Page - 390 - in Rudolf Eitelberger von Edelberg - Netzwerker der Kunstwelt

390 Matthew Rampley Such attitudes were not unique to German Liberals. Hungarian Liberals had sim- ilar views with regard to their own language and culture. The idea of a cosmopolitan identity, seen as central to construction of Habsburg state identity was consequently not a celebration of diversity-in-difference, but rather one of a culture that could as- similate or even sublate all into a higher unity. As András Gerő has argued, the aim was to “homogenize the Hungarian people” for this “non-integrative” liberal concept of nationhood “could not tolerate the notion of a Hungarian people with a diverse cul- ture”.81 As with German-Austrian Liberals, the basic flaw of such cultural paternalism was a blindness to the other, an inability to understand that for others, German and Hungarian cultures were no less particular than their own.82 Conversely, German and Hungarian Liberals were unable to grasp the demands for separate cultural recognition on the part of other groups, and met them with a mixture of attitudes, ranging from disregard to bafflement. Conclusion Eitelberger played a dominant role in the artistic and cultural life of mid-nineteenth century Vienna. He was a powerful spokesman for Liberalism in the field of cultural politics, and was an advocate of global free trade and cultural exchange. He was clear about the benefits of open borders and about the contribution of foreigners to Austrian cultural life ; his programme of design reform was predicated on the idea that designers had as much to gain from engaging with multiple historic traditions, and he critiqued the growing tendency towards the invention of specifically national visual identities. The collections of the Museum reflected this belief, with a purposeful eclecticism that was repeated in the museums of industry elsewhere in the Empire. As laudable as his sentiments may seem  – particularly when compared with the con- servative and nationalist voices that shaped political discourse in the Habsburg domain in its final decades  – it would be a mistake to view this outlook as a nineteenth-century precursor to the multi-culturalism of more recent years. His comments were the product of an ideological programme that proved to be inadequate to the shifting socio-political circumstances of the later nineteenth century. Specifically, Eitelberger’s Liberalism was 81 A. Gerö, Modern Hungarian Society in the Making : The Unfinished Experience, Budapest 1995, p.  188. 82 On this issue in relation to Hungarian Liberalism see P. Lendvai, Total Blindness : The Hungarian Sense of Mission and the Nationalities, in : The Hungarians : A Thousand Years of Victory in Defeat, trans. A. Major, Princeton 2003, pp.  299–309. Open Access © 2019 by BÖHLAU VERLAG GMBH & CO.KG, WIEN