Habsburg Research Articles

Unveiling Charles II, the last King of the Habsburg Spanish Empire, in a portrait by Juan Carreño de Miranda (1685).

Charles II (1661-1700) was the last King of the Habsburg dynasty. He was physically and mentally disabled and died at just 39 years old. Here, the authors attempt to investigate the correlations between his signs and symptoms and the physical appearance on the painting. Charles II has been portraited by Juan Carreño de Miranda in a painting that may provide precious information about his premature death. It has been suggested that inbreeding beside other endocrinological disorders were of the major causes responsible for illness and ultimately his death. Possible endocrinological diseases have been hypothesized.

0245 A Symbol of Habsburg Military Power: the Slavonian General Command Palace in Osijek (1723)

0245 A Symbol of Habsburg Military Power: the Slavonian General Command Palace in Osijek (1723)

음악의 ‘메신저’로서의 여성 : 근대 초기 합스부르크 가문 여성의 음악후원과 음악문화 전파

음악의 ‘메신저’로서의 여성 : 근대 초기 합스부르크 가문 여성의 음악후원과 음악문화 전파

CREATION AND FUNCTIONING OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KOLOZSVÁR/UNIVERSITY OF CLUJ (1840 – 1940S) THROUGH THE PRISM OF THE NATIONAL QUESTION IN TRANSYLVANIA

В статье рассматриваются сущностные аспекты функционирования университета в Коложваре/Клуже (1840-е – 1940-е гг.) сквозь призму ситуации в Трансильвании – регионе со сложным узлом политических и межнациональных противоречий, которые не исчерпали своей остроты и сегодня. Источниковую базу статьи составили исследования современных румынских и венгерских историков, что позволяет избежать тенденциозной трактовки анализируемых событий. Цель данной статьи заключается в том, чтобы проследить основную направленность деятельности венгерских и румынских общественно-политических деятелей и институтов в ходе оформления и функционирования университета в Коложваре/Клуже в контексте общественно-политической и национально-культурной жизни Трансильвании в 1840-х – 1940-х гг. В работе были использованы следующие методы: историко-генетический (рассмотрены особенности функционирования университета в Коложваре/Клуже в различные исторические периоды), историко-системный (учреждение образования рассматривается как сложная система, на функционирование различных элементов которой оказывали влияние национально-культурная политика монархии Габсбургов и межвоенной Румынии, взаимоотношения между венграми и румынами в этноконтактном регионе – Трансильвании), метод контент-анализа (были отмечены наиболее часто встречавшиеся в документах (законодательных актах, программных документах революции 1848 г. и др.) смысловые конструкции, а затем произведена интерпретация результатов). На основании проанализированных материалов делается вывод о том, что в рассматриваемый период университетский вопрос в Трансильвании был тесным образом связан с тем, какая национальная элита занимала главенствующее положение в регионе, имея тем самым возможность определять контуры образовательной политики в сфере высшего образования. В ситуации, когда Трансильвания находилась под прямым управлением венгерской части дуалистического австро-венгерского государства, создание и функционирование университета в Коложваре было обусловлено необходимостью символически связать между собой венгерские земли в рамках одного королевства, тогда как присоединение в 1918 г. Трансильвании к Королевству Румыния повлекло за собой необходимость трансформации венгерского университета в румынский, чтобы утвердить новый порядок, создав для этого соответствующие структуры.

