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Some Reflections on the Habsburg Empire and Its Legacy in the Nationalities Question

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2009

Solomon Wank
Solomon Wank
Affiliation:
Lewis Audenreid Professor of History Emeritus, Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA 17604.
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Extract

The startling events of the last five years in Eastern Europe have led to a surprising nostalgia for the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and Emperor Francis Joseph in the lands of the former Habsburg Empire. Politicians and journalists in Europe and America now compare the old empire to the disoriented East Central Europe of today and hold up the former as a positive model for a supranational organization. The current wave of nostalgia has been helped along by some recent historical works that certainly were not written for that purpose, but that contain generous assessments of the monarchy's positive qualities. For example, István Deák, in his highly acclaimed book, Beyond Nationalism: A Social and Political History of the Habsburg Officer Corps, 1848–1918, strongly recommends that the “Habsburg experiment” in supranational organization be reexamined: “I am convinced that we can find here a positive lesson while the post-1918 history of the central and east central European nation-states can only show US what to avoid.” Similar positive statements can be found in the recently published works of Alan Sked, Barbara Jelavich, and F. R. Bridge.

Type
Articles
Information
Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 28 , January 1997 , pp. 131 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 1997

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References

1 Deák, István, Beyond Nationalism: A Social and Political History of the Habsburg Officer Corps, 1848–1918 (New York, 1990), 9Google Scholar. See the critical review of Deák's book by Evans, R. J. W. in New York Review of Books 37, no. 13 (08 16, 1990): 47–50.Google Scholar

2 Sked, Alan, The Decline and Fall of the Habsburg Empire, 1815–1918 (London, 1989)Google Scholar; Jelavich, Barbara, Modern Austria: Empire and Republic, 1800–1986 (New York, 1987)Google Scholar; Bridge, F. R., The Habsburg Monarchy among the Great Powers, 1815–1918 (New York, 1990)Google Scholar. See my review of the books by Sked, and Bridge, in Central European History 26, no. 1 (1993): 123–27Google Scholar. In fairness to the three authors it should be noted that despite their generous assessment of the empire's positive qualities, they, especially Sked, are distinctly unnostalgic in their sharp criticism of the actions of the emperor and his advisers in July 1914, and they place a great share of responsibility for World War I at their doorstep. See Sked, , 264–69Google Scholar; Bridge, , 340–42Google Scholar; and Jelavich, , 134.Google Scholar

3 For some observations on the continuities see Beller, Steven, “Reinventing Central Europe,” Working Paper 92–5, Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota, 10 1991, 14, 17–18Google Scholar. Copies of working papers can be purchased from the Center for a nominal charge.

4 See Wank, , “The Nationalities Question in the Habsburg Monarchy.”Google ScholarBeller, Steven's “Reinventing Central Europe,”Google Scholar although differently focused than the essay here, contains a few suggestive statements pertinent to a reexamination.

5 For a discussion of this point, see Hobsbawm, E. J., Nations and Nationalism since 1789 (Cambridge, Eng., 1990), 1–45.Google Scholar

6 Quoted in Teich, Mikulas and Porter, Roy, eds., The National Question in Europe in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, Eng., 1993), xviGoogle Scholar. The words are from Renan's famous Sorbonne lecture of November 1882, “Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?” in which he defined a nation as a human community whose members are endowed with a desire to uphold it through a day-to-day vote of confidence—“un plébiscite de tous les jours” (xvi). His justification of nation-states in his own time notwithstanding, Renan foresaw a European confederation eventually superseding sovereign nation-states.

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9 On the interrupted and aggravated process of state and nation building in East Central Europe, see Szűcs, Jenő, “The Three Historical Regions of Europe: An Outline,” Acta Historica Academiae Scientarium Hungaricae 29, nos. 2–4 (1983): 131–84Google Scholar. For some suggestive observations on the problems that successor states inherit from their “mother” empires, see Geiss, Imanuel, “Décolonisation et conflits post-coloniaux en Afrique. Quelque réflections,” Colloque international: “Les deux guerres mondiales: les analogies et les differences” (Warsaw: Comité des Sciences Historiques, 1985), 1–22Google Scholar. For a more extensive discussion of points three and four, see Wank, Solomon, “The Collapse of the Habsburg Empire: The Imperial Factor,” in The Collapse of Empires: Causes and Consequences, ed. Barkey, Karen and von Hagen, Mark (Boulder, Colo., 1997)Google Scholar. See also the other essays in that volume.

