Central European Studies – serie
Visar alla böcker i serien Central European Studies. Handla med fri frakt och snabb leverans.
70 produkter
70 produkter
Seize the Book, Jail the Author
Johann Lorenz Schmidt and Censorship in Eighteenth-century Germany
Inbunden, Engelska, 1998
256 kr
Skickas inom 11-20 vardagar
Under the patronage of two south German nobles, Johann Lorenz Schmidt published an annotated translation of the Bible's opening books in 1735. The story of the controversy the work aroused and of its eventual suppression sheds light on many aspects of the eighteenth century, as well as the nature of censorship in our time.
Aristocratic Redoubt
The Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office on the Eve of the First World War
Häftad, Engelska, 1998
215 kr
Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar
Aristocratic Redoubt: The Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office on the Eve of the First World War is a study of the nobility who served in the foreign office prior to World War I. Following the lead of historians who are reexamining pre-industrial elites in England and Germany, Godsey deals with such facets of aristocratic life as education, wealth, religion, and ethnicity. He contends that although the pre-war aristocracy has been stereotyped as frivolous and decadent, the Austro-Hungarian nobility, and thus the monarchy, in fact had great staying power. This work is a social history of the bureaucracy of the Ballhausplatz primarily in the decade leading up to 1914, though it provides a thorough overview of the service during the entire Dualist period.
271 kr
Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar
The army was perhaps the most important single institution in the multinational empire of the Hapsburgs. The Austro-Hungarian dynasty survived through the military power it could command, and the rise and fall of the fortress of the Hapsburgs were mirrored accurately in the state of its military establishment. It was in the army alone, with its common language, ideals, and loyalty, that the concept of a great empire headed by an emperor was even partially translated into reality. But in an age of nationalism, the army alone could not save the multinational state. Tradition and circumstance cast it into the role of a loyal servant the Emperor Francis Joseph and his dynasty, a role which proved inadequate to deal with the problems of the age. Rothenberg's work is the first analytical, full-length study of the army of Francis Joseph throughout its history from 1815-1918. He considers campaigns, battles, and leaders, but places his main emphasis on analyses of the overall developments in the military establishment, its role in foreign and internal policy, and above all on its struggle against the disintegration of the empire under the strain of growing national division.
271 kr
Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar
Treadway's work is the first comprehensive study of Montenegro's relations with her Great-Power neighbors on the eve of WWI.
209 kr
Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar
Pietas Austriaca studies the relationship between religious beliefs and practices and Habsburg political culture from the end of the medieval period to the early 20th century. In this seminal work, Anna Coreth examines the ways that Catholic beliefs in the power of the Eucharist, the cross, the Virgin Mary and saints were crucial for the Habsburg ruling dynasties in Austria and Spain. Coreth analyses how leading Habsburg rulers in the early modern period used Catholic sacraments, rituals and symbols to create a sense of identity and political purpose for their far-flung possessions in Europe. She also demonstrates how this Catholic culture drew on earlier models of pious Catholic rulers, especially on the memory of Rudolph. In addition, the book discusses the importance of this particular brand of Catholic piety in the confrontation with Protestantism in the Counter-reformation period and in the encounter with the Muslim Turkish Empire. Coreth extends her study to discuss the myriad of ways that this religious culture continued to influence Austrian society in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Staging the Past
The Politics of Commemoration in Habsburg Central Europe, 1848 to the Present
Häftad, Engelska, 2001
271 kr
Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar
This volume contains three sections of essays which examine the role of commemoration and public celebrations in the creation of a national identity in Habsburg lands. It also seeks to engage historians of culture and of nationalism in other geographic fields as well as colleagues who work on Habsburg Central Europe, but write about nationalism from different vantage points. There is hope that this work will help generate a dialogue, especially with colleagues who live in the regions that were analyzed. Many of the authors consider the commemorations discussed in this volume from very different points of view, as they themselves are strongly rooted in a historical context that remains much closer to the nationalism we critique.