KARTOGRAFIJA U SLUŽBI MLETAČKE DRŽAVE: KARTA SJEVERNE I SREDNJE DALMACIJE NEPOZNATOG AUTORA S POČETKA 16. STOLJEĆA

U radu je analizirana rukopisna karta srednje i dijela sjeverne Dalmacije nepoznatog autora, nastala, po svoj prilici, u prvom desetljeću 16. stoljeća. Ta je karta najstariji sačuvani detaljni prikaz neke hrvatske regije, a pohranjena je u Državnom arhivu u Veneciji (Archivio di Stato di Venezia). Analizom geografskih i toponomastičkih podataka koji su u nju ugrađeni te korelacijom tih podataka s arhivskim vrelima i drugim ranonovovjekovnim kartama, utvrđeno je da je ona što se tiče kvantitete i kvalitete sadržaja činila značajan iskorak u vizualizaciji prostorne stvarnosti. Stoga je riječ o dragocjenom kartografskom spomeniku, nezaobilaznom za povijesno-geografska istraživanja Hrvatske i Jadrana kao arene višestoljetne vojnopolitičke konfrontacije Mletačke Republike, Ugarsko-Hrvatskoga Kraljevstva (od
 1527. pod vlašću habsburške dinastije) i Osmanskoga Carstva.

Remembering the Fall of the Habsburg Monarchy One Hundred Years on: Three Master Interpretations

AbstractThis article was first conceived as a commemorative address for the centenary of the extinction of the Habsburg monarchy, which occurred in November 1918. It seeks to take a correspondingly broad view, geographically and chronologically, of the factors that occasioned that collapse. It addresses three main themes, structured loosely around three classic historiographical analyses of the monarchy as a whole. The great irony of the last phase of Habsburg rule in Central Europe is that it was undermined by precisely those elements in the politics and society of the region that seemed, on the face of things, to derive most advantage from it. The article concentrates on the long-term dysfunctionality caused by the evolution of the Hungarian and German problems, and by the progressive enfeeblement of dynastic institutions. It also engages more briefly with a countervailing phenomenon, that some of those interests most conspicuously spurned by central government might have been the readiest to rescue it. On the argument presented here, World War I, which finally brought the monarchy low, was a catalyst rather than an independent determiner of that outcome.

The Beauty of Holiness: Architectural Representations of the Temple of Jerusalem in Spanish Golden Age Poetry

AbstractThis essay is a comparative analysis of three texts of major poets of Spain’s Golden Age: Luis de Góngora, Lope de Vega, and Juan de Jáuregui. The poets worked with a common trope, sharing a worldview that blended themes of Hebrew kingship with the Spanish Habsburg dynasty. The poems are based on the concept of Spanish Solomonism, and are related by inventive, and very different, evocations of the Temple of Jerusalem as the seat of Christian monarchy, holiness, and visual beauty.

King Rudolf I in Austrian Literature around 1820: Historical Reversion and Legitimization of Rule

AbstractRudolf von Habsburg was a recurring motif in Austrian literature after the assumption of an Austrian imperial title by Emperor Francis II/I in 1804. These depictions were nourished by an enthusiasm for the Middle Ages circulating at the beginning of the nineteenth century and focused on the House of Habsburg and the establishment of Habsburg rule in Central Europe in the thirteenth century. As the ancestor of the ruling dynasty, Rudolf von Habsburg was idealized as the symbolic figure of identification for a collective state patriotism, a depiction that emphasized the historic mission of the dynasty and the legitimacy of its rule in the recently established empire. To this end, several complementary strategies—including divine providence, feudal approaches, classical genealogies, German-Austrian patriotism, and historical as well as contemporary references—were employed in texts to construct the Habsburg dynasty's claim to power in Central Europe. The past described in the texts, however, had little in common with historical reality but was rather an artificial design to justify Habsburg hegemony in the region.

Persistent Legacies of the Empires: Partition of Poland and Electoral Turnout

During the long nineteenth century, Poland was divided among the Russian, Habsburg, and Prussian empires. The partition produced regional diversity in political culture and in institutional and economic development. We examine how the cultural legacies of the empires have influenced the propensity of Poles to cast a ballot in parliamentary elections since 1989. Polish National Election Study individual-level data are used to assess whether higher levels of electoral turnout in Galicia are indeed a legacy of the Habsburg rule. Our results confirm that, even after controlling for socio-demographic factors, there is a positive, substantive, and significant effect on turnout of living in the ex-Habsburg part of Poland. This effect can be explained by the frequency of religious service attendance and by ideology. Inhabitants of Galicia not only attend religious services more frequently and are more conservative than their counterparts in the rest of Poland, but also the more frequently they attend church and the closer to the radical right they place themselves, the more mobilized they are to vote. The impact of the legacies of the empires on political behavior in Poland seems persistent.

