Page - 40 - in Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space

40 ♦  Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 borders were forged. Viennese students signed a petition calling for lec- tures in Czech at the Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague and lectures in Polish at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. In Galicia, however, the supranational idea of political revolution lost out to national divisions, as Ruthenian nationalists fiercely rejected cooperation with the Polish national party and vice versa.86 Professors also manned the barricades, demonstrating the ineffectiveness of Metternich’s attempts to forge uncritical loyalty to the universities. Even before the revolution, the Viennese Juridical-Political Reading Association (Juridisch-Politische Leseverein) had united intellectuals of all estates, in- cluding students and professors. They played an eminent political role in promoting anti-absolutist policy, lobbying the court for, among other things, the abolition of censorship.87 In Innsbruck the professors Albert Jäger and Alois Flir, among others, stood at the center of the struggle over the ques- tion of Tyrolean autonomy.88 In Cracow academic legions were organized by the professor of library sciences Józef Muczkowski and the physiolo- gist Józef Majer; in L’viv the librarian Franciszek Stroński and the chemist at the technical academy, Friedrich Rochleder, led the academic legion.89 And in Pest professors were involved in the revolution on the side of the Hungarian party and supported independent reforms of the universities.90 However, political participation also brought negative outcomes for the uni- versities: for example, the university buildings in Vienna and L’viv were closed, the first owing to a political decision seeking to counter the pos- sibility of student gatherings in the city center, the latter owing to serious damage during the bombardment of the city.91 Prominent supporters of the Hungarian Revolution, including some university lecturers, had to leave the country after the revolution failed. Most professors were, however, swiftly reinstated, as were other officials who initially experienced repercussions after 1848–49.92 Petitions remained the most useful and effective tool in the revolution, following the growing success of political negotiation, which gradually took the place of the mutiny-oriented revolutionary outbursts that had been issu- ing unconditional but barely acceptable demands. Even though the appeals raised in the petitions were not entirely successful, the mediation of multiple interests showed more promise than did military actions, although both the success of dialogue and the subsequent changes remained closely connected to the government’s assessment of the revolutionary demands. Determining what to include in the petitions led to dissension both be- tween professors and students and between faculties; the discussions brought