Naval Policy of Austria-Hungary 1867-1918
Navalism, Industrial Development, and the Politics of Dualism
Häftad, Engelska, 1994
326 kr
Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar
This detailed study charts the uneven growth of the Austrian navy from its high point following Archduke Ferdinand Max's administration and the War of 1866 to its ultimate dissolution after World War 1. In following this development, Lawrence Sondhaus not only relates the operational aspects of the Habsburg navy but also traces the growth of popular navalism in Austria-Hungary, the role of naval expansion in stimulating industrial development, and the peculiar difficulties of navy commanders in dealing with the Habsburg nationality problem and the cumbersome politics of Austro-Hungarian dualism.
Ambivalence of Identity
The Austrian Experience of Nation-building in a Modern Society
Inbunden, Engelska, 2001
332 kr
Skickas inom 11-20 vardagar
The Ambivalence of Identity examines nation-building in Austria and uses the Austrian experience to explore the conceptual foundations of nationhood. Traditionally, Hapsburg, Austria, has provided the background for these works. In the course of this study it should become clear that Republican Austria is as valuable in understanding national identity as its monarchic predecessor.Historical interpretations to Austrian nation-building gives the Austrian experience special relevance for the larger debate about the nature of history. Such aspects in the analysis of the post-war Austrian nation-building are the role of consciousness during the building process, the role of neighboring countries, and the role of World War II.
279 kr
Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar
Concurrent with the dawn of multiparty politics in 1990, Mirko Pejanovic emerged in Bosnia-Herzegovina as the leader of the Socialist Alliance. His organization was in charge of implementing policies of the League of Communists. This memoir, beginning in 1990, tells the story of his experiences as a public and political leader. Through Bosnian Eyes covers a decade of Pejanovic's service. His role in public life was characterized by an unwavering commitment to national equality and strong convictions regarding the nature of a multiethnic Bosnia-Herzegovina. As a participant in the most important political events of the time, and as a colleague of every major political leader, the author conveys a personal history that is memorable for its insights into the neglected world of Serbs who remained loyal to the nation in trying times.
Silesia and Central European Nationalism
The Emergence of National and Ethnic Groups in Prussian Silesia and Austrian Silesia, 1848-1918
Häftad, Engelska, 2006
437 kr
Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar
The work analyzes the problems of nation building in the Central European region of Silesia during the years 1848-1918, which was influenced by Western European movements, especially German nationalism. The German ethnic model of nation building steeped in language and culture had been replicated in the case of Polish and Czech nationalisms. Silesia became a focal point as an area that was sought after by all three nations. Subsequent historiographies have treated Silesia and its population as a part of the three national histories. However, in reality, the German/Germanic-speaking Protestants began to identify themselves as Germans, but the Slavic-speaking Catholic Silesians did not fully recognize any of the three national influences and clung to their religious identity. Others developed specific ethnic identities connected to the ethnic groups of the Szlonzoks, the Slunzaks and the Morawecs. The groups remained prominent until the division of Silesia among Czechoslovakia, Germany, and Poland in 1919-22.
Pomp and Politics of Patriotism
Imperial Celebrations in Habsburg, Austria 1848-1916
Häftad, Engelska, 2006
326 kr
Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar
This book examines the promotion and reception of the image of Franz Joseph (Habsburg emperor from 1848 to 1916) as a symbol of common identity in the Austrian half of the Habsburg Monarchy (Cisleithania). In the second half of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century the promotion of the cult of the emperor encouraged a Cisleithania-wide culture of imperial celebration. On Franz Joseph's birthdays and jubilees, cities produced special theater productions, torchlight parades, and ethnic/historical processions. Thousands of voluntary associations sponsored local festivities. Hundreds of thousands of villagers and townspeople set transparent portraits of Franz Joseph in illuminated windows. Publishers sold millions of commemorative books and pamphlets, and retailers offered busts, plaques, and mass-produced portraits of the emperor. The ability of the center to control the meaning of Habsburg patriotism was limited, however. This study concentrates on the official presentation of the imperial cult as well as on the use or rejection of the image of the emperor by regional social and nationalist factions. It analyzes both the production of the cult of the emperor and its reception, illuminating the tension between national and supra-national identity in an age of expanding political participation.
