Habsburg coffeehouses in the shadow of the empire: Revisiting nostalgia in Trieste

Giulia Carabelli

doi:10.1080/02757206.2019.1611574

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article reflects on Trieste’s representation as ‘the ghost of its Habsburg past’ (Hametz, M. 2014. ‘Presnitz in the Piazza: Habsburg Nostalgia in Trieste.’ Journal of Austrian Studies 47 (2): 131–154. doi:10.1353/oas.2014.0029., 136) – a city that laments the irreversibility of time – to explore instead the ways in which nostalgic attachments to the empire have come under suspicion. Drawing on interviews, literary texts, and atmospheric data (McCormack, D. 2014. ‘Atmospheric things and circumstantial excursions.’ Cultural Geographies 21 (4): 605–625. doi:10.1177/1474474014522930), I explore the narrative and performative strategies adopted to reframe the political and cultural relations with the empire. By discussing how events and places expected to celebrate the Habsburg legacy refuse to become nostalgic, I trace the emergence of contested feelings for the empire to explore how nostalgia becomes an ambivalent sentiment that is discursively and performatively re-appropriated and mobilized to attach and detach Trieste from the empire.

Highlights

Drawing on interviews, literary texts, and atmospheric data
I explore these tensions by looking at several examples: the mobilization of shared history to create new business alliances between Trieste and Vienna based on the existence of a shared legacy; the preservation of Habsburg aesthetics in the historical cafes combined with their identification with Italian Irredentist experiences; the re-creation of imperial atmospheres to meet tourists’ expectations; and, the dismissal of imperial nostalgia as emotional and arbitrary to assert and defend the Italian-ness of the city
This paper has departed from popular representations of Trieste as a nostalgic city longing for the empire to discuss how contemporary cultural and touristic events attempt instead to create distance from the Habsburg past, often conflated with Austria

Summary

Introduction

Literary texts, and atmospheric data (McCormack, D. 2014. ‘Atmospheric things and circumstantial excursions.’ Cultural Geographies 21 (4): 605–625. doi:10.1177/ 1474474014522930), I explore the narrative and performative strategies adopted to reframe the political and cultural relations with the empire. I explore these tensions by looking at several examples: the mobilization of shared history to create new business alliances between Trieste and Vienna based on the existence of a shared legacy; the preservation of Habsburg aesthetics in the historical cafes combined with their identification with Italian Irredentist experiences; the re-creation of imperial atmospheres to meet tourists’ expectations; and, the dismissal of imperial nostalgia as emotional and arbitrary to assert and defend the Italian-ness of the city.

Results

Conclusion