Scandinavian historians have traditionally taken a strong interest in the German-speaking world, including Austria. The peripheral status of their own languages often keeps their works hidden from a wider international readership, however. Even if the findings appear in English, their publication in domestic journals and publishing houses limits their reception. This lack of visibility is deplorable, because Scandinavian researchers can add interesting angles to the interpretation of Austrian history.

In this essay, I will examine recent Scandinavian analyses of modern Austria. I will restrict myself to studies published after 1990 and focus on the three subjects that have dominated Scandinavian historical interest in this period: the dissolution of the Habsburg Empire; the question of Austrian identity; and the legacy of the political right. The first two topics have been the subject of larger research projects and have resulted in edited volumes, as well as more detailed individual studies in the form of doctoral dissertations. The third has been treated in essays and an ambitious monograph. Together, these works offer a good introduction to the interpretation of Austrian history in contemporary Scandinavia.

Imperial Dissolution

När imperier faller [When empires fall] is the result of the research project “The dissolution of empires and the restructuring of Europe after World War I” at Åbo Akademi, the university serving Finland's Swedish-speaking minority.Footnote ¹ This project strove to make sense of the collapse of communism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia by contrasting these developments with the aftermath of World War I. Even though the book was published in 1994, its contributions were largely completed by 1992 and thus informed by the earlier stages of Eastern Europe's political reorientation.

The book is divided into four sections, which study the disintegration of empire, the transnational concepts that challenged the focus on nation-states, the efforts to alleviate the human suffering that followed the war, and the economic consequences of political turmoil. The authors focus on former Habsburg and Romanov territories, with a number of contributions highlighting Scandinavian connections.

In the first section, Thomas Gullberg puts the book into its theoretical and political context. Gullberg provides a thorough introduction to the theory of nationalism and alerts the reader to the dramatic political events in the disintegrating Soviet and Yugoslav states that accompanied the research. He also investigates the prehistory of imperial dissolution and emphasizes the speed at which hitherto utopian ideas of national independence turned into concrete political agendas. Finally, Gullberg also examines the use of plebiscites in the settlement of border disputes.

Max Engman explores the concrete practical implications of dissolving an empire. Engman primarily contrasts the respective legacies of imperial and Soviet Russia, but he regularly integrates experiences from the Habsburg monarchy and its successor states. The author highlights the technical challenges of constructing and dismembering polities. There is the fundamental necessity of reestablishing international and constitutional ground rules. Yet there is also a need to wind up the institutional heritage of the old state, such as the civil service of the now-dissolved polity. There can be conflicting legal traditions, as was the case in almost all the successor states that integrated regions with divergent political histories. And there can be disputes about who is entitled to citizenship. The last issue was most controversial in the reemerged Baltic republics of Latvia and Estonia, which had experienced massive immigration from Russia and other Soviet republics during the decades of annexation.

Economic matters proved especially taxing. Would the currency remain in place, or, as the question soon came to be formulated, how would the old currency be transformed into a new one? Who was to receive the assets and accept responsibility for the liabilities of the now-defunct polity? Since the Soviet Union began its existence outside the Western political system, these questions became most important for the Habsburg successor states. For many years, they negotiated with each other and the international community about former Habsburg government property, gold reserves, and public debt. A number of claims were still unresolved in the 1930s. After the dissolutions of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia, related issues resurfaced in the 1990s.

Imperial dissolution also had symbolic and psychological dimensions. Members of formerly dominant nationalities, such as Habsburg-Germans, Hungarians, and Russians, felt relegated to subordinate status in the new political system. The new nation-states, in turn, tried to eradicate the symbols of the old regime, such as street names, monuments, and holidays. Even the churches were drawn into this process, with the Orthodox churches often resented as agencies of Russification in Romanov successor states and the Catholic Church criticized for its close ties to the former monarchy in interwar Czechoslovakia.

After the problems surrounding the disintegration of larger entities, the study examines examples of attempted integration. Ethnocultural groups spread over different political entities developed national movements that crossed borders. Many European societies supported co-linguals abroad, be they emigrants or long-established ethnic minorities. Bengt Kummel examines German and Swedish attempts to deepen the ties between minorities, emigrants, and kin-states. Interwar German activism was directed primarily toward ethnic Germans in Eastern Europe, especially in areas formerly part of the German or Habsburg empires. Private organizations cooperated with the German government. Whereas the German case has been examined in much greater detail before, Kummel's comparative look at Swedish organizations illuminates a less-known case. Due to a lack of government support, however, pan-Swedish organizations remained marginal.

