Habsburg Empire Research Articles

Topisches Erzählen bei Adalbert Stifter: Untersuchungen zur Gestaltung von Bildungsgängen in ausgewählten Werkkomplexen by Hendrik Achenbach

Reviewed by: Topisches Erzählen bei Adalbert Stifter: Untersuchungen zur Gestaltung von Bildungsgängen in ausgewählten Werkkomplexen by Hendrik Achenbach Jan Hohenstein Hendrik Achenbach, Topisches Erzählen bei Adalbert Stifter: Untersuchungen zur Gestaltung von Bildungsgängen in ausgewählten Werkkomplexen. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2021. 467 pp. Bildung, or education, assumes a critical role in the writings and biography of Adalbert Stifter. Many of his stories depict the development of children, adolescents, and young adults. Moreover, Stifter became directly involved in the educational institutions of the Habsburg Empire when he served as a school inspector for the district of Upper Austria. Ever since the reading public rediscovered his works at the turn of the twentieth century, critics have attempted to characterize the educational practices and processes in them. In Topisches Erzählen bei Adalbert Stifter: Untersuchungen zur Gestaltung von Bildungsgängen in ausgewählten Werkkomplexen, critic Hendrik Achenbach applies the concept of "topisches Erzählen," or "topical narration," to elucidate the problem of Bildung in Stifter's works. His study provides a concise history of the concept of the topos and its place within modern literary criticism. Readers with an interest in that history and those wanting to learn more about Bildung in selected works of Stifter will find what they are looking for in this book. The study offers a concise survey of the history of the term topos—from its origins in classical rhetoric and decline beginning in the eighteenth century—and a profile of the Topikforschung as a current within modern literary criticism, influenced by the works of the prominent Romanist Ernst Robert Curtius. Achenbach defines the topos as a "zeichenhaftes, im Gedächtnis gespeichertes Vorstellungsmuster" (19) for his analysis. The study presents the model of the topos and "topisches Denken," or thinking along the lines of the topos, as [End Page 63] a founding principle of literature and approaches the characters in Stifter's stories as "Konstrukte, an die sich kulturell determinierte Vorstellungsmuster anlagern" (3), with the aim to isolate these culturally determined cognitive patterns on the level of character development. Achenbach posits that topoi can only develop their full potential for literary analysis if critics address them by finding a "Deskriptor," a phrase that encapsulates the "Deskription," that is, the content of a pattern. In addition, the author utilizes charts to synthesize his findings from the close readings of individual texts. Achenbach limits the scope of his analysis to three different "Werkkomplexe": the stories "Die Narrenburg," "Turmalin," "Kazensilber," and "Der Waldbrunnen"; then, Die Mappe meines Urgroßvaters, with a focus on the second and fourth editions of the novella; and, lastly, the novel Der Nachsommer. This selection—which excludes most of Stifter's pre-1848 works—reflects Achenbach's assumption that different topoi can and do occur in more than one of Stifter's works and that Stifter's engagement with them often continued after their publication. For the benefit of his readers, Achenbach prefaces his own analysis in each of these sections with an account of the scholarship on each "Werkkomplex" and then follows up with a summary of individual findings before moving on to the next. In his textual analyses, Achenbach reconstructs how topoi related to Bildung manifest themselves, such as, for example, the topos of the "Mittelpunkt der kultivierten Natur" in the character of the "wilde Mädchen" in the first group of texts or the topos of the "Macht der Leidenschaften" in the Freiherr von Risach in Der Nachsommer. This methodology allows Achenbach to combine and systematize the findings of other scholars, leaving the reader with a detailed account of how the problem of Bildung recurs in different topoi across various texts. A strength of Achenbach's study, as the author himself highlights, is that the model of the topos as a comprehensive category accounts for central aspects of Stifter's prose such as artificiality, repetition, and (infamously) the lack of plot. Also, Achenbach's knowledge and adroit handling of the scholarship on Stifter makes his isolating and naming of individual topoi overall cogent. That the author chose to include graphic representations of these topoi is a welcome addition. There are still a few things to consider: The author...

