Austria and France: Introduction

Abstract

Austria and France Introduction ROBERT VILAIN Relations between Austria and France have been characterized by enduring political antipathy, not to say overt hostility, and by profound respect, even empathy, in the cultural sphere ? and sometimes by all of these at once. Whilst this is no doubt true to some extent of every relationship between great nations and cultures, the paradoxes are particularly striking in this instance. It has been observed that ? quite apart from earlier conflicts such as the Thirty Years' War ? France and Austria have been at war no less than nine times between 1715 and 1918, and came to the brink of conflict several more times between the 1720s and 1848.1 Yet periods as disparate as the reign of Maria Theresia and the flowering of Viennese Modernism around 1900 were decisively marked by the influence of France. The development of French music in the nineteenth century is unthinkable without the models of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. However, as is perhaps evident even from this choice of examples, the fact that there has long been a reciprocity of interest on many different levels between Austria and France does not necessarily mean that such interest and awareness have been evenly balanced. For better or forworse, a knowledge ofAustria and her history, literature and culture isnot a sine qua non for the educated French citizen in the way that a familiarity with France and things French has been part and parcel of the cultural awareness of an educated Austrian. Research conducted in 1999 on Austria's image in France suggests a positive, even appreciative awareness on the part of the French public, although the image that has been received is a relatively superficial, picture-postcard one.2 The most successful Austrian cultural 'exports' have probably been in the field of music, a traffic that has not been so marked in the 1 The dates of the wars are listed in Paul W. Schroeder, Pointless Enduring Rivalry. France and the Habsburg Monarchy, 1715-1918', in Great Power Rivalries, ed. byWilliam R. Thompson (Columbia, SC, 1999), pp. 60-79 (P- 62): 1733-35, 1741-48, 1792-97, 1799-1801, 1805, 1809, 1813-14, 1815, 1859, 1914-18; during the war of 1939-45, Austria did not, of course, exist as a separate political entity. 2 See Silke D?rnberger, Entwicklung und Status quo franz?sisch-?sterreichischer Kultur transfers im literarhistorischen Kontext. Eine europ?ische Zweierbeziehung, Europ?ische Hoch schulschriften, Series 13: Franz?sische Sprache und Literatur 265 (Frankfurt a. M., 2002), p. 7. 2 Introduction opposite direction (with the exception of Jacques Offenbach, perhaps). There is, of course, a substantial body of work studying the relationship of the two countries, from the very earliest periods to the present day,3 and the present Introduction is no more than a sketch of some of the most striking cultural features of that relationship. Contacts between Austria and France date back to the Middle Ages, when French pilgrims crossed Austria or sailed down the Danube towards the Holy Land. A cluster of dynastic liaisons was inaugurated with the marriage of Rudolf of Habsburg to Isabella of Burgundy in 1284; Rudolfs grandson, Rudolf HI, married the sister of Philippe IV. In 1477 the daughter of Charles le T?m?raire, Maria of Burgundy, married Archduke Maximilian, later Holy Roman Emperor. And yet it was the extension of just such dense dynastic interconnections, making a powerful union of Austria, Bohemia and Hungary, that lay at the root of the centuries-long political antagonism that characterized the relationship of France and Austria.4 The occupation of the Spanish throne by a Habsburg presented a threat to France that did not end until the accession of the Duc d'Anjou as Philip V, confirmed by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. During this period political relations were more often hostile than cooperative. Between 1494 and 1715 the Spanish and Austrian Hapsburgs and the Valois and Bourbon kings of France fought repeatedly in great, exhausting wars [...]. Both were bidding for European hegemony [...]. Each posed a direct, massive security threat to the other [...]. Almost every kind of stake was involved? particular territories (the Low Countries, the borderlands of modern eastern France...