The Habsburg Legacy
Subtitle: National Identity in Historical Perspective (Austrian Studies)
Contributors: Ritchie Robertson (Editor); Edward Timms (Editor)
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Published: November 1994
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 242
ISBN-13: 9780748604876
Subjects: Ethnic studies; European history: c 1750 to c 1900; European history: from c 1900 -; Imperialism; History - General History; Central Europe - History; Nationalism; Politics and government; History: World; Europe; Germany; Europe - Austria & Hungary; Habsburg, House of; Austria; 1848-1918; Europe, Central; National characteristics, Austrian
Description: "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.