Austrian Historical Memory and National Identity

Austrian Historical Memory and National Identity PDF Author: Gunter Bischof
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351315102
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 537

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Book Description
When the Hapsburg monarchy disintegrated after World War I, Austria was not considered to be a viable entity. In a vacuum of national identity the hapless country drifted toward a larger Germany. After World War II, Austrian elites constructed a new identity based on being a "victim" of Nazi Germany. Cold war Austria, however, envisioned herself as a neutral "island of the blessed" between and separate from both superpower blocs. Now, with her membership in the European Union secured, Austria is reconstructing her painful historical memory and national identity. In 1996 she celebrates her 1000-year anniversary. In this volume of Contemporary Austrian Studies, Franz Mathis and Brigitte Mazohl-Wallnig argue that regional identities in Austria have deeper historical roots than the many artificial and ineffective attempts to construct a national identity. Heidemarie Uhl, Anton Pelinka, and Brigitte Bailer discuss the post-World War II construction of the victim mythology. Robert Herzstein analyses the crucial impact of the 1986 Waldheim election imploding Austria's comforting historical memory as a "nation of victims." Wolfram Kaiser shows Austria's difficult adjustments to the European Union and the larger challenges of constructing a new "European identity." Chad Berry's analysis of American World War II memory establishes a useful counterpoint to construction of historical memory in a different national context. A special forum on Austrian intelligence studies presents a fascinating reconstruction by Timothy Naftali of the investigation by Anglo-American counterintelligence into the retreat of Hitler's troops into the Alps during World War II. Rudiger Overmans' "research note" presents statistics on lower death rates of Austrian soldiers in the German army. Review essays by Gunther Kronenbitter and Gunter Bischof, book reviews, and a 1995 survey of Austrian politics round out the volume. Austrian Historical Memory and National Identity will be of intense interest to foreign policy analysts, historians, and scholars concerned with the unique elements of identity and nationality in Central European politics.

Austrian Historical Memory and National Identity

Austrian Historical Memory and National Identity PDF Author: Gunter Bischof
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351315102
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 537

Get Book Here

Book Description
When the Hapsburg monarchy disintegrated after World War I, Austria was not considered to be a viable entity. In a vacuum of national identity the hapless country drifted toward a larger Germany. After World War II, Austrian elites constructed a new identity based on being a "victim" of Nazi Germany. Cold war Austria, however, envisioned herself as a neutral "island of the blessed" between and separate from both superpower blocs. Now, with her membership in the European Union secured, Austria is reconstructing her painful historical memory and national identity. In 1996 she celebrates her 1000-year anniversary. In this volume of Contemporary Austrian Studies, Franz Mathis and Brigitte Mazohl-Wallnig argue that regional identities in Austria have deeper historical roots than the many artificial and ineffective attempts to construct a national identity. Heidemarie Uhl, Anton Pelinka, and Brigitte Bailer discuss the post-World War II construction of the victim mythology. Robert Herzstein analyses the crucial impact of the 1986 Waldheim election imploding Austria's comforting historical memory as a "nation of victims." Wolfram Kaiser shows Austria's difficult adjustments to the European Union and the larger challenges of constructing a new "European identity." Chad Berry's analysis of American World War II memory establishes a useful counterpoint to construction of historical memory in a different national context. A special forum on Austrian intelligence studies presents a fascinating reconstruction by Timothy Naftali of the investigation by Anglo-American counterintelligence into the retreat of Hitler's troops into the Alps during World War II. Rudiger Overmans' "research note" presents statistics on lower death rates of Austrian soldiers in the German army. Review essays by Gunther Kronenbitter and Gunter Bischof, book reviews, and a 1995 survey of Austrian politics round out the volume. Austrian Historical Memory and National Identity will be of intense interest to foreign policy analysts, historians, and scholars concerned with the unique elements of identity and nationality in Central European politics.

Austrian Historical Memory and National Identity

Austrian Historical Memory and National Identity PDF Author: Gunter Bischof, Anton Pelinka
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9781412817691
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
When the Hapsburg monarchy disintegrated after World War I, Austria was not considered to be a viable entity. In a vacuum of national identity the hapless country drifted toward a larger Germany. After World War II, Austrian elites constructed a new identity based on being a "victim" of Nazi Germany. Cold war Austria, however, envisioned herself as a neutral "island of the blessed" between and separate from both superpower blocs. Now, with her membership in the European Union secured, Austria is reconstructing her painful historical memory and national identity. In 1996 she celebrates her 1000-year anniversary. In this volume of Contemporary Austrian Studies, Franz Mathis and Brigitte Mazohl-Wallnig argue that regional identities in Austria have deeper historical roots than the many artificial and ineffective attempts to construct a national identity. Heidemarie Uhl, Anton Pelinka, and Brigitte Bailer discuss the post-World War II construction of the victim mythology. Robert Herzstein analyses the crucial impact of the 1986 Waldheim election imploding Austria's comforting historical memory as a "nation of victims." Wolfram Kaiser shows Austria's difficult adjustments to the European Union and the larger challenges of constructing a new "European identity." Chad Berry's analysis of American World War II memory establishes a useful counterpoint to construction of historical memory in a different national context. A special forum on Austrian intelligence studies presents a fascinating reconstruction by Timothy Naftali of the investigation by Anglo-American counterintelligence into the retreat of Hitler's troops into the Alps during World War II. Rudiger Overmans' "research note" presents statistics on lower death rates of Austrian soldiers in the German army. Review essays by Gunther Kronenbitter and Gunter Bischof, book reviews, and a 1995 survey of Austrian politics round out the volume. Austrian Historical Memory and National Identity will be of intense interest to foreign policy analysts, historians, and scholars concerned with the unique elements of identity and nationality in Central European politics.

