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10 ♦ Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918
The strengthening of national projects, which influenced all areas of
cultural life, took place within the framework of Habsburg culture and
the empire’s intellectual atmosphere. What was, however, the Habsburg
imperial scientific space as imagined and practiced by scholars? A brief
glance at its strategies and institutions should clarify this. The role of
scholarship-related policy in structuring the Habsburg academic space can
be illustrated by the opening of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and Arts
(Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften und Künste) in Vienna in 1847.
Klemens Wenzel Metternich, the minister of state (1821–48), saw it as both
a state-controlled “valve” for scholars—fulfilling their wish to have an in-
stitution to further their work and thus easing political tensions previously
fueled by the lack of such a place—and a means to improve Habsburg’s
standing internationally.43 During the discussions on the creation of the
academy, its supraregional character was somewhat disputed both by pro-
ponents of a strong Viennese center for science and by those who wanted
the Viennese academy to reach the same level as the provincial learned
societies of the time. Among the nominees in 1847 and early 1848 were
not only Viennese scholars (who constituted about half the nominees) but
also Czech-Bohemian, Hungarian, and Italian scholars, signifying the unity
of the Habsburg scientific community at that time.44 Galicia, symbolically
incorporated through Josef Russegger, a geologist and the administrator of
the salt mines in Wieliczka/Großsalze (a corresponding member 45 of the
academy in 1848), was officially excluded owing to the political turmoil in
Galicia. Michał Wiszniewski, a professor of Polish literature in Cracow, was
proposed as a corresponding member in 1848, but his nomination was re-
jected by the emperor.46 The first Polish and Ruthenian scholars were chosen
only in the late nineteenth century.
The academy was to be imperial, as its name indicates; in reality, it
never was. Non-German-speaking authors rarely published in its periodicals
or participated in its book series. Creating the image of a united monarchy,
the series Fontes Rerum Austriacarum (Austrian historical sources) in-
cluded sources on imperial spaces that, although centered on Vienna, also
included Bohemia in the fifteenth century (see volume 20 of the version
edited by František Palacký in 1860).47 Apart from a number of works on
various Habsburg monasteries, the most attention was paid to Veneto, a part
of the monarchy that the Habsburgs were gradually losing at the time. One
can also find documents on and from Carniola, Istria, and Transylvania but
not Galicia. Indeed, the series Fontes Rerum Austriacarum, Bohemicarum,
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book Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space"
Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918
A Social History of a Multilingual Space
- Title
- Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918
- Subtitle
- A Social History of a Multilingual Space
- Author
- Jan Surman
- Publisher
- Purdue University Press
- Location
- West Lafayette
- Date
- 2019
- Language
- English
- License
- PD
- ISBN
- 978-1-55753-861-1
- Size
- 16.5 x 25.0 cm
- Pages
- 474
- Keywords
- History, Austria, Eduction System, Learning
- Categories
- Geschichte Vor 1918
Table of contents
- List of Illustrations vi
- List of Tables vii
- Acknowledgments ix
- Note on Language Use, Terminology, and Geography xi
- Abbreviations xiii
- Introduction A Biography of the Academic Space 1
- Chapter 1 Centralizing Science for the Empire 19
- Chapter 2 The Neoabsolutist Search for a Unified Space 49
- Chapterr 3 Living Out Academic Autonomy 89
- Chapter 4 German-Language Universities between Austrian and German Space 139
- Chapter 5 Habsburg Slavs and Their Spaces 175
- Chapter 6 Imperial Space and Its Identities 217
- Chapter 7 Habsburg Legacies 243
- Conclusion Paradoxes of the Central European Academic Space 267
- Appendix 1 Disciplines of Habilitation at Austrian Universities 281
- Appendix 2 Databases of Scholars at Cisleithanian Universities 285
- Notes 287
- Bibliography 383
- Index 445