Imre Tarafás, Ph.D.
Assistant lecturer
Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
tarafas.imre@btk.elte.hu
Abstract for the conference Nationalism, War and Defeat
War, ‘Patriotism’ and Supranational Identity: Defining the Habsburg Monarchy during the
First World War
Several studies have been made about the impact of the First World War on national communities, whether they were on the side of the victors or on that of the defeated. The war itself is considered to have its essential origins and main ideological drive in the nationalism of
the citizens of the opposing nations.
Perhaps for this reason, it is much less discussed how during the war intellectuals in the Habsburg Monarchy, devoted to the empire, strove to elaborate an idea of the empire which could offer a form of collective identification that is capable of guaranteeing its survival.
In the long nineteenth century, the historian was charged with the task of showing the meaning of the past of their community, defining its mission and legitimating its existence in the present. Between 1914 and 1918, for the first time since the major crisis of the empire in 1848–49,
Austro–German historians devoted to the empire once again took upon themselves the task of defining and legitimating the monarchy. By analyzing the works of such scholars as Wilhelm Bauer, Alfons Dopsch or Richard von Kralik, as well as historical reviews such as Österreich Zeitschrift für Geschichte I will discuss the different attempts made at defining and legitimating the empire as a viable community for its nations. How did they define the mission of the empire? How could they integrate and legitimate the empire in the nation-obsessed world view of their times? Could they, or did they intend at all, to overcome the prevailing mindset which saw the nation as the essential and basic form of human community by elaborating new concepts?
Recent studies on the Habsburg Monarchy have broken with the idea that the empire was necessarily condemned to death by inner centrifugal forces, most important of which was the conflict of nationalities. Several scholars argue that the empire was in fact a viable entity and they pay special attention to the different ways in which scholars and other intellectuals strove to promote imperial identity. My presentation would contribute to these researches and would perhaps also offer a different perspective to the main concept of the conference.