Collective Memory and National Membership

Collective Memory and National Membership PDF Author: Meral Ugur Cinar
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137473665
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
This study seeks to explain the impact of historical narratives on the inclusiveness and pluralism of citizenship models. Drawing on comparative historical analysis of two post-imperial core countries, Turkey and Austria, it explores how narrative forms operate to support or constrain citizenship models.

Creative Pasts

Creative Pasts PDF Author: Prachi Deshpande
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231511434
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
The "Maratha period" of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when an independent Maratha state successfully resisted the Mughals, is a defining era in the history of the region of Maharashtra in western India. In this book, Prachi Deshpande considers the importance of this period for a variety of political projects including anticolonial/Hindu nationalism and the non-Brahman movement, as well as popular debates throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries concerning the meaning of tradition, culture, and the experience of colonialism and modernity. Sampling from a rich body of literary and cultural sources, Deshpande highlights shifts in history writing in early modern and modern India and the deep connections between historical and literary narratives. She traces the reproduction of the Maratha period in various genres and public arenas, its incorporation into regional political symbolism, and its centrality to the making of a modern Marathi regional consciousness. She also shows how historical memory provided a space for Indians to negotiate among their national, religious, and regional identities, pointing to history's deeper potential in shaping politics within thoroughly diverse societies. A truly unique study, Creative Pasts examines the practices of historiography and popular memory within a particular colonial context, and illuminates the impact of colonialism on colonized societies and cultures. Furthermore, it shows how modern history and historical memory are jointly created through the interplay of cultural activities, power structures, and political rhetoric.

Vienna Is Different

Vienna Is Different PDF Author: Hillary Hope Herzog
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 0857451820
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Assessing the impact of fin-de-siècle Jewish culture on subsequent developments in literature and culture, this book is the first to consider the historical trajectory of Austrian-Jewish writing across the 20th century. It examines how Vienna, the city that stood at the center of Jewish life in the Austrian Empire and later the Austrian nation, assumed a special significance in the imaginations of Jewish writers as a space and an idea. The author focuses on the special relationship between Austrian-Jewish writers and the city to reveal a century-long pattern of living in tension with the city, experiencing simultaneously acceptance and exclusion, feeling “unheimlich heimisch” (eerily at home) in Vienna.

Remembering and Forgetting Nazism

Remembering and Forgetting Nazism PDF Author: Peter Utgaard
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1800735154
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
The Myth of Austrian victimization at the hands of both Nazi Germany and the Allies became the unifying theme of Austrian official memory and a key component of national identity as a new Austria emerged from the ruins. In the 1980s, Austria's myth of victimization came under intense scrutiny in the wake of the Waldheim scandal that marked the beginning of its erosion. The fiftieth anniversary of the Anschluß in 1988 accelerated this process and resulted in a collective shift away from the victim myth. Important themes examined include the rebirth of Austria, the Anschluß, the war and the Holocaust, the Austrian resistance, and the Allied occupation. The fragmentation of Austrian official memory since the late 1980s coincided with the dismantling of the Conservative and Social Democratic coalition, which had defined Austrian politics in the postwar period. Through the eyes of the Austrian school system, this book examines how postwar Austria came to terms with the Second World War.

Erasures and Eradications in Modern Viennese Art, Architecture and Design

Erasures and Eradications in Modern Viennese Art, Architecture and Design PDF Author: Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000646068
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
Erasures and Eradications in Modern Viennese Art, Architecture and Design challenges the received narrative on the artists, exhibitions, and interpretations of Viennese Modernism. The book centers on three main erasures—the erasure of Jewish artists and critics; erasures relating to gender and sexual identification; and erasures of other marginalized figures and movements. Restoring missing elements to the story of the visual arts in early twentieth-century Vienna, authors investigate issues of gender, race, ethnic and sexual identity, and political affiliation. Both well-studied artists and organizations—such as the Secession and the Austrian Werkbund, and iconic figures such as Klimt and Hoffmann—are explored, as are lesser known figures and movements. The book’s thought-provoking chapters expand the chronological contours and canon of artists surrounding Viennese Modernism to offer original, nuanced, and rich readings of individual works, while offering a more diverse portrait of the period from 1890, through World War II and into the present. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, history, design history, architectural history, and European studies.

