Page - 215 - in Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space

Chapter 5 ♦  215 was a prerequisite for professorial appointments, this was hardly possible at Slavic universities, simply because of a lack of universities in those re- gions. Here, short-term stays outside of scholars’ home provinces, funded by scholarships, took the place of more permanent relocations. In fact, the universities in Cracow, L’viv, and Prague acted in accordance with Bruno Latour’s model of centers of calculation, sending their scholars away to gather knowledge abroad and, later, bringing them back home.188 In this they were much more international than Vienna and Graz, whose scholars’ careers remained limited to German-language universities. One last detail should reinforce the idea of unity in the Cisleithanian space, namely, the picture of Vienna as the place in which Polish or Czech agitation was indulged. When Eduard Albert was denied a position in Prague but promoted to Vienna, the ministry gave a signal that did not go unnoticed by German nationalists. Albert was not the only nationalist activist promoted to Vienna. Jan Leciejewski, who habilitated in 1884 in Slavic philology, was presented in a report by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a well-known and influential Polish nationalist. The Ministry of Education confirmed this in its decision to appoint him, stating, however, that this “does not present an adequate foundation to disqualify Leciejewski from a teaching post, es- pecially as Vienna was not an expedient place for national Polish agitation, and it did not seem clear how Leciejewski could foment national discord as a Privatdozent for Slavic philology at the University of Vienna.”189 Although the situation was aggravated at the turn of the century, the University of Vienna remained the most open university for scholars of other nationalities, especially owing to its tradition of Slavic philology and a num- ber of nationalist students’ organizations that were approved.190 Vienna was also positively connected to Slavic parts of the empire, compared to Graz or Innsbruck, especially because the number of Polish and Czech schol- ars who habilitated in Vienna was considerably higher. Scholars depicted Vienna as the most secure place to be during these volatile times, an image that remained powerful after 1918 as well.191 As I show in the next chap- ter, Vienna, the imperial capital, was positioned as a safe harbor for many groups, although one has to be cautious: the reality did not always conform to this image, and we must inquire as to what the consequences would have been for the scholars themselves.