On Many Routes: Internal, European, and Transatlantic Migration in the Late Habsburg Empire by Annamarie Steidl

On Many Routes: Internal, European, and Transatlantic Migration in the Late Habsburg Empire by Annamarie Steidl

The Sarajevo Tobacco Factory Strike of 1906: Empire and the Nature of Late Habsburg Rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina

AbstractIn May 1906, the Habsburg protectorate of Bosnia and Herzegovina experienced an unprecedented level of labor unrest. The discussions between civil servants and workers that arose from these events, in particular those that occurred during the strike at the government-owned Sarajevo Tobacco Factory, provide a key point of departure from which to explore the character of Habsburg rule in Bosnia. This article examines how late Habsburg imperial rule functioned in Bosnia by analyzing moments of apparent bureaucratic irregularity in order to suggest a different interpretation of Habsburg administrative practice. It argues that in the case of the Sarajevo Tobacco Factory, the relationship between subjects of the Habsburg empire and its administrators was characterized by processes of debate and discussion that were in many ways grounded in concerns about fairness. This observation opens up new questions about the broader relationship between the Austro-Hungarian administration and the people it governed.

Redefining Fiumians: Flag Usage and the Ambiguities of the Nation-Building Process in the Former Habsburg-Hungarian corpus separatum, 1914–1924

In the late Habsburg period, Fiume's municipal flag became the representative symbol of local patriotism. This article argues that local patriotism in Fiume was a form of identification that combined features of modern nationalism with loyalties to the Habsburg Empire. With the disappearance of the dual monarchy and the subsequent transition period (1918–24), the Fiumian flag was redefined and contested both as a symbol of Italian irredentism realised through annexation and of Fiume's independence by local autonomists. Thus, the article demonstrates how local patriotism survived the empire's dissolution and how attachment to a locality was a significant feature of European political life in general during that period.

Global Territorialization and Mining Frontiers in Nineteenth-Century Brazil: Capitalist Anxieties and the Circulation of Knowledge between British and Habsburgian Imperial Spaces, ca. 1820–1850

AbstractThe rumors of Brazil’s mineral riches reaching London and Vienna in the first half of the nineteenth century, started by enslaved Africans mining clandestinely in unexplored regions and later through geological surveys by mining engineers from the Habsburg Empire, prompted aspirations to wealth which circulated fluidly in the transatlantic context. This article examines the distinct but convergent agencies of garimpeiros, enslaved miners and prospectors, and of Habsburgian mining engineers in the territorialization process of Minas Gerais during the nineteenth-century expansion of global capitalism. It analyses the degree of connectivity and cooperation across British and Habsburgian imperial spaces in Brazilian mining ventures, focusing on the case of the mining engineer Virgil von Helmreichen, who arrived in Minas Gerais in 1836, under contract to the British-financed Imperial Brazilian Mining Association. The Habsburgian expert elite of which Helmreichen was a part played a crucial role in the expansion of the commodity frontier in this region, providing proficient knowledge in mining and geology. This expert community collaborated with the logistics networks of British free-trade imperialism and the Brazilian slave system inherited from the colonial period. The territorialization of Minas Gerais shows the global dynamics at play between British interests in the discovery of new mines, the need to produce expert knowledge at the local level, and the Brazilian government’s desire to control the hinterland region and profit from its mineral wealth.

Maria Theresa: The Habsburg Empress in Her Time by Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger

Reviewed by: Maria Theresa: The Habsburg Empress in Her Time by Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger Richard Butterwick Stollberg-Rilinger, Barbara. Maria Theresa: The Habsburg Empress in Her Time. Translated by Robert Savage. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ and Oxford, 2021. xviii + 1045 pp. Map. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Genealogical tables. Index. $39.95: £35.00. An English-language edition of Barbara Stollberg Rilinger's monumental biography of Maria Theresa has been eagerly awaited by many dix-huitièmistes and Central Europeanists since the publication of the German original (Maria Theresia. Die Kaiserin in ihrer Zeit) by C. H. Beck of Munich in 2017. The addition of just one word to the title alerts us to the challenge faced by the book in Anglophone markets. Maria Theresa reigned over many realms, duchies, counties and lordships, from Tournai to Transylvania, and from Lombardy to Lodomeria. This 'agglutination' (in R. J. W. Evans's memorable phrase) is collectively referred to by scholars as 'the Habsburg Monarchy'. In contemporary diplomatic parlance, the shorthand 'Austria' denoted this assemblage of territories and titles centred on the Viennese court — a usage continued by historians. Maria Theresa and her entourage referred to 'the monarchy' as a whole, but the original family seat of Hab(icht)sburg in the Aargau had long since been lost to the Swiss Confederation. The family name Habsburg was thus a less than welcome reminder of the relatively modest origins of the 'House of Austria'. And that 'Highest Archducal House' was destined, according to its acronym AEIOU, to rule the entire world. In 1740, Maria Theresa inherited her titles of Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, Archduchess of Austria, and so on and so forth, from her father, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, although she had to make them good. She would add the title of Queen of Lodomeria and Galicia to her collection after participating in the first partition of Poland. Yet this mighty monarch only became an empress by virtue of her husband, Francis Stephen (who had exchanged his own ducal inheritance of Lorraine for Tuscany in 1738), being elected Holy Roman Emperor at the second attempt in 1745. After his death in 1765, Maria Theresa became dowager empress until her own demise in 1780. And yet for those thirty-five years, as well as the widower Joseph II's sole decade in power, Die Kaiserin had no need of a qualifying adjective (at least outside the Russian Empire). One of the author's principal tasks, therefore, is to enable her readers to distinguish between the Habsburg Monarchy and the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, and to correct the false assumption that Maria Theresa was empress of a 'Habsburg Empire'. At the same time, the historian has to explain the many overlaps between 'the Empire' and 'the monarchy'. It is a task for which Stollberg-Rilinger, the Rhenish author of several influential works on the Old Reich, is well prepared. Perhaps she assumes rather too much foreknowledge of the Holy Roman Empire in the prologue, which introduces its heroine through a mixture of [End Page 760] monuments, historiography and gendered analysis, but she provides further explanations on p. 34. These are much expanded in the fascinating fourth chapter, titled 'Empress, Emperor, Empire'. As the author shows, 'ruling the Empire and ruling the hereditary lands were two quite different things. They followed different logics and demanded political strategies' (p. 171). Maria Theresa emerges as an experienced and skilful player of the game of imperial politics. That said, she and her family spoke of travelling 'to the Empire', an understandable usage when the various exemptions of the Habsburgs' hereditary lands within the Reich from imperial jurisdiction and taxation are considered (pp. 169–70). Maria Theresa's priority was never in doubt: 'imperial policy was a Habsburg domestic policy pursued with imperial means, not a policy directed at the Empire as a political whole' (p. 186). The position of Francis Stephen, however, remained ambivalent. Although his elevation to the imperial throne belatedly resolved many questions of etiquette and diplomatic protocol which had hitherto undermined his status, he seems to have been averse to conflicts and usually accepted his wife's political dominance. This subordination...

“What Blood Unites, the Sea Shall Not Divide”: Bohemian Day at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893

“What Blood Unites, the Sea Shall Not Divide”: Bohemian Day at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893

The reception of Roman Mithras in Transylvania in the 18th-19th century

Transylvania became part of the Habsburg Empire in the late 17th century. Between 1686 and 1848, the region’s urban landscape was radically altered by several large-scale infrastructural and architectural projects that also uncovered a substantial amount of archaeological material from its Roman past. Construction of the Vauban fort and other major urban projects in Alba Iulia (Gyulafehérvár, Karlsburg) after 1711 contributed to the creation of the city’s first archaeological collection, established by Ignatius Batthyány in the late 18th century. This paper focuses on the first Mithraic finds from Alba Iulia, the Batthyaneum Library’s valuable collection and the role of Mithraic finds from Apulum in the history of Mithraic studies.

The Habsburg Empire under Siege. Ottoman Expansion and Hungarian Revolt in the Age of Grand Vizier Ahmed Köprülü (1661–1678). By Gerge B. Michels. Montreal and Kingston – Chicago – London: McGill – Queen's University Press, 2021. xvii + 603 pp. $85.00 cloth.

The Habsburg Empire under Siege. Ottoman Expansion and Hungarian Revolt in the Age of Grand Vizier Ahmed Köprülü (1661–1678). By Gerge B. Michels. Montreal and Kingston – Chicago – London: McGill – Queen's University Press, 2021. xvii + 603 pp. $85.00 cloth. - Volume 91 Issue 3

Researches on Mining Cadastre: Past, Present and Future Perspectives. The Case of a Former Mining Town: Borșa, Maramureș County