An alternative route to integration is examined in Maarit Pietikäinen's contribution on Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi and the Pan-Europa movement. Pan-Europa was merely one of several designs for European unification. Coudenhove-Kalergi envisioned a world composed of five continental blocs: Pan-Europa, Pan-America, East Asia, the Soviet Union, and the British Empire. The absence of India and Africa from his conception shows that colonies were to follow their motherlands into the continental blocs. In the long run, Coudenhove-Kalergi even envisioned the merging of all blocs into a global entity. Pietikäinen concludes, however, that neither Coudenhove-Kalergi nor his successors have succeeded at creating a popular mass movement for European unification.

Another subject that has attracted the attention of Scandinavian scholars is the humanitarian efforts in the wake of political upheaval. This interest is rooted in the strong role played by Scandinavian countries in these efforts, especially after World War I, which had only touched them at their peripheries. Humanitarian efforts took many shapes. Monika Janfelt debates the motives and consequences of the juvenile aid programs, in which thousands of children, primarily from Austria and Germany, were treated to recreational stays with Scandinavian host families. More controversial was the food aid to the Soviet Union, which Sune Jungar examines in his essay. Jungar highlights the conflict between humanitarian impulses and foreign-policy considerations, according to which this aid could have the undesirable side effect of consolidating the Soviet regime. Finally, Max Engman examines Finland's policy toward refugees from the Russian civil war and concludes that these policies reflected cultural distance and fears about establishing a permanent Russian minority.

The final section examines the economic consequences of imperial dissolution. Max Engman provides a broad comparative overview of early interwar and early post-Soviet conditions. Self-sufficient markets were torn asunder; new smaller ones had to be created. Engman shows the many problems arising from the loss of established trade relations and the need to forge new national economies, especially in formerly disjointed territories such as Poland and Yugoslavia. A frequent consequence was the so-called nostrification of the economy, in which the property of national minorities or newly created foreigners was transferred to the majority population or the state.

The remaining two contributions focus on Scandinavia's economic relations with disintegrating Russian polities in the years around 1920 and 1990 and are therefore less relevant for the Austrian lands. Sune Jungar shows how Swedish political and economic leaders were both enthralled with the perceived economic opportunities in Russia and terrified of Russian power and expansion. Mikael Korhonen describes the losses incurred by Finnish citizens following the collapse of czarist Russia and the nationalization policies of the Soviet government.

När imperier faller presents a comprehensive overview of the many facets of imperial dissolution examined by the scholars at Åbo Akademi. This diversity is both its strength and its weakness. On the positive side, it gives the reader an immediate understanding of the extent of the problems arising from the restructuring of state systems. On the negative side, it makes it difficult to work toward synthesis, and the volume ends abruptly without a conclusion. The absence of footnotes, too, underscores the study's origin as a summary of more detailed studies and a contribution to the contemporary political debate. Most essays were authored in 1992, during a time in which the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the crisis in the Balkans called for immediate answers.

As a consequence, the authors compare the dissolution of the Habsburg and Romanov empires with the collapse of the Soviet system. Although they make it clear that history does not repeat itself in a literal sense, they consistently draw parallels between the 1920s and the 1990s. Thus, the Habsburg monarchy, too, becomes an object lesson for practical policy.

Whereas the edited volume supplies primarily overviews and comparisons, it draws attention to the in-depth studies that informed several contributions. One of these studies examines Scandinavian relief efforts in Central Europe. In the aftermath of World War I, almost half a million children from Austria and Germany were invited to recuperate in countries less devastated by the war. Approximately 50,000 came to Denmark and 22,000 to Sweden, where they were to benefit from nutritional and psychological nourishment. The term “Viennese children” became a standard expression in Scandinavian societies and marked an important milestone in the development of international aid work in Scandinavia.

Monika Janfelt's dissertation Stormakter i människokärlek [Superpowers of philanthropy] was accepted at Åbo Akademi in 1998.Footnote ² It examines the aid provided by Sweden and Denmark to wartime children in the period between 1917 and 1924. During these years, the Scandinavian countries established a reputation as major providers of international relief. Assistance to the undernourished children of war-ravished Europe took various forms. Led by the United States, a number of countries delivered food and clothing to Central Europe. Janfelt concentrates her investigation on a specific form of child relief, however. She analyses the temporary relocation of Central European children to Scandinavian host families and institutions.