382 kr
Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar
The German-speaking inhabitants of the Bohemian capital developed a group identification and defined themselves as a minority as they dealt with growing Czech political and economic strength in the city and with their own sharp numerical decline: in the 1910 census only seven percent of the metropolitan population claimed that they spoke primarily German. The study uses census returns, extensive police and bureaucratic records, newspaper accounts, and memoirs on local social and political life to show how the German minority and the Czech majority developed demographically and economically in relation to each other and created separate social and political lives for their group members. The study carefully traces the roles of occupation, class, religion, and political ideology in the formation of German group loyalties and social solidarities.
576 kr
Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar
This volume provides an historical overview of the relationship between Germany, German speakers, and successive waves of German colonists with their eastern neighbors over the period from the Middle Ages to the present. The collection of essays by 28 leading experts includes the most recent scholarship together with fresh perspectives on the subject. The problems and issues raised in this volume come as a result of different understandings of ""German"" and ""Germany"" from the Germanic tribes and German ""stem-duchies"" of the Middle Ages to the highly decentralized and multi-ethnic Holy Roman Empire of late medieval and early modern times and the German Confederation of the 1815-1866 period to the various forms of the German state from 1871 to the present. The relationship of German-speakers to their eastern non-German speaking neighbors, as well as that of ""Germany"" both to those neighbors and to German-speakers living beyond the borders of the modern German state are covered. In addition, some attention is given to the German perception of the ""East"" during this unfolding relationship. The Germans and the East is divided into five sections. The first section covers the medieval period which saw the first German colonial expansion eastward. The second section, devoted to the early modern period, reviews the role of German speakers in the development policies of enlightened absolutism. The third section looks at the problem during the age of emerging nationalism in the ""long"" nineteenth century from 1789 to 1914. The fourth and longest section covers the era of the two World Wars, including their aftermaths, which saw the expulsion of German-speakers from Eastern Europe. The final section addresses the relationship of Germany and Austria and their eastern neighbors from the Cold War to the new era of European integration.
State Collapse in South-Eastern Europe
New Perspectives on Yugoslavia's Disintegration
Häftad, Engelska, 2007
534 kr
Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar
State Collapse in Southeastern Europe: New Perspectives on Yugoslavia's Disintegration is a multidisciplinary approach exploring the historical antecedents and the dynamic process of Yugoslavia's violent dissolution, drawing upon the most recently available resources. The volume, a compilation by distinguished scholars, examines issues broadening our understanding of the Yugoslav case, and also sheds light on how to deal with future episodes of state fragility and failure. The book updates, enhances, and when necessary revises explanations that have already been offered for Yugoslavia's collapse. Moreover, fifteen years after the Yugoslav crisis, the volume fills in the "blank spots" in the historical record. This careful reevaluation of Yugoslav dissolution provides needed assistance to policy makers who are routinely faced with the challenge of forging or rebuilding coherent, stable, and democratic state institutions in deeply divided societies. After an introductory chapter, an overview of the scholarly literature on Yugoslavia's disintegration, the volume is divided into three parts: the first is focused on "The Historical Legacy," including the first, interwar, Yugoslav state, and the effects of the two world wars; the second, "The Socialist Legacy," examines the reopening of the "national question," the legacy of the 1971 Croatian spring and the role of intellectual elites; and the third part, "The Breakdown of the 1980s," analyzes the failure of "Yugoslavism" and the socialist federation's descent into violence. The volume concludes with a comparative survey of the factors that account for the collapse of the three federal socialist states at the outset of the 1990s: Yugoslavia, the USSR, and Czechoslovakia.
