In this concise book, based on a 2019 dissertation at the University of Rostock and the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Polish political scientist Piotr Andrzejewski examines Austrian nation-building and puts it into a theoretical context. He firmly assigns this process to the postwar era and rejects interpretations that trace it back for centuries.
The author divides his study into three principal sections. The first section provides the methodology of his scholarly investigation as well as an in-depth review of the theory of nationhood. For his own analysis, he considers a comparative approach based on the works of Czech historian Miroslav Hroch, Polish historian Józef Chlebowczyk, and Polish sociologist Małgorzata Budyta-Budzyńska most fruitful.
Following this introductory section, whose theoretical focus reaches far beyond the Austrian case, Andrzejewski zooms in more closely on Austrian conditions. His first subject of investigation is history. The author divides the impact of history on nation formation into the influence of the factual past and the influence of its scholarly interpretation. He argues that the constructivism of Benedict Anderson or Ernest Gellner only considers the latter and overlooks the fact that the general populace tends to receive its perceptions of history through intergenerational family narratives rather than academic history books.
With respect to scholarly nation building, Andrzejewski emphasizes the shortcomings of a historiographical approach that tried to project Austrian nationhood far into the past or narrowly based it on ideological foundations such as Catholicism and Habsburg dynasticism. In central domestic works on Austrian nation building, he observes a deep personal engagement and an accompanying lack of analytical detachment. Because the study uses these historical writings as elements of nation building, however, it is methodologically challenging that it also includes the works of international scholars who were not involved in this process. Parts of this chapter are therefore more reminiscent of a traditional literature review than of an assessment of historiographical nation-building.
Following the historiographical section, the author turns to party politics. He underscores that Austrian political elites did not support Austro-nationalism in the interwar era but changed their position in the transformed geopolitical context of the early postwar period. The foremost carriers of this reorientation were the two dominant political parties, the Catholic-Conservative Austrian People’s Party and, albeit more reluctantly, the Social Democrats. Their long-term cooperation in postwar governance formed a crucial precondition for successful policies of nation-building. In contrast to many other studies, however, Andrzejewski also pays attention to Austria’s third significant political tradition, currently represented by the Freedom Party, and traces its gradual conversion from German nationalism to Austro-Patriotism.
Andrzejewski ascribes particular significance to educational policy. He analyzes postwar Austrian history books and diagnoses a very hesitant and belated acknowledgment of Austrian participation in Third Reich policies. This narrative fits into a more general societal imagery of Austrian victimhood, which was only abandoned in the aftermath of the international Waldheim Debate of the 1980s.
In his conclusion, the author traces the success of postwar Austrian nation-building and assesses it according to various theoretical approaches, not least of all according to Małgorzata Budyta-Budzyńska’s nine-point model of nationhood. He defines Austria as a state-nation of the Western European type, which was consciously constructed through judicial, educational, and symbolic policies. Yet he also diagnoses a residual superficiality of Austrian national identity and a continuing challenge by both regionalist and cosmopolitan alternatives. In particular, he contrasts the often dispassionate manifestations of Austrian national identity with their more emotive Polish counterparts.
The Formation of the Modern Austrian Nation is a well-informed study of Austrian nation-building. Just a few decades ago, it might have represented a pathbreaking challenge to postwar Austrian consensus historiography. In the meantime, this historiography has been thoroughly deconstructed by important new studies, which the current book heavily draws upon. Apart from a greater focus on educational policies and the national development of Austria’s Freedom Party, Anglophone readers might, therefore, not find much historical information that is truly new to them.
More unique, in contrast, is the author’s consistent interaction with Polish writings and developments. This interaction is not only informative to international readers but also suggests a translation into Polish, where the study’s reliance on existing literature in English and German would be less problematic and its intermittent linguistic limitations could be easily resolved. In that way, the study could provide a valuable knowledge transfer for a Polish-speaking readership.
