Page - 391 - in Rudolf Eitelberger von Edelberg - Netzwerker der Kunstwelt

Across the Leitha 391 predicated on a notion of cultural hierarchy that undermined his very aspirations. Both German-Austrian and Hungarian Liberals operated on the assumption of the norma- tive role of their own cultures ; the exercise of cultural hegemony was legitimate in that both Hungarian and German culture were seen as means of accessing the universal culture and science of modern Europe. Eitelberger worked tirelessly on behalf of this vision. In some cases, he could look to successes ; his student the Croatian Izidor Kršnjavi (1845–1927), for example, who almost single-handedly created the artistic and cultural infrastructure of Habsburg Za- greb, remained strongly committed to the Habsburg Empire as a shared cultural space, even while he worked to promote and gain recognition for Croat art. In general, how- ever, the image of the Empire for which Eitelberger campaigned struggled to gain ad- herents in many locations due to his inability to acknowledge that artists in Prague, Cracow and other regional centres might have legitimate reasons for not wishing to set Vienna as their automatic first point of reference. The irony is that while he could see the counter-productive nature of Hungarian rule in Dalmatia and other southern regions, he was unable to see how this danger might apply in the Austrian half of the Empire. Austrian and Hungarian Liberals are seldom discussed together, but this article sug- gests that figures such as Eitelberger, Henszlmann and Pulszky had overlapping values and visions. The significance of the discussion goes beyond consideration of these indi- vidual cases, however, for their success and stature provide an instructive illustration of how middle class intellectuals managed to reach an accommodation with the Habsburg Monarchy. This was all the more striking given their enthusiasm for the politics of the 1848 revolution. Yet there was a marked convergence of interests between Liber- als and the Habsburg regime. Eitelberger promoted the Habsburg Empire’s economic and cultural status, but this was also because it alone could uphold the central social, economic and cultural order he craved. In response to the shifting demographic and socio-political situation of the late Habsburg Empire, Liberals became increasingly nationalist in tone ; there are examples of this in Eitelberger’s own writings. His re- sponse to the Franco-Prussian War was to adopt a stridently pro-German tone. Yet this turn was ultimately a sign of a deep malaise ; like many others, including Henszlmann and Pulszky, Eitelberger’s political concepts had developed little since the 1840s and thus failed to adapt to changing circumstances. His response was simply to reaffirm, in an increasingly emphatic manner, an ideological outlook that had been outstripped by events. As such, he is of significance as emblematic of the broader cultural politics of the Habsburg Empire and of the struggle of Liberals to come to terms with the passage to modernity.