The evacuation of children from problem areas could draw on established practices in both Scandinavia and Central Europe. Even in peacetime, children from needy metropolitan families were offered recreational visits in the countryside, often at church camps. During World War I, these programs expanded, and 100,000 Viennese children spent two months in rural Hungary in 1918.

The involvement of Scandinavian charities in Central Europe grew gradually. The children of Swedish expatriates in Germany had a tradition of summertime sojourns in their home country; these stays could be expanded during the war. Both in support of already Danish-oriented families and in an attempt to win over hitherto German ones, Denmark offered hospitality to children from the disputed border region of Schleswig.

Toward the end of the war, small groups of German children without Scandinavian ties were invited to Scandinavia as well. These efforts were arranged by organizations with close relations to German counterparts, such as church groups and Social Democrats. Soon after the war, Austrian children, largely from Vienna, were added. For foreign policy reasons, the Scandinavian governments did not want to restrict the aid to children from German countries. Therefore, they also made offers to French, Belgian, and various Eastern European authorities. Most of these efforts remained smaller in scope, however, as a result of either the logistical difficulties or the more limited interest shown by those countries.

The focus on Germany and Austria also reflected contemporary Scandinavian attitudes. The dreary conditions in postwar Berlin and especially Vienna were well-known in Scandinavia, especially from extensive press coverage. Many Scandinavians also felt a cultural closeness to the German world. German still represented the principal foreign language, which became a significant factor in the assignment of host families. After all, those families would have to communicate with their young guests.

The disproportionately high number of Austrian children draws attention to the fine points of Scandinavian public opinion. In part, this overrepresentation was grounded in the particularly visible difficulties of Vienna, the former imperial city now cut off from most of its agricultural hinterland. For some groups, however, not least of all in Denmark with its ongoing border conflict with Germany, Austrian children were the perfect match. They spoke German but did not carry the political baggage accompanying children from the German empire. German relief organizations sometimes felt short-changed compared to Austrian ones.

The host families had surprisingly large influence over the selection of children. Girls were more popular because they were considered less cumbersome. In addition to preferences about age, sex, and home region, the children's social background played a significant role as well. To the extent it was possible, the Scandinavian relief agencies tried to match the social backgrounds of the two families involved. Overall, however, the foster parents came disproportionately from middle- and upper-class backgrounds, including a sizable rural component, whereas the children were spread more evenly across the population.

Drawing on letters, memoirs, and interviews, Janfelt also reconstructs individual experiences. The long travel, the unknown environment, and especially the ample food offered them in their host countries left deep impressions. At the same time, the children also describe difficulties with communication and sadness about their separation from home. The placement organizations kept an eye on the children and intervened repeatedly in situations they deemed problematic.

Altogether, approximately 242,000 German and 247,000 Austrian children participated in the various programs. The largest receiver nations were Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the Scandinavian countries. In regards to Austria, Czechoslovakia was also a major recipient. The fact that there were Austrian children in Germany and vice versa also points to a symbolic component in these relief efforts. The personal participation of government ministers and ranking church leaders underscores the program's high visibility within the host societies.

Janfelt does not ignore the difficulties that arose. The question as to who was most in need of relief could lead to competition, disagreement, and nepotism. The Czechoslovak authorities proved so uncooperative that many transports from Vienna to Sweden were rerouted through Germany. Although religion generally did not play a large role, the placement of Catholic children with Protestant pastors could prove problematic at times.

There were also questions about the effectiveness of child evacuations. From a purely economic perspective, the resources used could have accomplished more if they had gone directly into food aid. The personal contact with the children proved to be a central factor, however. Leading relief workers were convinced that it would have been impossible to evoke a similar response for abstract financial contributions for faraway projects.

Stormakter i människokärlek illuminates a significant aspect of interwar Austrian history. In the lives of many Viennese children, their stays at European host families represented long-remembered bright spots. Monika Janfelt's study analyzes this experience from the perspective of the recipients. It is this host-country perspective that makes the book most interesting for scholars of Austria. The information on Austrian conditions tends to be general and not always based on the most up-to-date literature. Yet the study provides extensive insights into the motives and structures that guided a relief effort from which many Austrians benefited. These insights include many tables and statistics, which could also be useful for additional research.

Another dissertation that grew out of the fruitful research environment of Åbo in the 1990s was Tom Gullberg's State, Territory and Identity.Footnote ³ Gullberg wants to examine the relationship between territory, population, and sovereignty and focuses especially on the implementation of the emergent principle of national self-determination at the end of World War I.

