Title: The Habsburg legacy : national identity in historical perspective /
Authors: Robertson, Ritchie.; Timms, Edward
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press,
Year: 1994
Subjects: Habsburg, House of.; Nationalism Austria Congresses.; Nationalism Austria; National characteristics, Austrian.; Austria Politics and government Congresses.; Austria Politics and government; Europe, Central Politics and government.; Austria Ethnic relations.
Abstract: "With the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the break-up of the Soviet Union, nationalism and its effects are once more at the forefront of attention. However, to understand more fully what is happening now it is valuable to look back into the past and examine the construction and collapse of the multi-national Habsburg Empire." "After examining how the Holy Roman Empire became the Austrian Empire at the beginning of the nineteenth century, this collection of essays charts the subsequent growth of distinctive regional identities in Hungary, Galicia, Trieste and Croatia, before looking at the official attempts to define 'ethnic identity' and what harm resulted from their good intentions. Differing constructions of Austrian identity among Jewish novelists, women writers and art historians - besides the literary works of Hofmannsthal and Musil - are then analysed, as are the attempts to devise a new Austrian identity under the semi-fascist rule of the 1930s and the early years of the post-war Second Republic. Concluding with a general analysis contrasting the gradual integration of nations in present-day western Europe with the dissolution of multi-national states in the east, Austrian Studies 5 is both a challenging reappraisal of a fallen Empire and a timely reflection of an on-going question." --Book Jacket.
Contents: Austria, 'Germany', and the Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire / Joachim Whaley -- Language, the Constitution, and the Past in Hungarian Nationalism / Laszlo Peter -- Austrian Identity in Hungarian Perspective: The Nineteenth Century / R. J. W. Evans -- Galicia and Problems of National Identity / Iaroslav Isaievych -- Austria and the South Slavs / Robin Okey -- The 'Cultural Soul' and the 'Merchant Soul': Trieste between Italian and Austrian Identity / Angelo Ara -- Ethnic Attribution in Late Imperial Austria: Good Intentions, Evil Consequences / Gerald Stourzh -- 'Auf Fluch und Luge baut sich kein Gluck auf': Karl Emil Franzos's Novel Judith Trachtenberg and the Question of Jewish Assimilation / Florian Krobb.