Page - 246 - in Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space

246 ♦  Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 remain uncontested, even among nationalist activists. Czech, Slovak, and Czechoslovak identities were debated in Czechoslovakia and partially con- flicted with each other, and in Poland a large number of people identified as tutejsi (literally, “from here”; that is, they defied national identification). Another question that shaped central Europe was how to deal with non- dominant groups within nationalizing states (such as the Jews, Ruthenians, and Germans in Poland).10 From Tyrol, to Lower Austria, to Bukovina, no post-Habsburg region was monocultural, at least until the ethnic cleansings during and after World War II.11 Indeed, academic institutions were unprepared for the final disinte- gration of the monarchy, and new regulations had to be created swiftly to accommodate the new political realities. Most universities and their faculties readily aligned themselves with the policies of the new states. In Galicia, by 1915 several scholars had already been sent to the newly opened univer- sity in Warsaw, and professors there were frequently politically active. In Austria universities readily and apparently happily accepted merging with Germany.12 The Viennese Deutsche Hochschul­ Zeitung (German university journal), both pro-German and anti-Semitic, saw German-Austrian recon- ciliation (Annäherung) during the war as the only way forward for German culture.13 In contrast, Habsburg scholars seemingly regarded the establish- ment of an Austrian state with uncertainty.14 Another area, Tyrol, was also at stake, and there the universities readily participated in continuing an imperial German nationalist discourse. Both the students and the faculties of the University of Innsbruck actively con- tributed to a propaganda war against “Italian imperialism.”15 Expert reports, memoranda, official participation in marches, and even personal letters to President Woodrow Wilson were used to pressure international politicians.16 The failure of these efforts (e.g., the loss of South Tyrol to Italy in 1920) and the reality of the new geographies led to an intensification of research, much like phantom limb syndrome, when one loses a limb but has the feel- ing that it is still there. The Institute of Historical Settlement and Regional Studies of the Alpine Countries (Institut für geschichtliche Siedlungs- und Heimatkunde der Alpenländer, established in 1923) has been described as one of the earliest manifestations of a völkisch (folkish, i.e., ideologically populist, ethnic, and racist) historiographical institution, while in Vienna both historians and members of the law faculty proposed the Austrian Anschluss (joining) to Germany.17