Volumes I–IV commissioned by the Commission for the History of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, edited by Adam Wandruszka and Peter Urbanitsch; Volumes VII–IX commissioned by the Commission for the History of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, edited by Helmut Rumpler and Peter Urbanitsch; Volume X commissioned by the IHB, edited by Andreas Gottsmann; Volume XI commissioned by the INZ (IHB), edited by Helmut Rumpler; Volume XII commissioned by the IHB, edited by Helmut Rumpler and Ulrike Harmat.

Published by the Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften

Volume XII

HELMUT RUMPLER, ULRIKE HARMAT (Hgg.), Bewältigte Vergangenheit?
Die nationale und internationale Historiografie zum Untergang der Habsburgermonarchie als ideelle Grundlage für die Neuordnung Europas

This volume explores the importance of the end of the Habsburg Monarchy – until then a factor in preserving order in Central Europe and a decisive element of the European power system – for the constitution of the successor states and the policies of the European powers in the short- and long-term, and the contribution of the historical sciences to these developments. Thus, the focus is shifted from the much-discussed topic of the dissolution or destruction of the Habsburg Monarchy and its significance for the new order in Central Europe to the line, whether short or long, drawn under it by the ‘successor states' and 'victorious allies' in 1918, and how this evaluation changed in the following decades. This is not just about remembering the often-cited 'seminal catastrophe', but about national and European efforts to come to terms with the past, and in addition, concerns a part of the history of the identity of ‘New Europe’ in all its vicissitudes from 1918 to the present. Since historiography itself, as a constitutive part of the politics of history, not only served to review the past but was closely involved in the politics of constructing the new epoch after 1918, its characterisation offers an answer to the question of what came after the Habsburg Monarchy, what was written off as ‘past’, and what kind of comparable problems remained.

Volume XI

HELMUT RUMPLER (Hg.), Die Habsburgermonarchie und der Erste Weltkrieg.
1. Teilband: Der Kampf um die Neuordnung Mitteleuropas

Volume XI of the series ‘Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918’ deals with the history of the Habsburg Monarchy during the First World War. Twenty-six contributions describe the path to war; the military, domestic, social, economic and foreign policy developments, as well cultural, for the entire dual monarchy and its constituent parts, Austria/Cisleithania and Hungary/Transleithania.
The volume is divided into two parts. Part 1 contains the chapters: ‘Vom europäischen Frieden zum Weltkrieg’, ‘Der Krieg an den Fronten und im Hinterland’ and ‘Wirtschaftliche Erschöpfung und kultureller Wandel’.
In Austria, Hungary, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, mobilisation proceeded calmly, despite contrary expectations. Although the military defeats of 1914 encouraged pro-Russian trends especially among the northern Slav peoples, loyal groups of all nationalities dominated the picture in Austria until January 1917. In Hungary, the nationalities even upheld the ‘state of truce’ until autumn 1918. From the middle of 1916, growing social discontent became noticeable. In this connection, national organisations came to the fore, demanding more political independence. Because the governments in the situation of war were unable to fulfil either social or national demands, the representatives of the nationalities joined the radical demands for independence launched by politicians in exile. As the central state collapsed at the end of October 1918, the dual monarchy broke into national elements. The European political interests of the victorious great powers played a crucial role in the decision to divide it into national states.

HELMUT RUMPLER, ANATOL SCHMIED-KOWARZIK (Hgg.), Die Habsburgermonarchie und der Erste Weltkrieg.
2. Teilband: Weltkriegsstatistik Österreich-Ungarn 1914-1918

In 77 tables, the volume offers wide-ranging statistical documentation of developments in Austria, Hungary – including Croatia-Slavonia – and Bosnia and Herzegovina in the period 1913 to 1919, ordered according to the following topics: population trends, hygiene conditions, structure of the 'Imperial and Royal' (k.u.k.) army, war dead and military medical services, civilian supply and agricultural production, war economy and war finance.
The First World War changed the lives of people in almost all areas. Duty on the front tore the majority of the male population from everyday life and work. Within the military, garrison duty was replaced by war duty. The course of war triggered waves of refugees and led to forced evacuations; the homeless were interned for years in camps or municipalities. The growing army of prisoners of war was partly deployed for forced labour. The loss of male labour had to be compensated by the work of women in all professions. Meanwhile, production and the entire transport sector were subordinated to military needs, and broad areas of civilian life came under martial law. Inevitably, this impacted on civilian supply, most dramatically on the supply of food. Hunger revolts resulted, which despite a ban led to an explosive strike movement from 1917 and, on the other hand, encouraged the emergence of a black market that usurped the authorities’ control over production and distribution. The financial cost of the war resulted in national debt that weighed down economic reconstruction after the war on the long term.