Abstract After the cessation of mining activities, concerns for mining cadastre research are only sporadic. The present study aims at bringing up to date the evolution of the mining cadastre in the Romanian provinces with a mining book regime, territories that were until 1918 within the structure of the former Habsburg Empire. (Austro-Hungary since 1867). Several stages can be distinguished in the evolution of the mining cadastre in the areas shown. From the 16th century until 1854 the principles and methods of the mining cadastre were set up. Between 1854 and 1924 the provisions of the Austrian General Mining Law of 1854 were followed. From 1924 to 1948, the mining cadastre provisions provided for in the mining law of 1924 and other specific regulations are applicable. After 1948, under the conditions of a statist regime, the mining record did not respect the principles of the mining cadastre previously assessed. After 1990, the new mining cadastre only partially takes over the classical principles and methods of the mining cadastre. The way of applying the mining cadastre was focused upon in the town of Borșa, a mountainous place where farmers had not formed cooperatives and where intensive mining was carried out until 2007. With the cessation of mining in Baia Borșa, the mining cadastre was reduced to inventories of some mining assets and sporadic cadastre registrations of some premises and settling ponds. The study analyzes the current situation and proposes some integrated solutions, mediated by GIS technology, aiming the introduction of the mining cadastre in correlation with the introduction of the general cadastre. In this context, GIS technology offers modeling tools that, for example, can assess the degree of suitability of the land for construction.

Aufgeklärter Stilwandel in Prag: Karl Heinrich Seibts Abhandlung über die Unterschiede der „Schreibarten“ (1768)

This article discusses an essay by Karl Heinrich Seibt on differences in writing styles. The essay was published in Prague in 1768. It reflects important changes in writing practices that occurred in the Age of Enlightenment. Seibt’s essay is interesting because it recommends the usage of very progressive writing styles that come close to early Romantic approaches (the ‘Sturm und Drang’). On the other hand, Seibt also defends a very traditional (periodical) style in official or formal contexts. It is argued that this sharp contrast is a consequence of Seibt’s difficult role as a teacher of modern language style in the traditional Habsburg Empire.

Between Nostalgia and Nationalism: Emigrants from the Habsburg Empire in South America

This article offers four migration narratives from three states—Brazil, Argentina, and Chile—including biographic approaches and group identities, cultural nostalgia and nationalist resentment. The divergent trajectories of the Dalmatian business tycoons Nicolás Mihanovich in Argentina and Pascual Baburizza in Chile, the celebration of inter-ethnic Austrian-ness in Ijuí (Brazil) vs. the symbolic construction of a “second Poland” by Polish immigrants in Paraná (Brazil) seek to open different windows into the highly complex panorama of Austrian-Hungarian emigration to Latin America. Although approximately 300,000 Habsburg subjects sought there their new homeland, the topic remains underresearched.

VASYL STEFANYK – IVAN CANCAR: TYPOLOGY OF ARTISTIC THINKING

The importance of the article lies in the need to study Ukrainian-Slovenian relations, in particular at the level of two prominent representatives of modernism, Ukrainian and Slovenian ones, – Vasyl Stefanyk and Ivan Cankar. There exists only a small amount of works concerning comparative studios of the Ukrainian and Slovenian literatures. Moreover, there are no scientific works devoted to the personalities of V. Stefanyk and I. Cankar, whose fates and artistic views have much in common, although there is no evidence of possible direct contacts between them.
 The study of the chosen problem makes it possible to expand the Slavic context of the Ukrainian modern literature and to look at the era through the prism of the writers’ fates and works, as the idea of the "evolutionary history of literature" gives way to the "study of the history of writers". Both writers were citizens of the Habsburg Empire and lived in the same period. Both Ukrainian and Slovenian writers were influenced by European modernism, and their artistic pathes of developing individual style strategies went through iconic cities – the centers of the European modernism culture (for V. Stefanyk it was Krakow, for I. Cankar – Vienna). However, both writers manifest their national core as their creative basis. 
 Both writers reacted to the same social challenges of their epoch (the topics of emigration, and war, commoners’ lives, difficult childhood). Their works revolve around the dominant of the tragic. Additionally, there is a strong feeling of marginality inherent in their works: being citizens of a large empire, neither V. Stefanyk nor I. Cankar belonged to the representatives of the titular nation. This manifested in their understanding of commitment to the "service to the community" which was quite clearly declared in the work of the two writers.
 The typology of artistic thinking of the Slovenian and Ukrainian authors in the article is traced at the thematic, genre, and stylistic levels. The research encompasses the analysis of the ideological and artistic, genre and style features of the lyrical sketches "The Road" by V. Stefanyk and "My Field" by I. Cankar, the story "Batrak Jernej and his right", the short stories "Holy Communion", "Old and children" by I. Cankar and the shorts stories by V. Stefanyk "Arsonist", "Thread", "Child' s Adventure", which reveals the typology of artistic thinking of the two authors at the level of personal and biographical motivation, and at the same time the research work focuses on the differences that can be explained by the specifics of both the mental organization of the writers and the existence of "national archetypes" deeply rooted in them.

