11 - The Counter-Reformation's last stand: Austria

Summary

There are many memorable passages in Joseph Roth's The Radetzky March, but few are more evocative of imperial Austria than his description of the annual Corpus Christi procession, which celebrated the sacrament of the Host: ‘In black lacquered carriages sat the gold-decked Knights of the Golden Fleece and sober, apple-cheeked fathers. After them, like majestic hurricanes, fluttered the horsehair plumes of the infantry bodyguard. Finally, the bells of St Stephen's Cathedral pealed the welcome of the Roman Church to the…old Emperor.’ For Roth, looking back on the defunct Habsburg Monarchy from troubled inter-war central Europe, the display of majesty embodied a timeless feeling of stability and well-being, yet it was only comparatively recently that the Corpus Christi celebration had become the major state-patriotic display just described. Recent work by Daniel Unowsky reveals how the new emperor Francis Joseph sanctioned a revival of ‘traditional’ rituals as part of the restoration of monarchical authority after the 1848–9 revolutions. Alongside the foot-washing ceremony, when the emperor cleansed the feet of twelve paupers from the city of Vienna at Eastertide, the Corpus Christi celebration was transformed into a major event in the official calendar. In short, the Habsburg court recodified neglected practices in order to demonstrate publicly the restored, absolute power of the divinely ordained, Catholic ruler.

The highly visible reassertion of Francis Joseph's sovereignty provides a useful entry-point into the ‘culture wars era’, because it illustrates a major tension between two historical lines of state-building in Austria.