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Chapter 1 ♦ 29
nationalized scholarship did not offer fierce opposition to state institutions,
which were tuned toward other educational scientific models, to the dis-
may of many who envisioned freedom and liberalism, irrespective of their
cultural or ideological background. It was rather a complementary system
separate from state-supported institutions and turning toward a new public.
Clearly, many scholars saw the problem of lack of communication across the
empire and proposed statist solutions, such as the creation of an academy
of sciences, a place uniting scholars from throughout the monarchy and
offering them opportunities for communication.
Centralizing Science: The Imperial Academy
Because the regional aristocrats were investing in local societies, and the
central government remained disinterested in forging new knowledge, inter-
est in a centralized scholarly institution was limited. The aristocracy even
openly complained in the 1840s that the creation of a central learned society
would diminish the importance of the well-functioning regional societies and
lead to unwanted centralization.41 Provincial elites were clearly opting for a
monarchy where cultural distinctiveness was cherished, and scholarship was
one means to support this. The creation of a Viennese academy, which had
already been proposed by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz around 1700,42 was
opposed not only by many aristocrats but by Metternich as well, who initially
did not support the idea of autonomous science and scholarship. He would al-
low the academy only if it were in the political interests of the empire, and this
was not the case until after 1845, when pressure against censorship and an
oppressive regime grew stronger. The Imperial Academy of Sciences and
Arts, inaugurated in 1847, served, however, not only as a meeting point for
scholars but also as a project structuring the scholarly geography of the em-
pire, centered on the capital city. The absence of the word royal (königlich)
from the academy’s name symbolized that the Cisleithanian part stood at the
center, thus securing Hungarian distinctiveness at the scholarly level.
Speakers at the inauguration of the academy underscored its political
role beyond any doubt. Its aim, apart from forging scholarship, was “to se-
cure the . . . beneficial knowledge and experience . . . as well as to support
the government’s functions through answering questions and problems that
belong to the scope of scholarship.” 43 Metternich saw the institution as both
a state-controlled outlet for scholars and a means to better the empire’s
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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