Fruits of the cross

The Introduction to Robert L. Kendrick’s Fruits of the cross features a striking image: a painting by imperial court painter Frans Luycx, commissioned by dowager Empress Eleonora Gonzaga, of the Crucifixion with Habsburg Mourners, c.1662. In it, members of the Habsburg family appear as observers at the crucifixion, in the forefront of a crowd, like spectators at an opera or theatrical performance, in a vivid representation both of the perceived theatricality of the event and of the Habsburgs’ desire to be involved as co-participants in the events of Holy Week. The Passiontide musical dramas performed at the imperial court in Vienna between the 1660s and the early 18th century, and generally known as sepolcri (because they were performed before a representation of the Holy Sepulchre and the generic name was associated with some early librettos), were but one part of this involvement. Kendrick’s concentrated study of the genre...

»There is no other European state whose constitution consists of so many anomalies.« The Austrian Doctrine of Public Law in the Second Half of the 18th Century

Austria’s gradual emergence as a state is not only the result of reform projects driven forward by Habsburg rulers in the second half of the 18th century, but this process of internal integration of the early modern »union of corporative states« (O. Brunner) into an Austrian Gesamtstaat was also flanked and legitimised by legal science. The discipline of Austrian public law with representatives like Christian August Beck, Franz Ferdinand von Schrötter, Anton Wilhelm Gustermann or Ignaz de Luca dealt with the basic legal order of the Austrian monarchy. With regard to the method (especially the historical approach) and to the doctrine of legal sources, but also partly with regard to the contents covered, the science of Austrian public law in particular was shaped by the Reichspublizistik, id est by the legal science dealing with the public law of the empire. The discipline flourished for decades and was – at least until the mid-1790s – promoted by Habsburg rulers, although the relevant publications and university teaching were closely monitored by central authorities. Its leitmotifs were very Habsburg-friendly: Central issues were the legitimation of the Gesamtstaat described as a historically grown »composite state« and the legitimation of absolutism. The Austrian monarchy was unanimously classified as an absolutist state, whereas the privileges and rights of the provincial estates were marginalised or completely omitted. To a great extent, the science of the ius publicum Austriacum also shaped the history-based master narrative of Austria’s gradual formation into a state and thus continues to have an impact to the present day. Zitiervorschlag: Schennach, Martin P., »There is no other European state whose constitution consists of so many anomalies.« The Austrian Doctrine of Public Law in the Second Half of the 18th Century, in: Rechtsgeschichte - Legal History Rg 28 (2020) 95-118, online: http://dx.doi.org/10.12946/rg28/095-118

Большая стратегия Габсбургов

Большая стратегия Габсбургов

ОБРАЗ ЛАЙОША КОШУТА У ФОЛЬКЛОРНІЙ ТРАДИЦІЇ СЛОВ’ЯН

The question of historicism, historical authenticity of folklore works has long been of interest to researchers, since oral history not only complements historical sources, but often presents a mixed interpretation of events and characters. In their own way, the people also interpreted the events of the Hungarian liberation revolution of 1848-1849 under the leadership of Layosh Koshut against the Hapsburg dynasty, combined with such a pressing issue for peasants as the abolition of the serfdom. The slavic folklore about Layosh Koshut is represented by folk songs and legends, and reproduces the main points of the liberation war: the mobilization of the local population, its struggle for freedom, the arrival of the Russian army and defeat, the capitulation and escape of Koshut, etc., as well as such a pressing issue for peasants as the elimination of the serfdom, which peasants associate with Koshut or with the Cossier. People’s views on Koshut in songs are controversial. They partially contain anti-Hungarian motives, Koshut’s condemnation, in others his defeat is sympathy. The peasants are struggling for national and social freedom, as opposed to the serfdom, which is devoted to many places in the folk narratives of the region. Over time, in folk works, there is a permutation of time and space, some historical characters and places are replaced by others, changing and actualizing. The article addresses the problem of historical authenticity of folklore works, peculiarities of reproduction of events by artistic and poetic means, their parallels with Hungarian sources, transformation and actualization over time.

