In Search of the Viennese African, Angelo Soliman (ca. 1721-96): From Educator of a Hereditary Prince to Stuffed Exhibit

Abstract

Background: It is not possible to deal with Angelo Soliman (ca. 1721-96) as a black man in ]8th -century Vienna (the then capital of the Holy Roman Empire) without talking about certain present day intellectual and social trends in Germany and Austria. Owing to the fact of Nazi-induced genocide and to manifest and latent racism, defining Africans as permanent and classical victims is understood as the right way to prove one’s own political correctness if one is white.