Page - 275 - in Österreich-Ungarns imperiale Herausforderungen - Nationalismen und Rivalitäten im Habsburgerreich um 1900

© 2020, V&R unipress GmbH, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783847110606 – ISBN E-Lib: 9783737010603 CatherineHorel ImperialChallengesinAustro-HungarianMulticulturalCities1 The termsof ‘multiculturalism’or ‘pluriculturalism’werenotusedby thecon- temporariesof theHabsburgMonarchy.Theconceptof theEmpirewas framed by its territorial definition and by the ruling dynasty. Its inhabitants were to becomecitizensonlyaftertheenactmentoftheConstitutionallawsofDecember 1867. The territories of the Empire were either hereditary possessions of the Crown(Kronländer)withtheirhistoricalrightsorprovincesruledbyViennaor Budapest. The diversity of tongues and confessionswas consideredunder the terms of ‘peoples’ (Völker) or ‘ethnic group’ (Volksstamm); the whole was conceived as a ‘multinational state’ (Vielvölkerstaat). Inhis recent bookabout theHabsburgEmpirePieterJudsondiscussestheuseoftheterm‘nationality’by historiansandsuggests thatweshouldkeeponspeakingof ‘groups’. Indeedthe ‘nationality’wasnot a categorybut a commodityof languageandof coursean elementofthepoliticaldiscourseatthesametime.Itwasthusaconstructionand wasnotrelevantforthedailypractice.Inthisrespectheisrightinpointingtothe factthatconflictsbrokebetweennationalistsandnotbetween‘nationalities’thus not involving anentirepeople.2Themobilityof somegroupswasverycharac- teristic:military, bureaucrats,merchants, students, and thus enabled transfers andexchanges.Before1867, self-identificationwasdefinedby religionandter- ritorial belonging, what is generally called the ‘patriotismof the land’ (Land- espatriotismus) that is the attachment to ‘small homelands’. The culture that characterized the Empire was thus fragmented, moving and fluid between groupsand territories.3Peoplehadmultiple identities thatwere supersededby dynastic loyalty composed of shared symbols and historical references. The 1 Thiscontributionispartofabookprojectontwelvemulticultural cities (Arad,Brünn/Brno, Czernowitz/Cˇernivci, Fiume/Rijeka, Lemberg/L’viv, Nagyv#rad/Oradea, Pressburg/Bratis- lava, Sarajevo, Szabadka/Subotica, Temesv#r/Timis¸oara, Trieste, Zagreb) of the Habsburg Empire thatwill bepublishedbyCentralEuropeanUniversityPress. 2 PieterM. Judson,TheHabsburgEmpire.ANewHistory,Cambridge2016,p. 270. 3 Fora recentanalysisof thisquestion, see JohannesFeichtinger/GaryB.Cohen(ed.),Under- standingMulticulturalism.TheHabsburgCentralEuropeanExperience,NewYork2014.