!!!Aufklärung

Enlightenment, movement in intellectual history which arose in the 
17th century in Europe and had practical effects in the 18th century 
in Austria and continued to be effective in the 19th century. The 
basis of Enlightenment was the view that people could be motivated to 
act in a better way by reason. The Enlightenment promoted the idea 
that all people were equal, but they had to free themselves of 
constraints. In Austria, the ideas of the Enlightenment were 
propagated less by philosophy than by cameralistics, jurisprudence, 
medicine and natural sciences; these ideas were especially welcomed by 
public servants and among the upper bourgeoisie. The Enlightenment had 
particularly practical effects in the fields of law and political 
science, in which K.  Martini and J. von  Sonnenfels were the 
main representatives of the Enlightenment and had a strong influence 
on the following generation of public servants. These legal principles 
were used to justify the reforms carried out under Maria Theresa and 
Joseph II. Maria Theresa was not strongly affected by the 
Enlightenment, whereas her son Joseph II and several of her 
advisors, such as Count W.  Kaunitz, Count F. W.  Haugwitz and G. van  
Swieten, were under the spell of the Enlightenment; the canon law 
scholar P. J.  Riegger also had considerable influence. They were of 
the opinion that the state was supposed to be tolerant of other 
religions, and witch trials, torture, and capital punishment should be 
done away with. Joseph II introduced these ideas in numerous 
areas of government (Enlightened Absolutism). The Enlightenment had 
effects which can still be seen today in the  Allgemeines 
Buergerliches Gesetzbuch.

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Education was one of the main concerns of the Enlightenment, and the 
reform of primary schools in 1774 was a product of Enlightenment 
ideas. The Enlightenment also had a strong influence on literature, 
which mainly aimed at being educational and instructive as well as 
critical. Authors such as C. von  Ayrenhoff, A.  Blumauer, 
J. B.  Alxinger and L. L.  Haschka were proponents of the 
ideas of the Enlightenment.  Free Masonry, to which many members of 
the leading classed belonged, made an essential contribution to the 
spreading of Enlightenment ideas. The Enlightenment had a decisive 
influence on the state in many areas in the 2nd half of the 18th 
century but was suppressed in Austria because of the effects of the 
French Revolution.

!Further reading
E. Winter, Barock, Absolutismus und Aufklaerung in 
der Donaumonarchie, 1971; L. Bodi, Tauwetter in Wien, Zur Prosa der 
oesterreichischen Aufklaerung 1781-95, 1977; E. Kovacs, Katholische 
Aufklaerung und Josephinismus, 1979; Oesterreich im Europa der 
Aufklaerung, International Symposium 1980, 2 vols., 1985.


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