Page - 105 - in Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space

Chapter 3 ♦  105 and placatory actions, such as the Galician Diet’s subsidy for the society Enlightenment, neither Czech nor Ruthenian nationalists could count on the fulfillment of their demands. The geographic overlap in these national projects, with L’viv being the desired cultural center for both Poles and Ruthenians, and Prague for both Czechs and Germans, as well as the sta- tistically proven national heterogeneity and the national pasts of both cities and institutions, confirmed by historical studies, made political influence crucial in decisions on the legitimacy of the wishes expressed. Language change at both universities was inextricably linked to secur- ing political stability. Since the autonomous universities were now under the control of a majority of scholars identifying with one national project, only political initiatives made a national balance possible, through acts establish- ing professorships and chairs. As noted before, the Ministry of Education was responsible for maintaining the Ruthenian chairs in L’viv when German was the language of teaching. Two other significant positions—a chair for eastern European history and a second chair of Ruthenian language and lit- erature—came into being out of political expediency, the first as the outcome of the Polish-Ruthenian Agreement of 1890, the second at the initiative of the governor of Galicia Kazimierz Badeni (1888–95), against fierce opposi- tion from the university.67 Similarly, in Prague the most significant gain for Czechs between 1850 and 1882 (when the university was divided) came in 1871. At this time, Minister of Education and Religion Jireček succeeded in appointing professors of physics, zoology, botany, and mineralogy who would teach in Czech. These nominations proceeded without consultation with the philosophical faculty, since, as the minister stated, the professors in the subjects in question at the Charles-Ferdinand University did not speak Czech and were thus unable to evaluate the writings of those he proposed.68 Also, the arguments for and against creating new universities showed a number of similarities. The objective trinity—law, history, and statistics— was mobilized by all the parties. Each of them utilized the “facts” of the existing legal order and “just” historical claims to the building and name, as well as statistical data, to support their own claims. Thus, according to the Ruthenians, the University of L’viv had been established in 1784 as a provincial (i.e., nationally neutral) institution; the Poles, in contrast, claimed that it was founded in 1661 by the “Polish” king Jan II Casimir.69 While nei- ther Czechs nor Germans questioned that the University of Prague had been established in 1348, they fiercely debated the identity and aims of its founder, Charles IV. It remained highly controversial whether Karl IV founded the