Volume X

GOTTSMANN Andreas (Hg.), Das kulturelle Leben. Akteure-Tendenzen-Ausprägungen
Teilband 1: Staat, Konfession und Identität
Teilband 2: Materielle und immaterielle Kultur

The juxtaposition of differences and commonalities was a key characteristic of the Austro-Hungarian Empire for centuries, and was particularly evident in cultural life. The intermingling of cultural codes and symbols can be seen to this day in the architecture, music and cuisine. At the same time, in around 1900, an increasing push towards nationalism became evident, manifesting itself in the juxtaposition of cultural developments, in competition and also through mutual ignorance and confrontation. Collected in two books, 50 comprehensive contributions by Austrian and international authors are presented, dealing with various aspects of this topic: the cultural policy of the state and the dynasty; cultural input through education and religion; and cultural output in the form of painting, architecture, music, literature, theatre and in the legal culture. The various forms of expression of the everyday culture of ways of life, home décor and fashion which, due to the fast-moving social dynamic, was changing, are also addressed copiously in this work, and the whole is rounded off by a historiographical essay on the culture of the turn of the century.

Volume IX

HELMUT RUMPLER, PETER URBANITSCH (Hgg.), ULRIKE HARMAT (Red.), Soziale Strukturen
1.Teilband: Von der feudal-agrarischen zur bürgerlich-industriellen Gesellschaft
Teilband 1/1: Lebens- und Arbeitswelten in der industriellen Revolution
Teilband 1/2: Von der Stände- zur Klassengesellschaft
The volume deals with the decisive topics of social change in the Habsburg Monarchy and supplements, in narrative form, the charts published in Volume IX/2, which offer fundamental cartographic and statistical information. The first section, ‘Die Wende zur Industrie- und Wissensgesellschaft’ investigates the structural changes in society in the period 1850–1914. The spaces in which this epochal turn took place were neither the historical countries nor the cultural communities of nations and confessions but rather socio-economically constituted spheres of life, worlds of work and zones of production ('Lebens- und Arbeitswelten’). The second section describes the ambivalent path from the estates to a class society (‘Von der Stände- zur Klassengesellschaft’). In the nineteenth century, ‘intermediate Europe’ still represented a zone of transition from estate to class. In this era of radical change from an elite to a mass society, all estates and classes were touched by the issues of adaptation and survival. In the society of the Habsburg Monarchy, the ‘social question’ had many faces and provoked many answers. Bewilderment and resignation led from debates about the possibilities of compromise and coping strategies to readiness to solve the apparently irresolvable by means of violence. (‘Der soziale Wandel als gesellschaftspolitische Herausforderung’).
The volume is of key significance for debates about the modernisation of the whole Central European area. The difficulties presented here of maintaining a common social and economic area in the multi-ethnic state of the Habsburg Monarchy remain relevant today.

HELMUT RUMPLER, PETER URBANITSCH (Hgg.), Soziale Strukturen
2. Teilband: Die Gesellschaft der Habsburgermonarchie im Kartenbild. Verwaltungs-,
Sozial- und Infrastrukturen. Nach dem Zensus von 1910.
Bearbeitet von HELMUT RUMPLER und MARTIN SEGER.
The volume provides illustration, supplementary and supporting information for the parallel text-based volume. By revising statistics from the population census of 1910, the 96 topical charts provide not only illustrative material but also an impulse for further studies. The charts present statistical features on the level of political districts (Austria) and comparable administrative units in Hungary. The following groups of topics are taken into account: administrative division, ethnic structures, confessional base, demographic factors, employment, professional position, the social structure of agricultural areas and land use, settlements, households and apartments, educational system, the dislocation of the army, the rail network. The visualisation of demographic and socio-economic features brings both centres and peripheries into view, as well as the disparities in social as well as economic development. Overall, the charts offer a representative picture of the territories of the Habsburg Empire one century ago, with effects into the present.

