Page - 78 - in Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space

78 ♦  Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 from 1848 and in L’viv from 1851, when the position holders were removed for political reasons.149 The universities were trying to push through Polish luminaries, most of whom were politically unacceptable to the ministry.150 In turn, the scholars whom Thun-Hohenstein wanted to appoint to these positions declined.151 In the case of renowned writer and journalist Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, although the ministry, the university, and the nomi- nee agreed on terms, the Russian government refused to issue him a visa, thwarting the appointment. Finally, with some hesitation on all sides, Thun- Hohenstein agreed to promote the long-term auxiliary professor152 of the Jagiellonian University, Karol Mecherzyński, to a full professorship.153 Negotiating directly with Thun-Hohenstein, Antoni Małecki was relocated from Innsbruck to L’viv the following year, changing his primary des- ignation from classical to Slavic philology.154 Both scholars were in line with the ministerial ideas on language research, clearly not fulfilling the nationalist activists’ hopes that these chairs would be conduits of national propaganda.155 Małecki, educated as a grammarian, learned Old Church Slavic and then used Miklošič’s formal approach to languages as the basis for his own grammatical texts on Polish.156 Mecherzyński’s research con- centrated more on language than on literature, and his publications on the influences of Latin and German on the development of Polish confirmed his interest in comparative studies.157 The question of chairs of German literature and language arose only af- ter professors of Slavic languages had been appointed. Since German was the language of the monarchy, this might come as a surprise; however, language teaching was the domain of readers (Lektoren), and lectures on German were also held by professors of comparative philology. Moreover, German had been taught under the guise of aesthetics or rhetoric (Beredsamkeit) at Habsburg universities. German studies, in its newer philological form, was also very political, concentrating on luminaries and historical continuities and facilitating the spread of a pan-German consciousness to which the Habsburg monarchy was averse. The strategy of depoliticizing linguistic disciplines in German stud- ies was similar to that used in Slavic studies. First, only grammarians and philologists from abroad were nominated, with the focus clearly more on lan- guage than on literature. In most cases, the ministry preferred scholars with clear research interests in Catholic topics.158 Here, some Catholic writers were appointed even if they lacked a formal education.159 Second, Thun- Hohenstein’s first choices were local scholars or scholars with long-standing