The foreign policy of Klemens von Metternich in the works of V. K. Nadler (1840–1894)

Abstract

The foreign policy activities of Klemens von Metternich, the main organizer of the Congress of Vienna, the true architect of the post-Napoleonic international order, and minister of foreign affairs and chancellor of the Austrian Empire, attracted the attention of many researchers, especially on the eve of his 250th birthday anniversary. The first monograph in Russian imperial historiography entirely devoted to Metternich's diplomacy was authored by the Kharkiv University professor V. K. Nadler (1840–1894); but this aspect of Nadler’s scholarship is largely unknown today. The purpose of this article is to comprehensively analyze Nadler's works dealing with Klemens von Metternich's diplomatic legacy and its significance for the further development of the post-Napoleonic international order. The author employs the methods of historical and comparative analysis, systematization and generalization, and retrospective analysis. The article shows that, in addition to the specialized study on Metternich and the European Reaction (1882), Nadler partially devoted the multi-volume monograph Emperor Alexander I and the Idea of the Holy Alliance to the analysis of the foreign policy of the Austrian Empire in the first years of the Vienna System of international relations. Nadler tried to avoid exaggerating the role of the individual in history, in the best progressive tradition of the historiography of his day. However, to denote the new international order, Nadler usually used the name «Metternich's political system», thus stressing the crucial importance of the Austrian minister as the organizer of the Congress of Vienna, the guarantor of the implementation of its decisions, and the driving force behind the fight against any dissent in European countries. According to Nadler, while the Vienna international order initially developed precisely in the reactionary direction mapped out by Metternich, the Greek Revolution and the Adrianople Peace Treaty of 1829, which confirmed the autonomy of Greece, struck a real blow to the «Metternich system».