Empire and Identity
Biographies of the Austrian State Problem in the Late Habsburg Empire
Häftad, Engelska, 2008
355 kr
Skickas inom 11-20 vardagar
Empire and Identity is a novel approach to the critical last decades of the Habsburg Empire. The book is organized as three dual political biographies, each focusing a certain problem in the development of the Imperial Austrian state in the early twentieth century. The biographical approach also throws new light on the six examined individuals, whose scholarly, artistic, and bureaucratic careers are placed in a political context.
Balkan Anschluss
The Annexation of Montenegro and the Creation of the Common South Slavic State
Häftad, Engelska, 2007
382 kr
Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar
Balkan Anschluss tackles the thorny issue of the disappearance of Montenegro as a sovereign state in the course of and as a result of the First World War - a problem with clear contemporary relevance. In particular, Pavlovic investigates the ambiguous and often troubled relationship between two "Serb states," Montenegro with its ruling house of Petrovic-Njegos and Serbia with its ruling house of Karadjordjevic. At the same time, the book addresses the equally challenging question of Montenegrin national identity. The author examines in considerable detail the politics and power plays of numerous actors - Serbs, Montenegrins, and others. The author analyzes the activities of the Podgorica Assembly of November 1919, which proclaimed the union of Montenegro with Serbia in a greater Yugoslav polity. The author assesses the role(s) played by the various Great Powers during the Great War and the Paris Peace Conference that followed. The ultimate conclusion this book makes is that Montenegro was not so much "liberated" as it was "annexed" by Serbia at the end of World War I (the result of careful calculation on the part of certain Serbian leaders, including Prime Minister Nikola Pasic) - and that the people of Montenegro were denied an opportunity to exercise self-determination according to internationally recognized norms. Indeed, the world community - i.e., the Great Powers at Paris - turned a blind eye to Montenegro.
785 kr
Skickas inom 11-20 vardagar
Mitrovic's volume fills the gap in Balkan history by presenting an in-depth look at Serbia and its role in WWI. The Serbian experience was in fact of major significance in this war. In the interlocking development of the wartime continent, Serbia's plight is part of a European jigsaw. Also, the First World War was crucial as a stage in the construction of Serbian national mythology in the twentieth century.
534 kr
Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar
The disintegration of Yugoslavia was the result of many factors, not of a single one, but the primary one - the author argues - was commitment of the Yugoslav political elite to the Marxist ideology of ""withering away of the state."" Ideology had a central place in Yugoslav politics. The trend of decentralization of Yugoslavia was not primarily motivated by reasons of ethnic politics, but by Marxist beliefs that the state should be decentralized and weakened until it was finally replaced by a self-managing society, especially the case during the extended period of the last 15 years before the actual breakdown of Yugoslav socialist federation.Yugoslavia: A State that Withered Away examines the emergence, implementation, crisis and the breakdown of the fourth (Kardelj's) constitutive concept of Yugoslavia (1974-1990), and relations between anti-statist ideology of self-management and the actual collapse of state institutions. Based on interviews with key members of former Yugoslavia's political elite, documents and other primary sources, the book reconstructs the elite's motives and reasons for the actions that led to state collapse. Contrary to the dominant explanation of the collapse of Yugoslavia, the book argues that Yugoslavia did not collapse primarily because of the complexity of its ethnic structure, of changes in the international environment, or of a deep economic crisis. Although these factors provided the context in which the elite operated, it was the elite's perception of these problems that decisively influenced their decisions
Habsburg Lemberg
Architecture, Public Space, and Politics in the Galician Capital, 1772-1914
Häftad, Engelska, 2008
534 kr
Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar
When Austria annexed Galicia during the first partition of Poland in 1772, the province's capital Lemberg was a decaying Baroque town. By the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Lemberg had become a booming city with a modern, urban and, at the same time, distinctly Habsburg flavor. In the process of the ""long"" nineteenth century both Lemberg's appearance and the use of public space changed remarkably. The city center was transformed into a showcase of modernity and a site of conflicting symbolic representations, while other areas were left decrepit, overcrowded and neglected.""Habsburg Lemberg: Architecture, Public Space, and Politics in the Galician Capital, 1772-1914"" reveals that behind a variety of national, and positivist historical narratives of Lemberg - and of its architecture - there always existed a city that was labeled ""cosmopolitan"" yet ""provincial;"" and a Vienna, but still ""of the East."" Buildings, streets, parks and monuments became part and parcel of a complex set of culturally driven politics. The modern architecture influenced the portrayal of the Lemberg populace as much more sophisticated than they actually were.