Multilingualism in the Croatian lands under the sceptre of the Habsburgs in the eighteenth century

The paper examines the role of multilingualism in Croatian lands under the Habsburg rule during the 18th century. The focus of the research is set on Croatian-Slavonian nobility and other local elites (clergy, officers, physicians, engineers, etc.) as part of the society susceptible to the influence of the educational norms and linguistic policies set by the Habsburg authorities. It provides an insight into the language skills of the 18th-century Croatian society, the impact of educational policy on the language learning and the importance of language choices for social or political representation. It is argued that the culture of the educated, mostly politically active part of the Croatian society remained intensely multilingual until deep into the 19th century due to the specificity of language practices, and that the educational policy of the Court in Vienna contributed more to the affirmation of the national language than did the activity of the Croatian elites. The research is based on archival sources kept in Croatian, Hungarian and Austrian state archives and selected contemporary records (correspondence, memoirs, and publications).

„Örvendezzenek az Egek…”

In 1439 in the Council of Ferrara – Florence a new ecclesiastical union came into existence between the Western and Eastern Church by the declaration of papal bull ’Laetentur Caeli’. The aim of the negotiations – according to the Byzantine emperor John VIII – was to create united military and religious strength against the threat of the Ottoman Empire. But in Constantinople the Byzantine Church (monk Mark of Ephesus) put up resistance to the articles, because the delegation of the Byzantines accepted most of western dogmatical principles. This ecclesiastical union had an insignifi cant influence on political events. The possibility and papal idea of planned a new crusade was destroyed by the rivalry of Jagiellonian dynasty and the House of Habsburg for the crowns of Central European kingdoms. This study examines the antecedents of the Council of Ferrara – Florence, including political background and analyses the articles of Laetentur Caeli and finally mentions the question of mixed marriages in the Hungarian Kingdom by regulation of canon law.

First grammar books in the Habsburg Monarchy: individual initiative and regulatory interference by the state (1760s–1770s)

The second half of the eighteenth century in the lands under the sceptre of the House of Austria was a period of development of a language policy addressing the ethno-linguistic diversity of the monarchy’s subjects. On the one hand, the sphere of use of the German language was becoming wider, embracing more and more segments of administration, education, and culture. On the other hand, the authorities were perfectly aware of the fact that communication in the languages and vernaculars of the nationalities living in the Austrian Monarchy was one of the principal instruments of spreading decrees and announcements from the central and local authorities to the less-educated strata of the population. Consequently, a large-scale reform of primary education was launched, aimed at making the whole population literate, regardless of social status, nationality (mother tongue), or confession. In parallel with the centrally coordinated state policy of education and language-use, subjects-both language experts and amateur polyglots-joined the process of writing grammar books, which were intended to ease communication between the different nationalities of the Habsburg lands. This article considers some examples of such editions with primary attention given to the correlation between private initiative and governmental policies, mechanisms of verifying the textbooks to be published, their content, and their potential readers. This paper demonstrates that for grammar-book authors, it was very important to be integrated into the patronage networks at the court and in administrative bodies and stresses that the Vienna court controlled the process of selection and financing of grammar books to be published depending on their quality and ability to satisfy the aims and goals of state policy.

