num_pages: 232
description: The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 was just one link in a chain of events leading to World War I and the downfall of the Austro-Hungarian empire. By 1918 after nearly four hundred years of rule the Habsburg monarchy was expunged in an instant of history. Remarkably despite tales of decadence ethnic indifference and a failure to modernize the empire enjoyed a renewed popularity in interwar narratives. Today it remains a crucial point of reference for Central European identity evoking nostalgia among the nations that once dismembered it.The Afterlife of Austria-Hungary examines histories journalism and literature in the period between world wars to expose both the positive and the negative treatment of the Habsburg monarchy following its dissolution and the powerful influence of fiction and memory over history. Originally published in Polish Adam Kozuchowskis study analyzes the myriad factors that contributed to this phenomenon. Chief among these were economic depression widespread authoritarianism on the continent and the painful rise of aggressive nationalism. Many authors of these narratives were well-known intellectuals who yearned for the high culture and peaceable kingdom of their personal memory.Kozuchowski contrasts these imaginaries with the causal realities of the empires failure. He considers the aspirations of Czechs Poles Romanians Hungarians and Austrians and their quest for autonomy or domination over their neighbors coupled with the wave of nationalism spreading across Europe. Kozuchowski then dissects the reign of the legendary Habsburg monarch Franz Joseph and the lasting perceptions that he inspired.To Kozuchowski the interwar discourse was a reaction to the monumental change wrought by the dissolution of Austria-Hungary and the fear of a history lost. Those displaced at the empires end attempted through collective (and selective) memory to reconstruct the vision of a once great multinational power. It was an imaginary that would influence future histories of the empire and even became a model for the European Union.
language: English
title: The Afterlife of Austria-Hungary: The Image of the Habsburg Monarchy in Interwar Europe
publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press