Of Mind and Matter
The Duality of National Identity in the German-Danish Borderlands
Häftad, Engelska, 2009
326 kr
Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar
Of Mind and Matter analyzes identity formation in the multicultural border region of Sleswig. It highlights the changeability of national sentiments and explores what has motivated local inhabitants to define themselves as Germans or Danes. The analysis focuses especially on the respective national minorities, among whom the transitional and flexible aspects of Sleswig identity surface most clearly. The study investigates national sentiments in a border region from a theoretical and comparative perspective. It relies on diverse forms of historical evidence, including quantitative sources such as language statistics and election results, but also more subjective sources such as personal life stories and interviews. The study pays equal attention to German and Danish source material. ""Of Mind and Matter"" adds important new angles to the literature on national identity in border areas and fills a conspicuous gap in English-language historiography, which completely lacks modern analyses of Sleswig history.
Hugo Von Hofmannsthal and the Austrian Ideal
Selected Essays and Addresses, 1906-1027
Häftad, Engelska, 2011
302 kr
Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar
The Austrian writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929) was one of the great modernists in the German language, but his importance as a major intellectual of the early twentieth century has not received adequate attention in the English-speaking world. One distinguished literary scholar of his generation called Hofmannsthal a spiritual-moral authority of a kind German culture had only rarely produced. This volume provides translations of essays that deal with the Austrian idea and with the distinctive position of German-speaking Austrians between German nationalism and peoples to the East, whether in the Habsburg Monarchy or beyond it, as well as essays that locate Hofmannsthal's thinking about Austria in relation to the broader situation of German and European culture. It is the true accomplishment of this translation that Hofmannsthal's language, recreated in a clear and elegant English, regains its melody of an earlier time. If there ever was a captivating documentation of the European potential of Austria beyond the stereotypes of Vienna at 1900, it has been brought together in this volume of essays that responded to the tragic challenges of World War I in a constructive way. Frank Trommler, University of Pennsylvania
409 kr
Skickas inom 11-20 vardagar
In the late spring of 1718 near the village of Požarevac (German Passarowitz) in northern Serbia, freshly conquered by Habsburg forces, three delegations representing the Holy Roman Emperor, Ottoman Sultan, and the Republic of Venice gathered to end the conflict that had begun three and a half years earlier. The fighting had spread throughout southeastern Europe, from Hungary to the southernmost tip of the Peloponnese. The peace redrew the map of the Balkans, extending the reach of Habsburg power, all but expelling Venice from the Greek mainland, and laying the foundations for Ottoman revitalisation during the Tulip period. In this volume, twenty specialists analyse the military background to and political context of the peace congress and treaty. They assess the immediate significance of the Peace of Passarowitz and its longer term influence on the society, demography, culture, and economy of central Europe.
