Page - 73 - in Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space
Image of the Page - 73 -
Text of the Page - 73 -
Chapter 2 ♦ 73
Catholic, activity, Thun-Hohenstein created two new chairs of history at the
universities, one for general history and one for Austrian history.
Interestingly, this division of chairs denoted the preferred orientation
of the nominees. While the chairs of Austrian history at the various uni-
versities were filled with Catholic historians born in the Habsburg Empire,
Thun-Hohenstein did not hesitate to promote foreign and Protestant scholars
to cover lectures in general history. The most prominent chairs, as well as
the directorship of the IAHR, were clearly reserved for Catholics, including
exponents of Catholic conservativism who, owing to their activism in favor
of Catholic conservatism, had had to leave other universities in the German
Confederation. The best known were a few members of the Görres Circle, an
antiliberal movement propagating political Catholicism in Munich, who lost
their positions because of their involvement in conservative Catholic protests
against Ludwig I’s affair with the Irish dancer Lola Montez.121
Especially with regard to specialists in the auxiliary sciences of history,
almost absent from Habsburg scholarship in the Vormärz, Thun-Hohenstein
was flexible in applying the denominational rules. He was even willing to
nominate Protestant scholars to the University of Vienna, which was pri-
marily a Catholic institution. In 1849 he stressed that the chair of history
in Vienna should be awarded to Catholics,122 but in 1857 he appointed a
specialist in auxiliary sciences of history, Theodor Sickel, as an associ-
ate professor and a leading member of the IAHR, even though the young
scholar had been born in Prussia, was Protestant, and was even suspected
of spying for France.123 One must add, however, that Sickel was not Thun-
Hohenstein’s first choice and that he had been living in Vienna for a few
years before his appointment, teaching paleography at the IAHR.124 Through
Sickel, the IAHR became the central European institution for the critical
discipline of document research, its proclaimed aim being to rebuff the
teleological-philosophical approaches that had predominated in historical
research before 1848.
Such nominations were possible only through personal contacts and
protection, something, as I show later, that was vital for developing careers
in the 1850s. To ensure that candidates had the proper ideological conscious-
ness, Thun-Hohenstein relied on a network of trusted sympathizers, who
in turn corresponded with scholars abroad. One such person was Johann
Böhmer, a famous historian working in Frankfurt am Main, known for his
strong aversion to Prussian Protestantism.125
back to the
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