Sissi's World: The Empress Elisabeth in Memory and Myth ed. by Maura E. Hametz and Heidi Schlipphacke

Reviewed by: Sissi's World: The Empress Elisabeth in Memory and Myth ed. by Maura E. Hametz and Heidi Schlipphacke Elisabeth Krimmer Maura E. Hametz and Heidi Schlipphacke, eds. Sissi's World: The Empress Elisabeth in Memory and Myth. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. 393 pp., 30 illustrations. Hametz and Schlipphacke's Sissi's World: The Empress Elisabeth in Memory and Myth explores various manifestations of Sissimania around the world, including Sissi-inspired tourism and Sissi facebook groups. Although there are references to the historical Elisabeth, the volume is primarily interested in Sissi as an iconic figure. Hametz and Schlipphacke's introduction draws on Mosse, Halbwachs, Benjamin, and Barthes to highlight the importance of memory, myth, and nostalgia in the reception of the Austrian empress, who remains little known in the United States. They link the emergence of Sissimania to the decline of the Habsburg empire but also argue that all figurations of Sissi are invariably beholden to the respective Zeitgeist. If there is a through line in the reception of Sissi, it lies in the stark contradictions that mark her life and image: she was an aloof aristocrat and a champion of the empire's minorities; a rebel who resisted the constraints of the Austrian court and a slave to self-chastising dieting and exercise regimes. The first section of the volume, entitled "Memory," opens with Christiane Hertel's essay on Ulrike Truger's marble sculpture Elisabeth—Zwang—Flucht—Freiheit. Hertel discusses Elisabeth—Zwang—Flucht—Freiheit in the context of its placement in Vienna, of Truger's other works and of Franz Xaver Messerschmidt's sculpture of Maria Theresia as Queen of Hungary. She posits that the sculpture is caught in a permanent state of tension, as Truger folds three figures into one. Echoing the baroque concept of "Dreiansichtigkeit," Truger avoids sublation (Aufhebung) since no one view absorbs the other. In the following article, Beth Ann Muellner argues that the Sissi Museum in Vienna's Hofburg functions as a vehicle of nostalgia. Muellner pays special attention to the exhibit's focus on corporeality conveyed through death masks and clothing and explores how such corporeality encourages "innervative encounters" in the Benjaminian sense. Judith Szapor and Andras Lenart trace Sissi's fate in postcommunist Hungary. They tie Hungary's increasing openness toward the West in the 1990s to a new-found appreciation of the Habsburg dynasty, manifest in the focus on Sissi in the restored Gödöllö Royal Palace near Budapest. Sissi's prominent status in Hungary is rooted in the empress's love for Hungarian culture and in her only political intervention: Sissi helped to broker the 1867 compromise of the Dual Monarchy that eased the rift created by the 1848 revolution in Hungary. [End Page 363] Maura E. Hametz and Borut Klabjan analyze the history of the bronze statue Elisabetta at the train station in Trieste, which was erected in the wake of Elisabeth's assassination at Lake Geneva in 1898. The statue symbolized a hated monarchy to some and an homage to a beloved champion of oppressed peoples and of a multiethnic empire to others. Upon her reemergence in 1997 after decades in storage, Elisabetta served to tie Trieste's Habsburg past to its central European future, while eliding Italian fascism. Olivia Gruber Florek offers an interpretation of the famous Franz Xaver Winterhalter portraits of the empress in the context of the Gallery of Beauties, created by Sissi's uncle, King Ludwig I of Bavaria, and Sissi's own Albums of Beauty, which contained carte de visite reproductions of Winterhalter pictures along with photographs of Parisian prostitutes, thus linking the European aristocracy with the demimonde. Gruber Florek argues that Winterhalter's 1865 portrait deemphasizes Sissi's link to the monarchy (and to her husband) and instead highlights her individuality, thus contributing to the emerging cult of celebrity. Carolin Maikler focuses on Karl Lagerfeld's reimagining of Sissi. His 1996 book of photographs, shot at Sissi's villa Achilleion on Corfu, centers on a love story between Achilles and a student who imagines herself a reincarnation of Sissi, while his 2014 short film about the empress, entitled Reincarnation, features an elevator attendant and a waitress who transform into...