Gullberg introduces his study with a well-informed theoretical discussion of collective identities and the principle of national self-determination. He then zooms in on the Allies' changing attitudes toward the Habsburg monarchy during the course of World War I. Gullberg argues that the Allies became increasingly interested in the dissolution or, at least, de-Germanization of the Habsburg state. Contrary to a common perception, concrete political interests, not idealist principles, guided Western policy makers. They were not misled by the liberal nationalists who sympathized with the small ethnies of East Central Europe but rather instrumentalized them in the pursuit of geopolitical interests.

Among the numerous border disputes triggered by the disintegration of the Habsburg Empire, Gullberg pays special attention to the conflict in Carinthia. He delineates the forming of a Slovene national movement, within which only the liberals initially supported Yugoslavism and Pan-Slavism, whereas the dominant Catholic conservative faction preferred Slovenian autonomy within the Habsburg state. During World War I, however, the balance increasingly tipped in favor of a Yugoslav solution. At the end of the war, Carinthian Slovene leader Janko Brejc demanded that all of Carinthia be incorporated into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. In practice, the conflict came to revolve around southeastern Carinthia, which became a battle zone between Austrians and Yugoslavs. Since the Allies were split internally, they left the matter to be decided by a plebiscite. Gullberg argues that Carinthia's Slovenian speakers had an ethnolinguistic identity as Slovenes, but did not identify with a Slovenian nation. Their strong regional identity as Carinthians overshadowed their Slovenian ties and made it possible for Austria to prevail in a predominantly Slovenian-speaking environment.

After having treated the Carinthian question, the author puts it into the broader context of post-Habsburg border disputes. In a wide sweep, he moves from Austro-Czech, Austro-Hungarian, Austro-Italian, and even Austro-Swiss settings to Yugoslavia's many conflicts with Austria, Italy, Hungary, and Romania, as well as Poland's disputes with Czechoslovakia and with the Ukrainians of eastern Galicia. The comparative angle is useful and praiseworthy, but the treatment of the individual cases is too brief and imprecise to do them justice.

Yet Gullberg is not primarily interested in the peace settlements and border decisions as such. He wants to evaluate the pragmatic application of the principle of self-determination and its function as an ideological trump card that could be interjected into controversial border negotiations. In the case of the Adriatic, the threat of a plebiscite put pressure on Italy to accept less than what had been promised in the Treaty of London. In the Banat, Italy opposed Yugoslav demands for a plebiscite in order to secure the integrity of wartime pacts. By way of conclusion, Gullberg argues that interwar Central Europeans did not universally accept the national principle. Although his examples are not always convincing, he is definitely correct in highlighting the special nature of national identities in zones of transition.

State, Territory and Identity is not an altogether successful work. The historical information is too derivative for specialists, although it provides useful overviews of diverse geographic settings. The study would also have profited from a more thorough editorial process. Its strength, however, lies in the comparative angle and the extensive theoretical discussion in both the introduction and the conclusion.Footnote ⁴ Gullberg demonstrates that the principle of national self-determination did not create a new international system. Although it was regularly invoked in the peace settlements of World War I, the core decisions were rooted in closed diplomacy and traditional power politics. Nonetheless, the principle could subsequently be called upon by those who felt aggrieved by the decisions made in its name.

Identities

Another focus of Scandinavian research on Austria lay with this country's shifting identities. In his 1991 essay, “Den ädlaste av nationer” [The noblest of nations], Max Engman provided a bird's-eye view of Austria's national debate, which he defined as passionate in the past and still smoldering below the surface in the present.Footnote ⁵ For the most part, Engman summarizes the internal Austrian disagreements on such matters as the meaning of Austria throughout history, the legacy of the Roman-German and Habsburg empires, and the symbols of nationhood. Faced with conflicting interpretations of Austrian history, Engman concludes that national identities should be seen as Russian dolls that consist of several complementary layers.

In the edited volume Regions in Central Europe, seven Scandinavian academics, led by Sven Tägil at Lund University, examine the role of regions and regional identities.Footnote ⁶ The geographic delineation of the subject largely mirrors the historical concept of Mitteleuropa and focuses on territories that used to be part of either the Holy Roman or the Habsburg Empire. At the center of the examination are the regional deep structures in Germany, the nature of regional identities in the late Habsburg monarchy, and the fate of regions and regional cooperation in late- and post-Soviet East Central Europe.