610 kr
Skickas inom 3-6 vardagar
The Memory Factory introduces an English-speaking public to the significant women artists of Vienna at the turn of the twentieth century, each chosen for her aesthetic innovations and participation in public exhibitions. These women played important public roles as exhibiting artists, both individually and in collectives, but this history has been silenced over time. Their stories show that the city of Vienna was contradictory and cosmopolitan: despite men-only policies in its main art institutions, it offered a myriad of unexpected ways for women artists to forge successful public careers. Women artists came from the provinces, Russia, and Germany to participate in its vibrant art scene. However, and especially because so many of the artists were Jewish, their contributions were actively obscured beginning in the late 1930s. Many had to flee Austria, losing their studios and lifework in the process. Some were killed in concentration camps. Along with the stories of individual women artists, the author reconstructs the history of separate women artists' associations and their exhibitions. Chapters covering the careers of Tina Blau, Elena Luksch-Makowsky, Bronica Koller, Helene Funke, and Teresa Ries (among others) point to a more integrated and cosmopolitan art world than previously thought; one where women became part of the avant-garde, accepted and even highlighted in major exhibitions at the Secession and with the Klimt group.
437 kr
Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar
It has been two decades since Yugoslavia fell apart. The brutal conflicts that followed its dissolution are over, but the legacy of the tragedy continues to unsettle the region. Reconciliation is a long and difficult process that necessitates a willingness to work together openly and objectively in confronting the past. Over the past ten years the Scholars’ Initiative has assembled an international consortium of historians, social scientists, and jurists to examine the salient controversies that still divide the peoples of former Yugoslavia. The findings of its eleven research teams represent a direct assault on the proprietary narratives and interpretations that nationalist politicians and media have impressed on mass culture in each of the successor states. Given gaps in the historical record and the existence of sometimes contradictory evidence, this volume does not pretend to resolve all of the outstanding issues. Nevertheless, this second edition incorporates new evidence and major developments that have taken place in the region since the first edition went to press. At the heart of this project has always been the insistence of the authors that they would continue to reconsider their analyses and conclusions based on credible new evidence. Thus, in this second edition, the work of the Scholars' Initiative continues. The broadly conceived synthesis will assist scholars, public officials, and the people they represent both in acknowledging inconvenient facts and in discrediting widely held myths that inform popular attitudes and the electoral success of nationalist politicians who profit from them. Rather than rely on special pleading and appeals to patriotism that have no place in scholarship, the volume vests its credibility in the scientific credentials of its investigators, the transparent impartiality of its methodology, and an absolute commitment to soliciting and examining evidence presented by all sides.
Composing the Party Line
Music and Politics in Early Cold War Poland and East Germany
Häftad, Engelska, 2013
437 kr
Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar
This book examines the exercise of power in the Stalinist music world as well as the ways in which composers and ordinary people responded to it. It presents a comparative inquiry into the relationship between music and politics in the German Democratic Republic and Poland from the aftermath of World War II through Stalin’s death in 1953, concluding with the slow process of de-Stalinisation in the mid- to late-1950s. The author explores how the Communist parties in both countries expressed their attitudes to music of all kinds, and how composers, performers, and audiences cooperated with, resisted, and negotiated these suggestions and demands. Based on a deep analysis of the archival and contemporary published sources on state, party, and professional organisations concerned with musical life, Tompkins argues that music, as a significant part of cultural production in these countries, played a key role in instituting and maintaining the regimes of East Central Europe. As part of the Stalinist project to create and control a new socialist identity at the personal as well as collective level, the ruling parties in East Germany and Poland sought to saturate public space through the production of music. Politically effective ideas and symbols were introduced that furthered their attempts to, in the parlance of the day, “engineer the human soul.” Music also helped the Communist parties establish legitimacy. Extensive state support for musical life encouraged musical elites and audiences to accept the dominant position and political missions of these regimes. Party leaders invested considerable resources in the attempt to create an authorised musical language that would secure and maintain hegemony over the cultural and wider social worlds. The responses of composers and audiences ran the gamut from enthusiasm to suspicion, but indifference was not an option.