10 Rumpler, Helmut, “Die Rolle der Dynastie im Vielvölkerstaat des 19. Jahrhunderts,” in Probleme der Geschichte Österreichs und ihrer Darstellung, ed. Wolfram, Herwig and Pohl, Walter (Vienna, 1991), 165–75Google Scholar, quotation at 168. The reform proposals of Archduke Francis Ferdinand and Emperor Charles I (1916–18) might be cited as counterevidence, but they scarcely qualify as such, especially if one of the criteria is adjusting to changing circumstances. At the time the emperor issued his manifesto of October 16, 1918, proclaiming a federation plan for the empire, national committees within the monarchy formed during the war had already begun to take control of their regions. Apart from that, the manifesto pledged to preserve the integrity of Hungary, which meant that Croatian, German, Romanian, Serb, and Ruthenian territories would have remained divided. Despite the emperor's pledge, Hungary seceded from the empire on the same day that the manifesto was issued, claiming that it contravened the Compromise of 1867. Robert Kann goes so far as to call the manifesto a “farce” (Kann, , A History of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1526–1918 [Berkeley, Calif., 1974], 493)Google Scholar. Helmut Rumpler shows that the manifesto “in the first instance [was] a peace move to gain the favor of the allies” (Rumpler, , Das, Völkermanifest Kaiser Karls vom 16. Oktober 1918. Letzter Versuch zur Rettung des Habsburgerreiches [Vienna, 1966] 63Google Scholar; also 88–91). The reform proposals of Archduke Francis Ferdinand were even more unrealistic than those of Emperor Charles. The diverse plans of empire reform associated with the archduke all assumed unconstitutional means, absolutism, and force. Their “chief motive [was] to strengthen the power of the ruler” by the promotion of centralism through a German-language administration and army (see Kann, Robert A., Franz Ferdinand Studien [Munich, 1976], 15–25; quotation at 17).Google Scholar

11 Palacky's letter is printed in Charles, and Jelavich, Barbara, eds., The Habsburg Monarchy: Toward a Multinational Empire or National States? (New York, 1959), 18–33Google Scholar, quotation at 20. On Palacký's attitude toward Austria as a multinational state, see Kořalka, Jiří, Tschechen im Habsburgerreich und in Europa 1815–1914 (Vienna, 1991), 175–200.Google Scholar

12 The manifesto is printed in Jelavich, and Jelavich, , eds., The Habsburg Monarchy, 22–23.Google Scholar

13 On the Kremsier parliament and constitution, see Kann, Robert A., The Multinational Empire: Nationalism and National Reform in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1848–1918, 2 vols. (New York, 1950), 2:21–39Google Scholar. See also Kořalka, , Tschechen im Habsburgerreich, 139–3, 191–92.Google Scholar

14 See, for example, Sked, , Decline and Fall, 144.Google Scholar

15 The quoted words are from a small book, Idea státu Rakouského (The idea of the Austrian state), which Palacký published in Prague in 1865. The English translation of the passage is in Thomson, S. Harrison, Czechoslovakia in European History (Princeton, 1953), 215Google Scholar. A German translation, Österreichs Staatsidee, was published in Prague in 1866Google Scholar. See Zacek, Joseph F., “Palacký's Politics: The Second Phase,” Canadian Slavic Studies 5, no. 1 (Spring 1971): 51–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Kořalka, , Tschechen im Habsburgerreich, 195–96Google Scholar. See the chapters by Holotík, L'udovít on the Slovaks and Janko Pleterski on the Slovenes in Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918, vol. 3, pt. 2Google Scholar, Die Völker des Reiches, ed. Wandruszka, Adam and Urbanitsch, Peter (Vienna, 1980)Google Scholar; see esp. 779 on the Slovaks and 804 on the Slovenes. My review essay on the entire volume contains observations relevant to the interpretation in this essay; see Wank, Solomon, “The Growth of Nationalism in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1848–1918,” East Central Europe 10, pts. 1–2 (1983): 165–79, esp. 173–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 The quotation from Hegel, 's “Philosophy of History”Google Scholar is in Hegel, G. W. F., Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte, ed. Brunstad, S. (Leipzig, 1924), 559.Google Scholar