The interest in regional identities has grown considerably over the last decades. The European Union has encouraged regional conceptions, not least of all as potential alternatives to the existing nation-states. As the authors show, the factual and intellectual foundations of such regions can vary considerably. As their least common denominator, various definitions premise a spatially defined area, within which human activity takes place. Although these areas are commonly smaller than states, they can, as in the case of Central Europe, also constitute considerably larger entities. By the same token, regions can derive their legitimacy from very different sources, ranging from political and economic interconnections to sentiments rooted in culture or history. And just like other social identities, regional identities, too, can result from conscious processes of identity construction.

How can a regional approach provide a better understanding of Central European history? Tom Gullberg argues that this approach allows us to recognize the continued influence of older political and mental structures, which the prevalent focus on a national framework fails to take into account. Informed by this conception, Sven Tägil and Lisbeth Lindeborg illuminate the medieval roots of German regional divisions, as well as the enduring significance of regional deep structures that do not necessarily coincide with the currently existing provincial entities. Similarly, Fredrik Lindström and Tom Gullberg focus on the interaction of Germans and non-Germans during the twilight and aftermath of the Habsburg monarchy, whereby Gullberg especially highlights the incongruence between identity and linguistic background in the plebiscites held in Carinthia and the Sopron area. Along the same lines, Kristian Gerner contrasts the fate of regional structures in East Central Europe with Western models, whereas Hans-Åke Persson describes recent attempts by German and Polish politicians to foster an Oder region that reintegrates an area so thoroughly transformed by the expulsion of the German population east of the postwar border.

As emerges from this synopsis, the authors present a broad picture of regional developments in Central Europe. They also complement the empirical data with theoretical introductions and references. They are familiar with the basic literature in German and English, as well as in their own languages. And as outsiders, they are not beholden to the often conflicting national narratives that (used to) dominate in the countries they are examining.

But the presentation also has its weaknesses. Since it is largely built on secondary literature, it does not provide many truly original insights. Central European specialists in particular will encounter much basic information they are well acquainted with, and a number of fairly laconic statements that invite further analysis. Considering the strong focus on the interaction of Germans and non-Germans, the scarcity of sources in Eastern European languages seems problematic. And the lack of a theoretical résumé, or really of any overall conclusion, leaves the individual discoveries somewhat isolated from each other.

In spite of these shortcomings, Regions in Central Europe can fill a niche. It provides a basic English-language overview of regional traditions in Central Europe to students and readers who are not overly familiar with this subject. And it puts this overview into a theoretical framework that accentuates the significance of regional identities without stylizing them into pristine alternatives to a constructed nation-state.

Whereas the contributors to Regions in Central Europe deliver comparative overviews, Swedish historian Fredrik Lindström provides a more detailed investigation of the Austrian sense-of-self. In his study Empire and Identity, which was accepted as a doctoral dissertation at Lund University in 2002, Lindström examines the impact of the imperial experience on the forming of modern Austrian identity.Footnote ⁷ The author applies a biographical approach and examines two personalities each for three subjects. For the conceptualization of the Austria state, he selected Minister President Ernst von Koerber, as well as historian and journalist Heinrich Friedjung. For the conceptualization of Austrian culture, he chose the writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal and the conservative poet and diplomat Leopold von Andrian. And for the conceptualization of the Austrian people, he drew on the historian Josef Redlich, as well as the Social Democratic politician and theorist Karl Renner.

As a group, these personalities were meant to represent a broad cross-section of early-twentieth-century Austrian society. With the exception of Karl Renner, however, they all come from aristocratic or assimilated Jewish backgrounds, that is, from the empire's two most supranational subgroups. In addition, the more uncompromising expressions of social democracy and German nationalism are missing. Hence, the opinions selected largely epitomize an establishment perspective, which must be remembered when assessing how representative they are.

Ernst von Koerber hailed from a multiethnic family of officers and public servants. He identified strongly with the monarchy and strove to preserve it through modernization. As a representative of the Josephine tradition, his reform ideas revolved around a centralized enlightened bureaucracy. As a consequence, Koerber decried the lack of imperial coherence and especially the concessions made to Hungarian self-determination.

On many of these issues, Koerber concurred with Heinrich Friedjung, who had secured an important position in the intellectual debate of the time. Koerber appreciated the persuasive powers of the media and cultivated contacts with Friedjung and other journalists. Friedjung, in turn, treasured personal ties to political leaders and lent his support to several of them. In addition to Koerber, he also backed the high-ranking diplomat and politician Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal, although the latter was more conservative than Friedjung.