Volume VIII

HELMUT RUMPLER, PETER URBANITSCH (Hgg.), Politische Öffentlichkeit und Zivilgesellschaft
1. Teilband: Vereine, Parteien und Interessenverbände als Träger der politischen Partizipation
2. Teilband: Die Presse als Faktor der politischen Mobilisierung
As a methodical supplement to Volume VII, ‘Verfassung und Parlamentarismus’ which focused on the political elites, both books deal with the diffusion of political consciousness and political activities among wide groups of the population. Starting with a description of the political ideologies and trends in the Habsburg Monarchy, the emphasis is on researching forms of political mobilisation. While associations, parties and interest groups – in line with the diverse legal frameworks – are presented separately for both parts of the empire, the section dealing with the press employs classification based on the criteria of national language. A comparative approach is essential, which reveals that while in the case of many national groups the content of political agitation as well as forms of political mobilisation may not have been identical, they were extremely similar. From this perspective, 'national characteristics’ lose much of their alleged uniqueness. Though departure points were influenced by varying preconditions, the development of a political mass market unfolded according to the same structural principles throughout the Habsburg dominions, albeit with some time lag – an insight that remains relevant for the process of European integration today.

Volume VII

HELMUT RUMPLER, PETER URBANITSCH (Hgg.), Verfassung und Parlamentarismus.
1. Teilband Verfassungsrecht, Verfassungswirklichkeit, zentrale Repräsentativkörperschaften. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2000. 1312 Seiten, Karten. ISBN 3-7001-2869-X. EUR 144,62
2. Teilband Die regionalen Repräsentativkörperschaften. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2000. 1384 Seiten. ISBN 3-7001-2871-1. EUR 122,82
'The long-awaited seventh volume of the international collaborative work on the Habsburg Monarchy has come just at the right time, in the middle of the European constitutional debate, and thus has accomplished the task set for this monumental Central European historical research project half a century ago. […] The two newly published books on the constitution and parliamentarism are not only the most formidable in terms of their volume – they also approach the original question of the 'nature and forms of the composite state' most closely. Helmut Rumpler gave his introduction the significant – and with reference to the debate over the future shape of Europe, contentious – title, 'Limits of democracy in the multi-ethic state' (‘Grenzen der Demokratie im Vielvölkerstaat’). It was not the antagonism between absolutism and democracy that determined the fate of the Habsburg Monarchy, but antagonism between the multi-ethnic and the national state. The ‘problem of the Austrian state and empire’, Rumpler writes in reference to Robert A. Kann, lay precisely in the fact that the multi-ethnic state was no longer compatible with the principles of majoritarian democracy. The attempt to hold onto both goals led to the ‘fateful’, in other words, unavoidable, demise of the Habsburg Empire. […] The second book is dedicated to the regional bodies of representation, the regional parliaments (Landtage). […] Here, the incredible diversity of the political worlds of a state that was not only multi-national but also encompassed various countries with autonomous constitutional traditions, becomes even more apparent. If the overwhelming abundance of material revised in these two books contributes to encourage humility and sensitize us to the dangers of simplifying and accelerating the debate on the European constitution, much will have been achieved.’ Karl-Peter Schwarz in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 18.10.2001.

Volume VI

ADAM WANDRUSZKA, PETER URBANITSCH (Hgg.), Die Habsburgermonarchie im System der internationalen Beziehungen.
1. Teilband Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1989. XVI + 824 Seiten, 25 Tabellen, 3 Diagramme. ISBN 3-7001-1682-9. EUR 83,57
2. Teilband Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1993. XIV + 690 Seiten. ISBN 3-7001-2084-2. EUR 70,13
‘“With a heart defect, you simply can’t run a marathon.” This sentence, attributed to Austrian historian Otto Brunner, represents the leitmotif for both books on the Habsburg Monarchy’s foreign policy. […] The thematic breadth of the complete edition and the fact that it equally demonstrates verified knowledge and research desiderata already make it an inspiring standard work on those last 70 years of the Habsburg Monarchy from the revolutionary year 1848 to the Monarchy’s demise in 1918, marked by enormous internal problems and crises but also by future-oriented visions and alternatives. Here, the question of how supranational political entities operate – brought up after the end of the Second World War as hypertrophic nationalism was discredited, and which remains a distressingly pressing issue – forms a central point of reference. […] Both books on foreign policy shed light on the loss of power, existential crisis and collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy, a state that after the Treaty of St. Germain was reduced from a great power to a politically insignificant subject of international law. Under the catalyst conditions of the war, a development seen by parts of the ruling elite as a fatal imperative long before had merely been accelerated. Their decision to embark on a mountain tour aware of their own heart defect prevented the patient’s recovery and possibly cut off future-oriented alternatives. […] In connection with the other volumes on the history of the Habsburg Monarchy, this newly published writing is bound to prove extremely useful as a work of reference for a broad, historically interested, specialist audience. Jürgen Angelow in Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen 54 (1995).

