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Votivkirche (Votive Church) a neo-Gothic church in the Alsergrund district of Vienna in Austria.

 

The origin of the Votivkirche derives from a failed assassination attempt on Emperor Franz Joseph by Hungarian nationalist János Libényi on 18 February 1853. During that time, when the Emperor was in residence at the Hofburg Palace, he took regular walks around the old fortifications for exercise in the afternoons. While walking along one of the outer bastions with one of his officers, Count O'Donnell von Tyrconnell, Libényi (a tailor's apprentice) attacked the Emperor from behind, stabbing him in the collar with a long knife.

 

A civilian passer-by, Dr. Joseph Ettenreich, came to the Emperor's assistance, and Count O'Donnell struck Libényi down with his sabre, holding him until the police guards arrived to take him into custody. As he was being led away, the failed assassin yelled in Magyar, "Long live Kossuth!" Franz Joseph insisted that his assailant not be mistreated. After Libényi's execution at Spinnerin am Kreuz in Favoriten for attempted regicide, the Emperor characteristically granted a small pension to the assassin's mother

 

Dr. Ettenreich was later elevated to nobility by Franz Joseph for his bravery and became Joseph von Ettenreich. Count O'Donnell, who up until then was a count in the German nobility by virtue of his great-grandfather, was afterwards made a Count of the Habsburg Empire and received the Commander's Cross of the Royal Order of Leopold.

 

After the unsuccessful assassination attempt, the Emperor's brother, Maximilian — later Emperor of Mexico — called upon communities throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire for donations to a new church on the site of the attack. The church was to be a votive offering for the rescue of Franz Joseph and "a monument of patriotism and of devotion of the people to the Imperial House."

 

The church plans were established in an architectural competition in April 1854. 75 designs from the Austrian Empire, German lands, England, and France were submitted. Originally, the plans were to include the neighbouring Allgemeines Krankenhaus and create a campus fashioned after the plans of Oxford and Cambridge University.

 

The church was one of the first buildings to be built on the Ringstraße. Since the city walls still existed at that point, the church had no natural parishioners. At that time, it was meant as a garrison church, serving the many soldiers that had come to Vienna in the wake of 1848 Revolution. The church is not located directly on the boulevard but along a broad square (now the Sigmund Freud Park) in front of it.

 

Information Source:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Votivkirche,_Vienna

 

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Uploaded on February 22, 2023
Taken on April 23, 2019