Friedjung's basic political stance was determined by the monarchy's military and political cooperation with the German empire. In his grand study “The Struggle for Supremacy in Germany,” Friedjung had interpreted Austria's exclusion from the German unification process as a necessary sacrifice made by the Austro-Germans.Footnote ⁸ All the more significant to Friedjung was the Dual Alliance, which was premised upon and at the same time secured the German mission of the Habsburg monarchy. Friedjung wanted to instrumentalize imperial German power for the resurrection of Austro-German predominance within the monarchy.

Their differing assessments of the monarchy's German character eventually estranged Koerber and Friedjung. To the former, German preeminence was a matter of administrative efficiency; to the latter, it was a deeply felt political desire. As a consequence, Koerber proved less pro-German than many expected during World War I. Yet Friedjung, too, was concerned about the lopsided dominance deriving from Germany's superior wartime performance. In the Mitteleuropa discourse of the war years, conflicting visions of Central European cooperation came to light, until the military defeat of the Central Powers and the disintegration of the Habsburg monarchy created a completely new political environment.

Having drawn on Koerber and Friedjung to demonstrate the bureaucratic-political path to modern Austrian identity, Lindström turns to Hofmannsthal and Andrian to highlight culture. Hugo von Hofmannsthal was not only a central Austrian literary figure of the period, but his oeuvre also surfaced regularly in the debate about Austrian identity. Hofmannsthal identified with German culture, but also with an Austria that he saw as partially different from Germany. In addition, Lindström sees Hofmannsthal as the result of a dual assimilation process. Whereas his ancestors assimilated from their Jewish origins to the Catholic bourgeoisie, Hofmannsthal himself adapted to the manners and ideals of the Austrian aristocracy.

Hofmannsthal wanted to provide an integrative Austrian ideology, which could unite parties and nationalities. Yet there were many similarities between Friedrich Naumann's German-centered Mitteleuropa and Hofmannsthal's “Austrian mission,” even if Hofmannsthal ascribed a more prominent role to the Austro-Germans as the element linking Germany proper and the European southeast. In the interwar years, Hofmannsthal further accentuated the Germanness of Austrians but remained unenthusiastic about unification, which in his eyes would integrate the Austrians into a smooth, modern, and uninspiring German nation-state. Lindström sees Hofmannsthal's vision rooted in neither a distinctly Austrian national identity nor a German regional variety, but in a separate German identity that had retained more of Germany's historic transnationalism.

Deeply interconnected with Hofmannsthal's life was that of his friend and supporter Leopold von Andrian. Yet Andrian approached the question of Austrian identity from a much more unequivocal standpoint. Andrian was among the earliest representatives of a distinct Austrian nation, separate from and ultimately in deep opposition to Germany. His consistent attempts to appropriate Hofmannsthal for his own vision of Austria were facilitated by Hofmannsthal's early death in 1929.

Andrian belonged to the very small group of intellectuals that formed the interwar link between a prewar Austrianist ideology based on conservative Catholic monarchism and the republican Austro-nationalism that increasingly dominated after World War II. He was deeply rooted in Habsburg society; the dissolution of the monarchy shook him to the core. Yet unlike many other loyal subjects of the emperor, he transferred the anti-Prussian symbolism of an earlier era into the new republic. Thus, the small German-speaking Alpine republic was defined in terms that fit its multicultural predecessor.

In the final section of the book, Lindström focuses on concepts of popular participation. The personalities he chose for this purpose were the historian Josef Redlich and the politician Karl Renner. Josef Redlich was born into a German-speaking Jewish family in bilingual Moravia. As a historian, he originally specialized in Britain and only gradually gravitated toward Austrian political history. Redlich always retained a keen interest in the English-speaking world, however, and spent a substantial part of his career at American universities.

Politically, Redlich opposed centralism and especially its German-liberal expression. Therefore, he was critical of the post-revolutionary Bach period, which in his eyes merged German liberalism and repressive centralism. He also began to sympathize with Aehrenthal's and Koerber's authoritarian concepts of reform. At the heart of Redlich's struggle for identity lay the question of how to modernize the dynastic composite monarchy, that is, how to strike a balance between the centralism required to hold the empire together and the local popular decision making necessary for modernization.