Volume V

ADAM WANDRUSZKA, PETER URBANITSCH (Hgg.), Die bewaffnete Macht.
Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1987. XII + 868 Seiten, 9 Tabellen, 5 Skizzen, 4 Karten. ISBN 3-7001-1122-3. EUR 87,93
‘Now a further volume is available which deals with the so-often maligned and ridiculed military affairs of the Habsburg Monarchy. As until now, a number of excellent collaborators were won for this section who present the reader with a scientifically precise yet readable account of Austria’s armed forces. […] Besides the military aspects, the economic and technical developments in this field, which saw a tremendous surge, are of particular interest, even though those responsible at the highest level for equipping the military were often overrun by them. Precisely the military as an economic factor demonstrates obvious parallels to the present, which hardly remains true of its role as a factor of integration. Indeed, besides the aristocracy and bureaucracy, the army as a ‘school of the nation(s)’ was the last clasp to hold together the numerous centrifugal forces until the Monarchy’s demise in 1918, despite the fact that national issues naturally played even into the army. […] Overall, this summary of a subject matter by no means easy to present has earned a very positive evaluation. It may be hoped that the future volumes of the complete edition will be just as outstanding.’ Reinhard R. Heinisch in Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Salzburger Landeskunde 129 (1989).

Volume IV

ADAM WANDRUSZKA, PETER URBANITSCH (Hgg.), Die Konfessionen.
Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1985, 2. Auflage 1995. XVI + 866 Seiten, 46 Tabellen, 2 Karten mit Erläuterungen. ISBN 3-7001-0658-0. EUR 87,93
‘Avec une persévérence qui force l’admiration se poursuit la grande entreprise sur laquelle j’ai déjà attiré l’attention des lecteurs d’Austriaca. Voici donc sous la même présentation élégante, un fort volume enrichi de cartes et tableaux formant le tome quatre et consacré aux confessions religieuses. Passionnant sujet dont les spécialistes de l’histoire de l’Europe centrale connaissent toute l’importance et qui souffrait de l’absence d’une vaste synthèse. […] Pour conclure nous ne pouvons que souligner une fois encore l’extrême importance, et pour ce volume sur les Confessions, la nouveauté de cette monumentale entreprise. Puisse cette “Habsburgermonarchie 1848-1918” progresser rapidement. Il est en tous cas, dès maintenant impossible, pour quiconque s’intéresse à cette période, de ne pas la conserver toujours à portée de la main.’ Georges Castellan in Austriaca 24 (1987).

Volume III

ADAM WANDRUSZKA, PETER URBANITSCH (Hgg.), Die Völker des Reiches.
1. Teilband Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1980. XVIII 774 S., 2 Graphiken, 83 Tabellen. ISBN 3-7001-0217-8. EUR 78,85
2. Teilband Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1980. XII+697 S., 11 Tabellen, 1 Faltkarte. ISBN 3-7001-0377-8. EUR 70,49
‘Although there is no absolute uniformity on the subjects covered in the chapters on the nationalities, most of the authors have analysed a number of similar topics, which contributes to the strength of the volume. Thus, in addition to the normal contributions on general historical and political developments, excellent information is given on demography, religion, culture, economics, urbanization, class structure, education, and statistics. […] There is also a large, vivid supplementary ethnographic map of the empire that reveals why it was impossible to draw acceptable ethnic boundaries after 1918. The Austrian authorities are to be congratulated not only on the excellence of this volume but also on the scope of their undertaking. When the remaining volumes are completed, we should have a clearer understanding of Habsburg history, which will help answer the question – “Notwendiger Völkerverein” oder “Völkerkerker” – posed in the introduction by Adam Wandruszka.’ Charles Jelavich in The American Historical Review 86 (1981).

Volume II

ADAM WANDRUSZKA, PETER URBANITSCH (Hgg.), Verwaltung und Rechtswesen.
Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1975. XVIII+791 S. ISBN 3-7001-0081-7. EUR 80,67
‘The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy has been often glorified, at times also damned, but in no work until now has it, in its entirety, been done so much justice as in this one. […] An outstanding volume that should be circulated as widely as possible.’ Ludwig Adamovich in Die Presse, 20.3.1976.

Volume I

ALOIS BRUSATTI (Hg.), Die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung
Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1973. XXII+666 S., 111 Tabellen, 18 Diagramme, 3 Karten. ISBN 3-7001-0030-2. EUR 68,31
’To say that the volume is imposing is an understatement: monumental would be more appropriate. […] The scholarship is overwhelming.’ Istvan Deak in Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 23 (1975).