Page - 191 - in Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space

Chapter 5 ♦  191 dependent on German science and what the possibilities were for breaking this dependence. If the issue of transfers in the other direction was raised, it was only by Czechs, who questioned the necessity of bilingualism being applied in only one direction. Interestingly, Czech scholars regarded alternative channels of transfer and exchange as insufficient on their own. Contact with France, although frequent for political reasons, never led to an intensification of student exchanges or long-term fellowships.66 For fellowships, France was still more popular for Czechs than German-language Habsburg universities. Nevertheless, the German Empire topped the list, which indicates a gradual change from stays at other universities within the state to stays transgressing imperial boundaries in the late nineteenth century.67 Slavic reciprocity, after its initial boom up to 1860, now met with in- creasing skepticism.68 While they never denounced it as an important source, leading intellectuals saw inter-Slavic communication only as complemen- tary to maintaining and intensifying exchange with the ephemeral “western science.”69 Practical endeavors strengthening this cooperation were also only partially successful; for example, joint meetings of Polish and Czech physicians did not go beyond planning and courtesy visits,70 although po- litical reasons partially hindered such meetings, such as that planned for Poznań/Posen in 1898.71 Similarly, the creation of a St. Petersburg–led pan-Slavic Academy of Sciences, supported in Prague, was blocked for political reasons—in this case by Polish elites.72 Cooperation was more in- tense among the academies of sciences, with numerous nominations for members (e.g., there were fifteen Czech members in the Cracow Academy, and sixteen Polish members in the Czech Academy)73 and jointly planned archaeological expeditions.74 Galicia and the Cisleithanian Academic Space While the idea of appointing national scholars also dominated in Galicia, the patterns of scholarly exchange were different there than in Bohemia or at the German-language Habsburg universities. Outside the Habsburg Empire, there were many Polish-speaking scholars but few Polish-language academic institutions. Therefore, contact with other regions was quite one-sided and mostly oriented toward attracting the best Polish-speaking scholars to Galicia. At the same time, support for local students was strong,