18 Motyl, , “From Imperial Decay to Imperial Collapse,” 19–20.Google Scholar

19 Ibid., 17–19.

20 For a fuller discussion of that process, see Wank, , “The Collapse of the Habsburg Empire.”Google Scholar

21 Sked, , Decline and Fall, 264–65.Google Scholar

22 Taylor, A. J. P., “The Failure of the Habsburg Monarchy,”Google Scholar in Taylor, , Europe: Grandeur and Decline (Harmondsworth, Eng., 1969), 132Google Scholar. The essay is a review of Kann, Robert A., The Multinational Empire.Google Scholar

23 Kálnoky, Gustav Graf, Memorandum. Die Nationalitätenfrage in Oesterreich-Ungarn in ihrer Rückwirkung auf die aeussere Politik der MonarchieGoogle Scholar. The memorandum is printed in two places: Jelavich, Barbara, “Foreign Policy and the National Question in the Habsburg Empire: A Memorandum of Kálnoky,” Austrian History Yearbook 6–7 (1970–1971): 147–59Google Scholar, and Rutkowski, Ernst, ed., Briefe und Dokumente zur Geschichte der österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie, pt. 1 (Munich, 1983), 490–500Google Scholar. The memorandum is discussed in Wank, Solomon, “Foreign Policy and the Nationality Problem in Austria-Hungary, 1867–1914,” Austrian History Yearbook 3, pt. 3 (1967): 38–41, 45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 Brunner, Otto, “Das Haus Österreich und die Donaumonarchie,” Südostforschungen 14 (1955): 123–24, 126–27, 140–44.Google Scholar

25 Lothar Höbelt, among others, argues that, in any event, the geopolitical position of the Habsburg Empire and the European power constellation made all genuine federalistic plans or neutrality unrealistic (Höbelt, , “Österreich-Ungarn und das Deutsche Reich als Zweibundpartner,” in Österreich und die deutsche Frage im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Lutz, Heinrich und Rumpier, Helmut [Munich, 1982], 259)Google Scholar. In my view, which coincides with Otto Brunner's, the point is really moot. Neither the emperor nor the archduke wanted genuine federalism or neutrality.

26 Rumpler, , “Die Rolle der Dynastie,” 174Google Scholar. See also Brunner, , “Das Haus Österreich,” 132–34.Google Scholar

27 Sked, , Decline and Fall, 266.Google Scholar

28 See Hamann, Brigitte, “Die Habsburger und die deutsche Frage im 19. Jahrhundert,” in Österreich und die deutsche Frage im 19. und 20. JahrhundertGoogle Scholar, ed. Lutz, Heinrich and Rumpier, Helmut, 230Google Scholar; and Wandruszka, Adam, “Die Kriegsschuld der Führungsschichten,” Die Presse, Sonderausgabe, Sarajevo-Ursachen, Folgen und Lehren, 06 27/28, 1964, 11.Google Scholar

29 Bridge, , The Habsburg Monarchy among the Great Powers, 360–61.Google Scholar

30 Quoted in Wank, , “Foreign Policy and the Nationality Problem,” 44.Google Scholar

31 Klepsch, to Baron, (after 1909, Count)Google Scholarvon Aehrenthal, Alois, Petersburg, Saint, 12 28, 1887Google Scholar; quoted in Wank, Solomon, “Pessimism in the Austrian Establishment at the Turn of the Century,” in The Mirror of History: Essays in Honor of Fritz Fellner, ed. Wank, et al. (Santa Barbara, Calif., 1988), 297Google Scholar. The letter is printed in Aus dem Nachlass Aehrenthal. Briefe und Dokumente zur österreichisch-ungarischen Innen- und Auβenpolitik 1885–1912, ed. Wank, (Graz, 1994), 21, doc. no. 19Google Scholar. Aehrenthal, who later became foreign minister (1906–12), was at the time chef-de-cabinet for the foreign minister, Count Gustav Kálnoky.

