The Betrayal of the Urbs Fidelissima: Habsburg Trieste in Robert Musil's Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften

Uberhaupt gewahrt triest, sowohl vom Berge herab, an dem es liegt, als von der seeseite betrachtet, einen auserordentlich schonen anblick. Das Meer in seiner Herrlichkeit, die zahllosen Masten der schiffe, das Gewimmel von Menschen aller kleidung und sprache, alles ist ansprechend und neu. einen besonders fremden anblick gewahrt es, mitten auf dem Platze der stadt bedeutende Meerschiffe in den kanalen liegen zu sehen, deren Masten die umliegenden Hauser weit uberragen. (franz Grillparzer, Tagebuch auf der Reise nach italien, 1819)in opschina bin ich zwei stunden Morgens auf einem Hugel gesessen. in triest habe ich stunden verbracht, um in das freie weite Meer zu sehen. (adalbert stifter, letter to Johann ritter von fritsch, 1857)Grillparzer and stifter's contemplative travelogue descriptions of trieste's calm Mediterranean waters, its towering ship masts, and its bustling crowds of polyglot merchants testify to the profound attraction that the adriatic city exerted upon austrian authors. Both writers regard the Habsburg empire's domestic coastline with a combination of intense curiosity and profound awe. Grillparzer's keen spirit of observation renders a crisp portrayal of the industrious seaport with its manifold stimuli and assiduous activity. refreshingly beautiful, albeit overwhelmingly barbaric, is the impression he collects from the colorful scene at this busy gateway to southern and eastern europe.1 stifter's letter, conversely, records a lifechanging experience. He had never seen the sea before, and after years of longing, he enjoys the panoramic view of a maritime spectacle for the first time.2 for both authors, the view of the adriatic catalyzes a Mediterranean metamorphosis that leaves them renewed, transformed, and enriched. in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such travel arrangements were anything but unusual. it was common, in fact, for intellectuals, affluent travelers, and austrian families of privilege to spend their holidays in trieste and its environs, which included other vacation resorts such as sistiana and Duino, whose rocky seascapes would soon comprise the geopoetic scenery of rilke's elegies.Connecting the austrian inland to maritime trading routes, trieste also stimulated audacious political fantasies. While stifter was resting on the opicina promontory overlooking the Gulf of trieste, he could probably discern an active construction site in the distance. two years before, the archduke ferdinand Maximilian, the younger brother of emperor franz Joseph, had commissioned the construction of the Miramare Castle in the outskirts of trieste, which was already underway when stifter arrived. the Viennese architect Carl Junker designed the castle along with a luscious botanical garden where the archduke could cultivate his beloved tropical vegetation. finished in 1860, the castle eventually became the archduke's primary residence before he pursued his ill-fated political aspirations in Mexico. as a nexus of inspiring dramatic landscapes and neo-medieval architecture, imperial assertiveness and floral exoticism, the Miramare Castle assumes the features of a powerful symbol for Habsburg trieste itself. the adriatic city represented the Crown's bold ambitions for maritime trade on a global scale, and embodied at the same time an exotic yet internal otherness.3 Despite this double status, the position that trieste-the monarchy's major commercial seaport and multicultural emporium-occupied in the austrian literary imagination still constitutes an aspect that has not been sufficiently studied.it is precisely in this austrian tradition of the "italian Journey" that robert Musil identifies trieste's political turmoil before the Great War as one of the symptoms of the empire's imminent demise. the author fictionalizes the triestine question in his sardonic political parody Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, writing in a distinctly austrian context, separate from the longstanding German tradition that extends from Winckelmann and Goethe's italienische Reise to thomas Mann's novels. …