Authors

Ellinor Forster¹;  ¹ University of Innsbruck, Austria

Discussion

For decades, historiography on the Habsburg Monarchy was characterised by an emphasis on national differences between language groups, which were always unquestioningly referred to as ethnic groups and thus fundamentally distinguished from one another. Researchers generally agreed that their national ambitions and the associated friction ultimately led to the demise of the monarchy after the First World War.

The impactful research by Pieter Judson and others on national indifference has already challenged this view – in theory – for about ten years. However, sources on nationalist spokespersons are still easier to find and evaluate than those that would argue for national indifference. As a result, new studies are still in short supply.

If one takes the theories of national indifference seriously, however, a significant impetus toward crisis disappears when considering the monarchy in its entirety, clearing the way for a new perspective. For the question of the national indifference of the language groups is accompanied by considerations on what this says about the identification of the population in the individual provinces with the monarchy as a whole if they are no longer viewed as being exclusively focused on their own nation-building. This new angle allows the tension between regional identity and openness to identification with the state as a whole to be re-evaluated.

For comparison, two provinces are selected in which strong national differences between language groups have hitherto been assumed to exist – in Silesia between the German- and Czech-speaking populations, and in Tyrol between speakers of German and Italian. In both countries, the spaces of identification of the museum associations emerging and becoming established during the 19th century can be examined using new approaches. Actor–network theory can be used to identify the spaces that were created and had value assigned to them. Not surprisingly, these spaces extend far beyond the boundaries of the respective language group and crown land. The study examines not only correspondence and member recruitment, but also the materiality of the actants – such as the paths taken by museum publications and objects.

Spanning the period from the early 19th century to the end of the monarchy, this also allows us to gauge how dynamics and crises were perceived, reflected upon, and responded to at the level of the confederated state.