Page - 211 - in Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space

Chapter 5 ♦  211 pronouncedly nationalist scholars also occupied influential positions,173 something not possible in Cracow, where contentious scholars were disci- plined or removed from faculties. The difference in the ideological approaches of “progressive” L’viv and “clerical-conservative” Cracow is visible in various subjects such as his- tory and the biological disciplines (the latter owing to the politicization of Darwinism). In historiography two distinct schools emerged, differing in both methodological and political positions, which led to serious conflict at the Second Meeting of Polish Historians (II Zjazd Historyków Polskich) in L’viv in 1890. Cracow historians, according to their L’viv and Warsaw counterparts, concentrated on descriptive political history and criticized the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for its instability, conflicts, moral decay, and general underdevelopment. L’viv historians, especially the most influ- ential of them, Ksawery Liske, propagated a nation-centered historiography, accentuated the positive internal developments of the Commonwealth, saw the impact of imperial and dynastic geopolitics as responsible for the par- titions, and, more strongly than scholars from Cracow, argued the need for Polish independence.174 Although mediating positions were possible,175 there were almost no transfers between L’viv and Cracow in the historiographi- cal disciplines. The ideological division between the Galician universities should, however, be approached cautiously. In 1959 the Cracow philologist Kazimierz Nitsch, a self-described socialist, anticlerical, and “philoruthe- nian,” claimed in retrospect that his appointment to L’viv in 1908 had failed owing to precisely these three attributes. However, this did not hinder his appointment as an associate professor at the Jagiellonian University in 1910 or his appointment as a full professor in L’viv in 1914.176 The situation in Prague was similar, and here visions of the past had also determined current politics. While the German-Czech conflict was most influential until 1882, the creation of a linguistically exclusive univer- sity intensified internal conflicts within the Czech faculties. Already in the 1860s, the conflict lines ran between older Czech scholars, who supported the romantic-nationalist Old Czech Party (Staročeši, Národní strana), and the members of the Young Czech Party (Mladočeši, Národní strana svobodomyslná); the latter gained political influence in the Taaffe era (1879–93), allowing it to push through its candidates shortly before the university division in 1882.177 Discussions on the position of Czech culture and the shape of the “national idea”178 in particular brought out divisions within the university.