SERBIAN CHURCH MUSIC IN BANAT - HISTORICAL ASPECTS

Serbian church music includes, in addition to the church compositions of Serbian composers, the folk song of the church. The song of the Serbian church represents, according to its characteristics, acquired during the historical development, an original work, created with the help of the influence of the church and the people. How fast the Serbian church folk song developed towards independence, from the adoption of Christianity until the middle of the 13th century and how much it could separate from its model in that short time, cannot be determined, because there are no data. about that and there are no records. In the Serbian autocephalous archdiocese (since 1219) and later the Patriarchate of Peci (since 1346), the care of Serbian church leaders, which is reflected in numerous donations, has created favorable opportunities for the full expansion of church life. With the transfer of the people and national and church leaders to the Habsburg Empire, many of them in the region of Banat, the singing of the church, in the more favorable circumstances of the civilized state, developed freely, but increasingly independent of the distant model. Church authorities have taken steps to preserve, renew and develop the song. With the founding of the seminary in Sremski Karlovci in 1794 and the appointment of the first teacher of church singing in 1797, an important center was created for maintaining a certain unity in church singing. The most difficult and important, however, is the problem of the structure and essence of Serbian folk church singing.

The Museum Age in Austria-Hungary: Art and Empire in the Long Nineteenth CenturyLiberalism, Nationalism and Design Reform in the Habsburg Empire: Museums of Design, Industry and Applied Arts

The Museum Age in Austria-Hungary: Art and Empire in the Long Nineteenth CenturyLiberalism, Nationalism and Design Reform in the Habsburg Empire: Museums of Design, Industry and Applied Arts

Géza Pálffy. Hungary between Two Empires 1526–1711.

Géza Pálffy. <i>Hungary between Two Empires 1526–1711</i>.

Dominique Kirchner Reill. The Fiume Crisis: Life in the Wake of the Habsburg Empire.

Dominique Kirchner Reill. <i>The Fiume Crisis: Life in the Wake of the Habsburg Empire</i>.

Georg B. Michels. The Habsburg Empire under Siege: Ottoman Expansion and Hungarian Revolt in the Age of Grand Vizier Ahmed Köprülü (1661–76).

Georg B. Michels. <i>The Habsburg Empire under Siege: Ottoman Expansion and Hungarian Revolt in the Age of Grand Vizier Ahmed Köprülü (1661–76)</i>.

Farewells and language usage: Multilingual practices in Bolzano merchants’ documents

Research on historical sociolinguistics has seen letter writing as a social practice which could present many instances of multilingualism. Merchants’ language management is also of particular importance for the role of traders in language contact and change. In this work, merchants’ correspondence from the town of Bolzano will be considered across the 18th and 19th century, by considering letters written by the Georg Anton Menz textile company to its correspondents. These letters have been preserved (and partly digitalized) in the archive of the Chamber of Commerce in Bolzano. The analysis will focus on language distribution, as well as on multilingual practices in closing formulas. It will be shown how the relative status of the languages involved changed over time, and how an Italian closing formula (addio, farewell) was used also to close German letters. This probably correlates on a specific writing style in use in the Habsburg Empire but uncommon for Italian commercial letters.

Between State and Empire, Or How Western European Imperialism in Africa Redefined the Polish Nation

The Warsaw positivists, one of Poland’s most influential intellectual collectives, emerged in the 1860s with an ambitious plan to strengthen the Polish nation. The self-proclaimed progressives, enamored with trends popular in Europe’s contemporary liberal circles, declared that Poles were a backward nation stuck in the feudal era. Consequently, they proposed comprehensive national reforms inspired by Western Europe, or the region that the Warsaw positivists designated to be the beacon of progress and civilization. However, as Western European empires intensified their colonial efforts in Africa in the final quarter of the nineteenth century, the Warsaw positivists felt compelled to reassess Western Europe through the lens of its ongoing imperial politics. This article examines the Warsaw positivist critique of Western European imperialism in Africa and argues that while the Warsaw positivists denounced Western European imperial methods, they stopped short of condemning imperialism per se. That allowed them to decry Western Europe for exploiting Africa and simultaneously justify Western European plans to subjugate the continent. Most importantly, the positivist critique of Western European actions in Africa opened space to redefine the place of Poles on the axis of progress and civilization. While never employing the category of whiteness explicitly, the Warsaw positivists included Poles in the increasingly racialized categories of civilization, progress, and Europeanness, even if, or perhaps particularly because, as a nation, Poles were politically vulnerable under the control of Russia, Germany and the Habsburg Empire, functioned on Europe’s margins, and in so many ways lagged behind Western Europe.