Although Redlich ran for parliament on the ticket of the center-left German Progress Party in Moravia, his views frequently transgressed the liberal/conservative dichotomy. He was a hardliner in foreign policy questions, who supported the annexation of Bosnia in 1878 and initially welcomed the outbreak of World War I as a solution to the monarchy's internal crisis. Redlich also rejected Karl Renner's concept of ethnic districts and preferred historically developed provinces instead. His dislike of liberal German centralists affiliated him with the conservative autonomists. As a consequence, the German liberals with whom his party identified increasingly ostracized him.

Karl Renner was inspired by Redlich, even though their backgrounds and goals differed. A peasant's son from German-speaking Southern Moravia, the gifted Renner joined the Social Democratic movement. Within this grouping, he became an important contributor to the theoretical debate, especially on the monarchy's persistent national question, and a leading representative of its centrist wing.

Renner strove to implement the two central aspects of modernity: democratization and nationalization. He tried to strike the necessary balance between unity and diversity by suggesting nationally homogenous districts, supplemented with an individualized national affiliation to ensure minority protection. He gradually widened his idea of a democratic multinational state to include at first the Austrian lands, thereafter the whole monarchy, and finally, during the war, all of Mitteleuropa. Whereas Redlich experienced the end of the war as Minister of Finance in the Lammasch government and increasingly rejected German nationalism, Renner responded to the dissolution of the monarchy with support for union with Weimar Germany.

Empire and Identity provides intellectual biographies of late-Habsburg personalities, and it traces the impact of the imperial experience on modern Austrian identity. Because of this dual purpose, the focus can sometimes get blurred. Whereas straightforward biographies warrant the amount of detail that goes into the description of administrative activities, such as Redlich's service on the administrative reform commission, a focus on identity in the an age of imperial dissolution would suggest a more compact presentation.

Unlike some of the other contributions examined in this article, Empire and Identity operates within an Austrian context. Lindström cooperated extensively with Austrian scholars and displays a detailed knowledge of internal Austrian politics. The study also provides a solid discussion of identity images among Austrian historians.

Finally, Lindström also traces the implications of his historical study for an understanding of contemporary Austria. He locates his subjects on a continuum ranging from Andrian, as the most Austrianist and conservative protagonist, to Friedjung on the German-liberal wing. Disconnected from the multinational experience, intermediary positions, which saw Austrian identity as an originally German identity mitigated by the borderland experience or as a hybrid German-Slavic identity, gradually faded. According to Lindström, the most explicit positions lived on in the Second Republic, however, where they can be traced in the arguments of historians Friedrich Heer and Fritz Fellner.

The Radical Right

A third subject that has attracted the attention of Scandinavian researchers is the role of right-wing political parties in Austria. This interest can of course be traced back to a broader international curiosity—and concern—about Central Europe's nationalist tradition. It was reinforced by the meteoric rise of Jörg Haider and his Freedom Party in late-twentieth-century Austria.

In his essay “Uppgörelsen med det förflutna, politisk kultur och högerpopulistiska partier i Tyskland och Österrike” [Accounting for the past, political culture, and the parties of the populist right in Germany and Austria], Swedish historian Hans-Åke Persson compares the political cultures in postwar Austria and West Germany, with a special focus on the nationalist right.Footnote ⁹ Persson sees a connection between the manner in which these societies have treated the legacy of National Socialism and World War II, on the one hand, and the relative strength of rightist parties, on the other. Appearing in 1996, Persson's article is clearly informed by the electoral successes of the Freedom Party.

Persson defines Austria and Germany as part of the same cultural nation. This shared background begs the question as to why the Austrian Freedom Party became so much more successful than equivalent parties in Germany. The author ascribes this difference to Austria's failure to come to terms with its past and the resulting differences between the political cultures of postwar Austria and (West) Germany.

Persson does not overlook the broader context of rightist populism in late-twentieth-century Europe. Economic downturns, social changes, and, not least of all, the increasing presence of immigrants triggered popular discontent in many countries. Yet Persson argues that the literature on rightist protest movements also overgeneralizes the phenomenon and underrates local idiosyncrasies. The author wants to highlight the significance of domestic political culture for the appeal of the populist right.

In his comparison of West Germany's and Austria's postwar political systems, Persson diagnoses two significant differences. West Germany experienced a more immediate need to confront the National Socialist past. Both the constitution and the rules of public discourse emphasized vigilance against nationalism and promoted Western integration. In addition, West Germany witnessed the formation of a vibrant civic society along Western lines. In regard to Austria, Persson sees the postwar focus on victimization and its accompanying externalization of the Third Reich as obstacles to an honest confrontation of the past. The rigid political structures established by the grand coalition of the two major political parties further undermined a pluralistic debate.