32 For a discussion of this point more extended than the one offered here, see Wank, , “The Collapse of the Habsburg Empire.”Google Scholar

33 Mommsen, Hans, “Die Arbeiterbewegung in Deutschland und Österreich. Eine vergleichende Betrachtung,” in Deutschland und Österreich. Ein bilaterales Geschichtsbuch, ed. Kann, Robert A. and Prinz, Friedrich A. (Vienna, 1980), 437.Google Scholar

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35 In this regard, see the penetrating observations of Broch, Hermann in Broch, , Hugo von Hofmannsthal and His Time: The European Imagination, 1860–1920, ed. and trans. Steinberg, Michael (Chicago, 1984), 71–81Google Scholar. See also Schorske, Carl E., “Die Geburt des Möglichkeitsmenschen. Wien als Nährboden der Moderne in der Auflösung des Alten Reiches,” Die Presse, Sonderausgabe, 06 27/28, 1964, 132–34.Google Scholar

36 Sked, , Decline and Fall, 187.Google Scholar

37 Ibid., 259.

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39 Rusinow, Dennison, “Ethnic Politics in the Habsburg Monarchy and Successor States: Three Answers to the National Question,” in Nationalism and EmpireGoogle Scholar, ed. Rudolph, and Good, , 243–67, quotation at 254.Google Scholar

40 Kann, Robert A., “Zur Problematik der Nationalitätenfragen,”Google Scholar in Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918, vol. 3, pt. 2Google Scholar, Die Völker des Reiches, ed. Wandruszka, and Urbanitsch, , 1338Google Scholar. Kann's prediction appears to be nearing realization. The Habsburg successor states are now more nearly national than at any time since 1918. The violent splintering of Yugoslavia is one of the final steps in the belated process of nation-state formation in East Central Europe. However, rather than a Danubian federation or confederation, most of the states in the region want to enter the European Union.

41 On Hungarian nationality policy, see Szász, Zoltán, “Die Ziele und Möglichkeiten der Ungarischen Regierungen in der Nationalitätenpolitik,” in Gesellschaft, Politik und Verwaltung in der Habsburgermonarchie 1830–1918, ed. Glatz, Ferenc and Melville, Ralph (Stuttgart, 1987), 327–41Google Scholar. See also Kann, , The Multinational Empire 2:131–41.Google Scholar

42 In retrospect the failure to heed this lesson rendered Oscar Jaszi's 1918 plan for a Danubian federation unrealistic. The plan called for the reorganization of Hungary on the model of Switzerland as part of a federation of neighboring states. However, Jaszi, despite his democratic and socially progressive principles, which were sharply at odds with the illiberal political and nationality policies of the pre-1914 Hungarian ruling elite, shared the elite's principle tenet—the preservation of the territorial integrity of the lands of the Hungarian Crown. The cultural and linguistic demands of the non-Magyar peoples would be satisfied, but Hungary itself would not be federally reorganized along lines of territorial autonomies. The non-Magyar nationalities, not surprisingly, did not see the fulfillment of their desire for ethnic unification in a plan that presumed the territorial integrity of Hungary. On Jaszi's federation plans, see his Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Hungary (London, 1924; reprint, New York, 1969)Google Scholar. For critiques of Jaszi's plan, see Kann, , The Multinational Empire 1:145–49Google Scholar; and Galántai, J., “Oszkár Jászi's Conceptions on Federalism during the First World War,” Studia Historica 119 (Budapest, 1975): 6–17.Google Scholar

43 On nationality law and policies in Austria, see Stourzh, Gerald, “Die Gleichberechtigung der Volksstämme als Verfassungsprinzip 1848–1918,” in Die Völker des ReichesGoogle Scholar, ed. Wandruszka, and Urbanitsch, , 975–1206Google Scholar. A revised and enlarged version of the latter has been published under the title Die Gleichberechtigung der Nationalitäten in der Verfassung und Verwaltung Österreichs 1848–1918 (Vienna, 1985).Google Scholar

44 On Article 19, see Stourzh, , “Die Gleichberechtigung der Volksstämme,” 1011–16Google Scholar. On Article 21 of the Kremsier constitution, see ibid., 983–86, esp. 985.