437 kr
Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar
Known as Lemberg in German and Lwów in Polish, the city of L’viv in modern Ukraine was in the crosshairs of imperial and national aspirations for much of the twentieth century. This book tells the compelling story of how its inhabitants (Roman Catholic Poles, Greek Catholic Ukrainians, and Jews) reacted to the sweeping political changes during and after World Wars I and II. The Eastern Front shifted back and forth, and the city changed hands seven times. At the end of each war, L'viv found itself in the hands of a different state.While serious tensions had existed among Poles, Ukrainians/Ruthenians, and Jews in the city, before 1914 eruptions of violence were still infrequent. The changes of political control over the city during World War I led to increased intergroup frictions, new power relations, and episodes of shocking violence, particularly against Jews. The city’s incorporation into the independent Polish Republic in November 1918 after a brief period of Ukrainian rule sparked intensified conflict. Ukrainians faced discrimination and political repression under the new government, and Ukrainian nationalists attacked the Polish state. In the 1930s, anti-Semitism increased sharply. During World War II, the city experienced first Soviet rule, then Nazi occupation, and finally Soviet conquest. The Nazis deported and murdered nearly all of the city’s large Jewish population, and at the end of the war the Soviet forces expelled the city’s Polish inhabitants.Based on archival research conducted in L’viv, Kiev, Warsaw, Vienna, Berlin, and Moscow, as well as an array of contemporary printed sources and scholarly studies, this book examines how the inhabitants of the city reacted to the changes in political control, and how ethnic and national ideologies shaped their dealings with each other. An earlier German version of this volume was published as Kriegserfahrungen in einer multiethnischen Stadt: Lemberg 1914?1947 (2011).
Center Stage
Operatic Culture and Nation Building in Nineteenth-Century Central Europe
Häftad, Engelska, 2014
437 kr
Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar
Grand palaces of culture, opera theaters marked the center of European cities like the cathedrals of the Middle Ages. As opera cast its spell, almost every European city and society aspired to have its own opera house, and dozens of new theaters were constructed in the course of the "long" nineteenth century. At the time of the French Revolution in 1789, only a few, mostly royal, opera theaters, existed in Europe. However, by the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries nearly every large town possessed a theater in which operas were performed, especially in Central Europe, the region upon which this book concentrates. This volume, a revised and extended version of two well-reviewed books published in German and Czech, explores the social and political background to this "opera mania" in nineteenth century Central Europe. After tracing the major trends in the opera history of the period, including the emergence of national genres of opera and its various social functions and cultural meanings, the author contrasts the histories of the major houses in Dresden (a court theater), Lemberg (a theater built and sponsored by aristocrats), and Prague (a civic institution). Beyond the operatic institutions and their key stage productions, composers such as Carl Maria von Weber, Richard Wagner, Bed?ich Smetana, Stanis?aw Moniuszko, Antonín Dvo?ák, and Richard Strauss are put in their social and political contexts. The concluding chapter, bringing together the different leitmotifs of social and cultural history explored in the rest of the book, explains the specificities of opera life in Central Europe within a wider European and global framework.
437 kr
Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar
When seeking the origins of World War I, the chain of events in the late nineteenth century that led to the breakdown of relations between Austria-Hungary and Serbia and facilitated the rise of an aggressive Serbian nationalism needs to be understood. This book focuses on the hitherto unexplored Hungarian influence on the Habsburg Monarchy's policy toward Serbia after the 1867 Ausgleich, and it argues that this early period was critical in shaping policy after 1871, down to the imposition on Serbia in 1881 of a system of economic and political control.The Ausgleich, the Austro-Hungarian compromise that reconstituted the Empire as a dual monarchy, gave Hungary a limited voice in foreign affairs; and it was at the request of the Hungarian premier, Count Gyula Andrássy, that the young politician Benjámin Kállay was appointed representative at Belgrade in 1868. Both men were obsessed with the threat posed by Russia and particularly concerned that Serbia might be used as a stalking horse for Russian influence among the Monarchy's South Slavs. They pursued a shadow policy designed to draw Serbia firmly into the Monarchy's sphere of influence, which contradicted that of the foreign minister, Count Beust, and resulted in a serious deterioration in relations with Serbia by 1871. After 1871 Andrássy, as foreign minister, laid the foundations for a more explicit control of Serbia; Kállay, as a senior diplomat, negotiated the treaties that, by 1881, locked Serbia into satellite status for a generation.Through detailed archival research in multiple languages and a painstaking reconstruction of diplomatic events, Armour illuminates a crucial period in Central European history, showing how the origins of a war that claimed millions of lives can be traced to political maneuverings almost fifty years before.
