Forming Intelligentsia in Moravia and Silesia in the Second Half of the 19th and at the Beginning of the 20th Century

Abstract

The study reports on the conclusions of a fundamental research de voted to the formation of the intelligentsia (doctors, attorneys, lawyers, engi neers, secondary school professors, teachers, state, municipal and company clerks) in Moravia and Silesia in the 2nd half of the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century. The project was carried out in selected locations: Moravian Ostrava (a new administrative centre of an industrial region), Opava (regional capital city of Austrian Silesia), Olomouc (administrative city, centre of church administration, garrison city), Mistek (stagnating town with textile industry) and Vitkovice (dynamically developing municipality). For all locations, exten sive research was carried out from the census of 1857 to 1910, on the basis of which databases were prepared, containing detailed evidence about members of the intelligentsia living in the respective towns for the census concerned. According to the evidence obtained we can draw conclusions not only on the quantitative development of the monitored social groups, but describe more specifically their composition by nationality, confession, professional speciali zation, territorial mobility as well as their standard of living. Based on other sources we will deal in brief with the typical professional careers of representa tives of individual professions. The study also covers the problem of the en gagement of intellectuals in municipal politics and associations active in the nationalization process. Attention is also paid to the high proportion of Jews among doctors and lawyers as well as aspects of the everyday life of the social groups under scrutiny. The study deals with the role played by the intelligentsia in Moravia and Silesia during the modernization and nationalisation process which took place in the second half of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. In the paper, stem ming from the results of a fundamental empirical research1, I will treat the given problems on several levels: first the formation of the intelligentsia as a social group in selected towns and cities, then the share of the intelligentsia in the modernization process of municipal societies, and finally the role of the intelligentsia in local movements of national self-assertion and emancipation.