Конец монархии Габсбургов – причины и последствия

The collapse of Habsburg rule in Central Europe, especially in historical retrospect, was considered inevitable by many historians. But despite serious internal and external threats, the collapse of the Danube Monarchy was not a foregone conclusion. The decision of the Imperial elites to go to war at any cost made the situation worse. However, the dissolution of Austria-Hungary became inevitable only at the end of the First World War due to the sharp deterioration of living standards, the consequences of military measures for soldiers and civilians, the influence of the Russian Revolution and the US entry into the War, the strengthening of national separatism, and the openly antiHabsburg policy of the Allies in 1918. But were the collapse and dissolution of Austria-Hungary as predetermined as numerous popular and scholarly publications present it? Or could events have developed differently? The author's thoughts on this topic make up the content of the article. The author comes to the conclusion that the k. & k. monarchy as "yesterday's world" did not disappear in 1918: it was preserved socially and psychologically. On the basis of many works of the monarchy, as well as the cultural achievements of Austria in the period between the two world wars, the myth of a good "Christian state" — the Habsburg Empire-was created. "The peace of Franz Josef' and his crowned predecessors means above all an unchanging peace order. This myth diverted attention from the tragedy of the First and Second World Wars, from the “brown nightmare” of Nazism, from the joint responsibility of the “Ostmärker” (the designation of the Austrians in the period 1938—1942) for the crimes of the Nazi dictatorship. Since the 1980s, historians, writers, public figures have increasingly begun to pay attention to the negative aspects of the "old Empire", the history of its demise. It took liberalization, the erosion of the classical social environment and ideological camps to initiate a change in the view of the past of Austria, a “change in the cultural memory” of the people.

Broadsheets with Engravings in a Manuscript Chronicle from Ulm: Visual Representations of the Hungarian Kingdom on German Political Leaflets during the War of Reconquest (1683–1699)

The news about the war of expulsion against the Ottoman Empire was presented by a multi-central propaganda. A manuscript chronicle written in Ulm demonstrates the literacy of the broadsheets’ readership. The writer, Eberhard Gockel (1636–1703), a physician from Ulm, wrote a diary on the most important occurrences and affairs of the Turkish war from 1678 to 1703. He attached to his chronicle broadsheets and engravings on the recaptured Hungarian fortresses and the great victories against the Turks. Gockel had good sense for high quality engravings, and he chose the works of publishing houses with excellent reputations, for example Jakob Koppmayer from Augsburg, Johann Jonathan Felsecker and Johann Hoffmann from Nürnberg and Michael Wening from München. As a citizen of Ulm, he respected the interests of the House of Habsburg, but he mainly focused on the role of the imperial and troops from the region of Swabia. His manuscript illustrated with engravings gives a detailed description of the Hungarian Kingdom’s fight against the Turks. Gockel focuses on the news of the anti-Ottoman war of 1683–1688 and he recorded the victories against the Turks even after the French invasion of the Rhineland in 1688. Gockel was critical of the quantity of military news and tried to remain unbiased on political and religious questions. Gockels’ chronicle proves that the readers of the broadsheets had all the tools to use the media of that time critically, and that sensibility and curiosity for the news of the world was a significant part of the identity of a citizen in a city like Ulm.

Portraits of Habsburg Rulers in the Aristocratic Collections of Eastern Croatia

This paper analyses the portraits of Habsburg rulers that were disseminated through different art media (paintings, sculptures, prints, crafts…) as an expression of power and propaganda across the Monarchy, including the area of modern-day eastern Croatia. Portraits of rulers and dignitaries were part of aristocratic collections in palaces that were built on estates established in the first decades of the 18th century, after the Ottomans had left the area. Apart from portraits of the ruling Habsburg dynasty and portraits of dignitaries, these art collections also contained portraits of the representatives of secular and ecclesiastical authority – electors, popes and archbishops – as well as portraits of the rulers from other ruling families. The majority of the preserved portraits of rulers are found in the collections of the foreign aristocratic families Odescalchi, Eltz, Hilleprand von Prandau and Normann-Ehrenfels.