Identity Choices Among Romanian Officers in the Habsburg Army

Abstract

"In recent times, the identity of the Habsburg military has been the subject of numerous studies aiming to explain the behavior of this social-professional category. However, in Romanian historiography, research on this subject is almost completely lacking. The present work aims, first of all, to open the historiographical discussion on the identity choices of Romanian soldiers and officers in the Habsburg army. Alongside national identity and dynastic loyalty, frequently addressed in historiography, special attention should be paid to other types of loyalties or identities, developed within the military environment and related to the appropriation of a well-defined code of honor. It was in this context that the officer’s honor, transformed into a military identity, took shape, as well as other types of attachments, such as that to the state, which is different from dynastic loyalty, or that to the territory. Last but not least, this paper also focuses on how all these different identities are harmonized into multiple identities, defining the behavior and actions of the soldiers of the multinational Habsburg army. Keywords: Habsburg Army, Romanian militaries, military identity, supranational identity, multiple identities "