World War II Memory and Contested Commemorations in Europe and Russia

World War II Memory and Contested Commemorations in Europe and Russia PDF Author: Jennifer A. Yoder
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198894163
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Instrumentalization of the wartime past for political gain is the subject of this study of eleven World War II commemorations. Using a comparative, conceptually original approach, Yoder identifies the actors who manipulate memory surrounding wartime anniversaries, such as the bombing of Dresden and ceremonies to honor fallen soldiers and fascist collaborators. The cases of memory contestation span three geographic regions, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and Russia, recognizing that each developed distinctive interpretations of the war and different patterns of memory politics. This empirically rich study reveals the grievances that motivate memory challengers and their strategies for shaping the commemoration discourses and rituals. The memory challengers' toolkit includes varieties of emotional manipulation, subtle distortion, revisionism and full-scale denial. The study finds that, while there are differences in context and strategy across cases and regions, there are also areas of convergence. Moreover, a memory challenge in one country can spill over into others with serious consequences for foreign relations. While World War II Memory and Contested Commemorations in Europe and Russia deals with debates and narratives about events in the last century, its focus is on power, persuasion, and identity in the present.

Never Forget National Humiliation

Never Forget National Humiliation PDF Author: Zheng Wang
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231148917
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
How could the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) not only survive but even thrive, regaining the support of many Chinese citizens after the Tiananmen Square crackdown of 1989? Why has popular sentiment turned toward anti-Western nationalism despite the anti-dictatorship democratic movements of the 1980s? And why has China been more assertive toward the United States and Japan in foreign policy but relatively conciliatory toward smaller countries in conflict? Offering an explanation for these unexpected trends, Zheng Wang follows the Communist governmentÕs ideological reeducation of the public, which relentlessly portrays China as the victim of foreign imperialist bullying during Òone hundred years of humiliation.Ó By concentrating on the telling and teaching of history in todayÕs China, Wang illuminates the thinking of the young patriots who will lead this rising power in the twenty-first century. Wang visits ChinaÕs primary schools and memory sites and reads its history textbooks, arguing that ChinaÕs rise should not be viewed through a single lens, such as economics or military growth, but from a more comprehensive perspective that takes national identity and domestic discourse into account. Since it is the prime raw material for constructing ChinaÕs national identity, historical memory is the key to unlocking the inner mystery of the Chinese. From this vantage point, Wang tracks the CCPÕs use of history education to glorify the party, reestablish its legitimacy, consolidate national identity, and justify one-party rule in the post-Tiananmen and postÐCold War era. The institutionalization of this manipulated historical consciousness now directs political discourse and foreign policy, and Wang demonstrates its important role in ChinaÕs rise.

The Vranitzky Era in Austria

The Vranitzky Era in Austria PDF Author: Anton Pelinka
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351301705
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 453

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Book Description
Franz Vranitzky, the banker turned politician, was chancellor during the ten years (1986-96) when the world dramatically changed in the aftermath of the cold war. Among postwar chancellors, only Bruno Kreisky held office longer. The Austrian Social Democratic Party has been in power since 1970. Such longevity is unique in postwar European politics. The dominance of Social Democracy in particular is noteworthy when compared to the general decline of traditional leftist politics in Europe. The chapters in this volume try to assess Vranitzky's central role in recent Austrian and European history. Richard Luther presents the general European political context in which Vranitzky operated. Eva Nowotny, Vranitzky's former principal foreign policy adviser and Austria's current ambassador to the United Kingdom, analyzes his struggle over joining the European Union as well as Austria's security dilemmas following the cold war. Fritz Plasser looks at the changing electoral behavior of Austrians and the ascendancy of new parties. Irene Etzerdorfer concentrates on the long hegemony of Austrian Social Democratic leadership by comparing Vranitzky's and Kreisky's leadership styles. Other contributors include Sonja Puntscher-Riekmann, Brigitte Unger, Peter Rosner, Alexander van der Bellen, and George Winkler. A forum on postwar Austrian memory of World War II from a comparative perspective, which continues the theme of previous volumes in this series, is also included. Jonathan Petropoulos demonstrates how Swiss middlemen were in the center of dealing with stolen Nazi art during and after the war, while Olive Rathkolb describes the shameful legacy of the Austrian government's procrastination in resolving the issue of Jewish "heirless art." Peter Utgaard shows how in Austria's postwar high school textbooks the American bombing of Hiroshima often figured more prominently than the Holocaust. Review essays and book reviews complete the volume. The Vranitzky Era in Austria is a compelling work for political scientists, historians, and Austria studies scholars. Gnter Bischof is associate director of Center Austria and associate professor of history at the University of New Orleans, and former visiting professor at the University of Salzburg. Anton Pelinka is director of the Austrian Institute of Conflict Research in Vienna, professor of political science at the University of Innsbruck, and former visiting professor at Stanford University. Ferdinand Karlhofer is associate professor of political science at the University of Innsbruck and former visiting professor at the University of New Orleans.