45 Kann, , “Zur Problematik der Nationalitätenfragen,” esp. 1331Google Scholar; Stourzh, , “Die Gleichberechtigung der Volksstämme,” 1203Google Scholar. See also Stourzh's remarks in his 1989 Kann, Lecture, “The Multinational Empire Revisited: Reflections on Late Imperial Austria,” Austrian History Yearbook 23 (1992): 19–20.Google Scholar

46 Wandycz, Piotr Stefan, The Lands of Partitioned Poland, 1795–1918 (Seattle, 1974), 222Google Scholar. The population shares changed slightly between 1880 and 1910: Ruthenians, 42 percent, and Jews, 11 percent (Rudnytsky, Ivan, “The Ukrainians in Galicia under Austrian Rule,” Austrian History Yearbook 3, pt. 2 [1967]: 405)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Apart from emigration, the decline in the number of Ruthenians and Jews and the consequent rise in the number of Poles was, in part, the result of false reporting by Polish officials who controlled the administration throughout Galicia. They reported many Ruthenians (Ukrainians) and many Jews as Poles. warns, Piotr Wróbel, “All statistical data concerning Galicia should be taken with extreme caution” (Wróbel, “The Jews of Galicia under Austrian Rule, 1869–1918,”Google ScholarAustrian History Yearbook 25 [1994]: 97–138Google Scholar, quotation at 105).

47 Wandycz, , The Lands of Partitioned Poland, 219–28Google Scholar; Kann, , The Multinational Empire 2:231–32Google Scholar. Commenting on Polish elections before 1914, Wróbel, Piotr states, “A new notion appeared in the Central European political vocabulary—Galizische Wahlen (Galician elections)—as a symbol for election fraud and violence” (Wróbel, “The Jews of Galicia under Austrian Rule,” 132).Google Scholar

48 Luft, Robert R., “Die Mittelpartei des mährischen Grossgrundbesitzes 1879–1918,” in Die Chance der Verständigung. Absichten und Ansätze zu übernationaler Zusammenarbeit in den böhmischen Ländern 1848–1918, ed. Seibt, Ferdinand (Munich, 1987), 218, 236Google Scholar. On the Moravian Compromise, see ibid., 215–21; Glassl, Horst, Der mährische Ausgleich (Munich, 1967)Google Scholar; Kann, , The Multinational Empire 1:207–9Google Scholar; Stourzh, , Die Gleichberechtigung der Nationalitäten, 213–29Google Scholar; and Kořalka, , Tschechen im Habsburgerreich, 159–64.Google Scholar

49 Stourzh, Gerald, “Ethnic Attribution in Late Imperial Austria: Good Intentions, Evil Consequences,” in The Habsburg Legacy: National Identity in Historical Perspective, ed. Robertson, Ritchie and Timms, Edward, Austrian Studies, vol. 5 (Edinburgh, 1994), 67–83, quotation at 72.Google Scholar

50 Stourzh, , “The Multinational Empire Revisited,” 20Google Scholar; Glassl, , Der mährische Ausgleich, 213, 236–38Google Scholar. See also a contemporary critique of that practice in Brügel, Johann W., “Zeitgenössische Kritik am mährischen Ausgleich,” Bohemia 28, no. 2 (1987): 364–68.Google Scholar

51 Luft, , “Die Mittelpartei des mährischen Grossgrundbesitzes,” 218.Google Scholar

52 Ibid., 218–21; Glassl, , Der mährische Ausgleich, 210–16Google Scholar. The total population of Moravia in 1910 was 2,622,271, of which 1,868,971 was Czech and 719,432 German. Moravian population statistics are found in Glassl, 18–23.

53 Luft, , “Die Mittelpartei des mährischen Grossgrundbesitzes,” 190Google Scholar. According to Horst Glassl, an authority on the subject, “the Moravian Compromise was, on the whole, an affair of the aristocracy” (quoted in ibid., 220). To which Robert Luft adds: “Although the share of the bourgeois politicians in the political development should not be underestimated, it was chiefly the hereditary large landowners who profited from the national conflict” (ibid.).

54 Glassl, , Der mährische Ausgleich, 215Google Scholar; Luft, , “Die Mittelpartei des mährischen Grossgrundbesitzes,” 218–19.Google Scholar

55 Rusinow, , “Ethnic Politics,” 254.Google Scholar

56 Rumpler, , “Die Rolle der Dynastie,” 168, 173Google Scholar; Bled, Jean-Paul, Franz Joseph, Engl. trans. Bridgeman, Teresa (Oxford, 1992), 325–26.Google Scholar

57 Rusinow, , “Ethnic Politics,” 256.Google Scholar