Abstract
In the late 19th century, Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, undertook to strengthen, on the basis of scholarly principles, the weakened inner cohesion of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and publish a 20 volume series, in German and in Hungarian, “The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in word and picture”, or “Kronprinzenwerk” (“The Crown Prince’s Work”), as it was known. The series attempted to provide scientific argumentation to prove the spiritual unity of the peoples living in Central Europe and their difference from other groups. After the volumes were published, as a result of monumental changes that occurred in the early 20th century, new literatures were born in Central and Eastern Europe, the old ones entered a new phase and the highest levels of world literature. The last representatives of the era, however, did not follow the earlier examples and the collectivism and shared homeland consciousness suggested by the Monarchy and turned towards subjectivism. They uncovered previously untouched depths of the soul and of language in their works, fighting old age, death, suicide, fear, depression, inexpressibility, and the feeling of helplessness.
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Notes
The volumes of Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918. Wien: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1973–2014, published by the Austrian Academy, cover the topics of earlier series only partly and follow its outlook even less.
Cf. the theme of the father in the literature of the Austria–Hungary.
Du Bos’s (1719, II, 16–18) theory regarding the direct connection between the human body and quality of spiritual activity had a significant influence later. “Après tout ce que je viens d’exposer il est plus que vrai-semblable, que le génie particulier à chaque peuple, dépend des qualitez de l’air qu’il respire. On a donc raison d’accuser le climat de la disette de génies et d’esprits propres à certaines choses, qui se fait remarquer chez certaines nations. la temperature des climats chauds, dit le chevalierChardin énerve l’esprit comme le corps… etc.”. It reverberates in various richer and deeper ways in writings that defined 18th–19th century people’s sense of modernity, e.g. in Montesquieu’s theory of society and law (De l’esprit des lois 1748), Winckelmann’s ideal of Greek beauty (Geschichte der Kunst des Alterturms, 1764), Herder’s philosophy of history (Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, 1784–91), Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776) and others.
Czoenig Czernhausen (2010). 1855–1857. The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in Word and Picture 9–14. Cf. Modernism: representations of national culture, edited by Ahmet Ersoy, Maciej Górny and Vangelis Kechriotis. Budapest-New York: Central European University Press, III/2.vol. 10.
According to the letter published in the Appendix attached to volume 4 announcing the death of the heir to the throne, Rudolf characterized the whole of the monumental effort primarily as ethnographic.
“Komposition! Als ob es ein Stück Kuchen oder Biskuit wäre, das man aus Eiern, Mehl und Zucker zusammenrührt! Eine geistige Schöpfung ist es, das Einzelne wie das Ganze aus einem Geiste und Guß und vom Hauche eines Lebens durchdrungen, wobei der Produzierende keineswegs versuchte und stückelte und nach Willkür verfuhr, sondern wobei der dämonische Geist seines Genies ihn in der Gewalt hatte, so dass er ausführen musste, was jener gebot” (20. Juni 1831, Eckermann 1993, 707). For more on the issue, see, Pál 2012, pp. 146–151.
Vol. 9. Zrínyi “is among the most pleasant characters [of Hungarian literature], who served this country with his sword and his pen … fighting for national independence (against the Ottoman Turks)” (AHMWP IX. pp. 269–272).
AHMWP XXI. p. 121, chapter titled Intellectual life.
Apih 1988. p. 76. (chapter titled La città liberale nazionale).
After the death of the founder, Giuseppe Valeriano Vannetti in 1764, Empress Maria Theresa, who supported the Academy, wanted the scientists to engage in trade- and economy theoretical activity (i.e. in activity that directly assisted the interests of the empire), but the members of the academy rejected that.
He was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in early June 2007.
AHMWP IX. p. 316. The author of the summary on Hungarian literary history is János Váczy.
A summary of the last chapter of Michelstaedter 2007.
Alla sorella Paola (1910)
He changed his name from Ettore Schmitz, “Italian Swabian”.
Svevo (1969, p. 944). June 26, 1915: La guerra m’ha raggiunto! Io che stavo a sentire le storie di guerra come se si fosse trattato di una guerra di altri tempi di cui era divertente parlare, ma sarebbe stato sciocco di preoccuparsi, ecco che vi capitai in mezzo stupefatto e nello stesso tempo stupito di non essermi accorto prima che dovevo esservi prima o poi coinvolto. Io avevo vissuto in piena calma in un fabbricato di cui il pianoterra bruciava e non avevo previsto che prima o poi tutto il fabbricato con me si sarebbe sprofondato nelle fiamme.
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Pál, J. On the ethos of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Neohelicon 45, 1–15 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-018-0432-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-018-0432-2