means something to sneeze at (or on, though she is protected by a bullet-proof glass case)!

OK, also for the Greek freaks...yes, she predates the mythological conception of Venus by some 20,000 years. Do not blame me. Some anthropology dude who was also obviously in love with antiquities named her. Think of her as some Earth-mother equivalent.

Reproduction of Woolly Rhinoceros

There was also a very cool exhibit of this paleolithic family's grave site (relatively recently, it got into the news...if anyone can share a link, please do). Out of respect for them, I guess...I don't know why, but I'm oddly superstitious at times...I did not take a picture. To me, it's like not taking pictures at funerals, or at cemeteries. You just don't, even if science is involved. So...bottom line, you should just go to Vienna and see that one for yourself. :)