Page - 263 - in Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space

Chapter 7 ♦  263 German University in Prague, which gradually turned toward Germany; after World War II, it became a domain of German and not Austrian histo- rians. However, since universities in Czechoslovakia and Poland employed scholars with experience in various provinces of the Habsburg Empire, it is not hard to imagine that contacts that had developed during the imperial period survived and were a substantial factor facilitating future cooperation. The reorientation of the Polish academic landscape toward the West meant intensified cooperation with scientific centers in France, Great Britain, and the United States, at the cost of sustaining postimperial con- nections. At the Jagiellonian University, academic exchanges with Austria and Hungary, or even guest lectures, did not play any substantial role in the interwar period.96 The official statistics on academic travel (for training in a specialization, research, a longer archival trip, or the like) published in 1927 show a clear predominance of visits to France, but Austria was still an im- portant travel destination, although the inclusion of archival research means the statistics are slightly distorted.97 Similar statistics for Czech universities show a comparable leaning toward France.98 Similarly, Polish-Czechoslovak contacts became fewer. The seven-day Polish-Czechoslovak war of 1919, ongoing conflicts over the partition of Silesia, Czech Russophilism, and political support for the Ukrainian cause overshadowed the official relations between the two neighboring states.99 By the 1930s, even the Polish consul in Prague could hardly present any considerable academic collaborations, except for the then newly established student exchange programs and courses for Czechs in Poland.100 This does not mean such interactions did not take place, however. Indeed, as far as vis- iting scholars in Czechoslovakia are concerned, the number of guests from Poland was the second highest, behind those from France.101 In addition, a chair of Polish language and history, a novelty in comparison with the late Habsburg monarchy, was installed in Prague, and a chair for Czechoslovak in Warsaw.102 While the interwar period was not the best time to tighten relations be- tween neighboring countries, the war had not destroyed the entanglements from the Habsburg period. In all post-Habsburg relations, however, it was personal connections that made academic relations possible, rather than state support or exchange policies. For example, the cooperation between Viennese and L’viv-Warsaw neopositivist philosophers—the L’viv-Warsaw school of analytical philosophy and the Vienna Circle (Wiener Kreis)—resulted from Kazimierz Twardowski’s contacts with Vienna. Their cooperation included