Prince Eugene and Maria Theresa: Gender, History, and Memory in Hofmannsthal in the First World War

Hugo von Hofmannsthal was one of the Austrian poets and intellectuals who took an active part in the historical-political events of 1914. He expected from the war a new vitality of public life and an end of the cultural crisis. In his early years he had advocated closer bonds between poesy and life. Now he encountered a situation that gave him the chance to strengthen his ties with reality. He worried about the existence of Austria, in which he was rooted, and tried to conjure up the Hapsburg spirit of the past for his contemporaries and to explain Austria's national history and right to exist to a large public. My study discusses his essay on Prince Eugene and Maria Theresa in the context of collective memory (or cultural memory) and propaganda. Is there really a collective memory? Was there a collective memory, in which the great commander and the empress lived on, or did the author wish to create this memory from history? Should his essays be considered war propaganda? Self-assertion of Austria opposite the German ally appeared almost equally important. The change in emphasis from Prince Eugene as the greatest Austrian to the peace-loving empress mirrors the events of the war. Both contribute to an Austrian anthropology, which for the author lived on beyond the end of the Empire. This article is available in Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature: http://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol31/iss1/2 Prince Eugene and Maria Theresa: Gender, History, and Memory in Hofmannsthal in the First World War Wolfgang Nehring University of California Los Angeles Gender, memory, and history are icons, two of which are hotly admired in the groves of academe; enthusiasm for the third has clearly abated somewhat. How closely do they belong together? Has "gender" anything substantial to do with "history" and "memory?" Or have these concepts rather come together by chance in a "cult-community?" I have tried to provide a connection between them by choosing a topic that unites them in a natural way. Prince Eugene and Maria Theresa are historical figures who personify gender-determined views, and Hofmannsthal's approach to them calls upon collective, national, and cultural memory. Hofmannsthal's works on Prince Eugene were written in the years 1914-15, his essay on Maria Theresa in 1917. Not only on account of their dates of origin, both works were attempts to come to terms with the First World War.' Hofmannsthal was among those people who, while not exactly welcoming the war, nevertheless justified it without reservation. Full of reverence and apprehension, he tried to conjure up and fathom the "enormity" of the moment in proclamations, commentaries, and interpretations-he wanted to be a part of the great upheaval he was witnessing. How does this mesh with the sensitive poet of youthful lyrics or the culture poet and experimental dramatist after the turn of the century? What fascinated Hofmannsthal about World War I seems to have been the forcible incursion of reality into his own life, the chance to submerge himself in "real" life. "How everything to do with one1 Nehring: Prince Eugene and Maria Theresa: Gender, History, and Memory in H Published by New Prairie Press 14 STT now that he saw the threat to the very existence of the Hapsburg monarchy where his roots were, the past seemed closer to him and more present; again he felt that he was a representative, but this time a representative of a national-supra-national community. For him the historical past no longer languishes as neglected inheritance, as a dead cultural asset, as something known but not reflected upon in the basement of modern consciousness; it lights up, full of significance, seeming important here and now for a person's selfimage. The past that had been lived, the history that had been called back into collective remembrance, would now explain the events and experiences that burst so violently upon the scene, and would endow them with significance. Yet-because the situation was so new, because the poet was even less prepared for war than the Hapsburg monarchy, because the ideas of the author were only minimally thought-out, were as unformulated as the war goals of his country, he initially adorned the events with incidental observations rather than compelling commentaries, with emotional evocations of the grandeur of the moment rather than with deep analyses.' The word "Geist" 'spirit' became a beacon-but the more frequently it was used, the less concrete seemed the content it would express. In 1919 the poet would admit how difficult it had become for him and for others to really grasp or even guess "what Geist is" and asserts "an almost religious awe will henceforth prohibit us from prostituting such a hard-won concept." 2 Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, Vol. 31, Iss. 1 [2007], Art. 2 http://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol31/iss1/2 DOI: 10.4148/2334-4415.1642