437 kr
Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar
In late eighteenth-century Vienna a remarkable coterie of five aristocratic women, popularly known as the “five princesses,” achieved social preeminence and acclaim as close associates of the reforming Habsburg Emperor Joseph II. They were Princess Maria Josepha Clary (1728–1801); Princess Maria Sidonia Kinsky (1729–1815); Princess Maria Leopoldine Liechtenstein (1733–1809); Countess, subsequently Princess, Maria Leopoldine Kaunitz (1741–1795); and Princess Maria Eleonore Liechtenstein (1745–1812).The group assumed a stable form by 1772, by which time Joseph II and two of his closest male associates, Field Marshal Franz Moritz Lacy and Count Franz Xavier Orsini-Rosenberg, had become accepted members of the circle as well. During the Viennese social season, members of the group made their way several times each week to the inner city palace of one of the “Dames,” as members of the group called themselves. During the summer months, when the women dispersed to visit country estates in Bohemia and Moravia or to travel, group members corresponded regularly.These were exciting, restless years in the Habsburg monarchy, as reforms were implemented to help the monarchy withstand threats to its stability and international stature from without and within. With assured access to the emperor and his closest advisors, the Dames enjoyed both a unique view of events and a chance to participate in public affairs (albeit informally and discreetly) as steadfast, acknowledged friends of the emperor. Through analysis of the correspondence of these women and of the published and unpublished commentaries of their contemporaries, this study scrutinises the activities of this select group of women during the co-regency period (1765–1780) when Joseph shared responsibility with his mother, Maria Theresia, and during Joseph’s decade as sole ruler (1780–1790) after Maria Theresia’s death - years during which the women enjoyed their special position.
Universities in Imperial Austria 1848–1918
A Social History of a Multilingual Space
Häftad, Engelska, 2018
534 kr
Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar
Combining history of science and a history ofuniversities with the new imperial history, Universitiesin Imperial Austria 1848–1918: A Social History of a Multilingual Space by Jan Surman analyzes the practice of scholarly migration and its lastinginfluence on the intellectual output in the Austrian part of the HabsburgEmpire.The Habsburg Empire and its successor stateswere home to developments that shaped Central Europe's scholarship well into the twentieth century. Universities became centers of both state- and nation-building,as well as of confessional resistance, placing scholars if not in conflict,then certainly at odds with the neutral international orientation of academe.By going beyond national narratives, Surman reveals the Empire as a state with institutions divided by language but united by legislation, practices, and other influences. Such an approach allows readers a better view to how scholars turned gradually away from state-centric discourse to form distinct language communities after 1867; these influences affected scholarship, and by examining the scholarly record, Surman tracks the turn.Drawing on archives in Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Ukraine, Surman analyzes the careers of several thousandscholars from the faculties of philosophy and medicine of a number of Habsburguniversities, thus covering various moments in the history of the Empire forthe widest view. Universities in Imperial Austria 1848–1918 focuses on the tension between the political and linguistic spaces scholars occupied and shows that this tension did not lead to a gradual dissolution of the monarchy’s academia, but rather to an ongoing development of new strategies to cope with the cultural and linguistic multitude.