These differences in political culture proved less significant during the societal upswing of the postwar decades. Confronted with new developments such as unemployment and immigration, however, both political systems experienced challenges from the right. In Persson's view, Germany's more encompassing Westernization and its more honest treatment of history provide important explanations for why this challenge never became as forceful as it did in Austria.

Whereas Hans-Åke Persson focused on the postwar Austrian right, his Danish colleague John T. Lauridsen has specialized in its interwar expressions. Lauridsen, director of research at the Royal Library in Copenhagen, has made a name for himself with important studies of Danish National Socialism and hence approaches the Austrian right with a thorough comparative understanding. In his 1997 article “‘Den nationale socialisme’ i Østrig 1904–1926” [‘National socialism’ in Austria 1904–1926], he presented his preliminary findings on the early Austrian years of a political movement that came to impact the whole of Europe.Footnote ¹⁰

Lauridsen sets off his examination with a glance at the German Workers' Party (DAP) of the Habsburg monarchy. Founded in 1904, it reflected the opposition of segments of the German working class against the influx of cheaper Czech competitors into the industrial rim of Bohemia. Displeased with the response by the Social Democratic labor movement, they founded their own organizations, which merged German nationalism with anti-capitalist elements. Lauridsen calls their program “social reformist,” with a contradictory attitude toward democracy, which they supported in theory but feared for its national implications in a multiethnic state.

The DAP never gained much political significance, and the few bastions it had fell to Czechoslovakia after World War I. As a consequence, the Austrian DNSAP gained less than one percent of the vote in the elections of 1919. In the subsequent years, however, the party slowly widened its appeal. This expansion followed the cooperation between the largest nationalist faction, the Greater German People's Party's, with the Christian Social Party (CSP), which drove disaffected nationalists into the arms of more radical alternatives. This new segment of the National Socialist electorate was predominantly middle class, which had repercussions for the party's social orientation.

The decisive aspect of Austrian National Socialism in the interwar era, however, was cross-border collaboration. As early as 1919, the Austrian DNSAP held its first political congress with representatives from Germany and Czechoslovakia. This cooperation was initially based on mutual autonomy, but Hitler's increasing hold over the German party and the growing imbalance between a consolidated NSDAP in Germany and its smaller sister parties changed this. In 1926, Hitler's demand for complete subordination triggered a split in the Austrian movement. One group under Karl Schulz continued its own, more Socialist course, but was reduced to political insignificance. The latter was initially true for Hitler's remaining followers in Austria as well. From 1932 on, however, electoral trends in Germany began to reverberate in Austria and turned the Austrian NSDAP into a mass movement.

Lauridsen describes Hitler's relationship to Austrian National Socialism as an instructive and often neglected key to his early biography. He argues that Hitler was not nearly as politically aware during his years in Vienna as he described in Mein Kampf and cites the lack of attention given to the DAP in a book portrayed as a history of the National Socialist movement as evidence of that fact. Hitler's subsequent treatment of Austrian National Socialism in the interwar years, in turn, provided an early example of his insistence on unquestioning obedience and his willingness to enforce it at all costs.

In 2007, Lauridsen presented the results of his broader research on the same topic. In Nazism and the Radical Right in Austria, 1918–1934, the author compares Heimwehr and NSDAP, especially in regard to social composition, support, and ideology.Footnote ¹¹ The study draws primarily on published sources and literature, which Lauridsen does not merely synthesize but also contrasts, analyzes, and reinterprets.

Lauridsen deplores the inconsistent use of the term “fascism” and insists on demarcating it from the concept of the radical right, which he defines as a distinctly bourgeois phenomenon without genuine mass support. Based on this differentiation, he assigns the Heimwehr to the sphere of the radical right. Unlike the NSDAP, it did not develop an ideological niche of its own, but positioned itself between and above the established conservative parties. Overly specific platforms could have alienated one segment of its supporters or another. As long as the Heimwehr remained acceptable to all major non-Socialist parties, it was able to enlist support and recruit members from them. This was especially important because the organization was financially dependent on sympathetic political and economic circles. Lauridsen argues, therefore, that previous researchers decrying the Heimwehr's lack of ideological direction failed to understand that its financial backers expressly discouraged such ideologization.

In 1930, the Heimwehr joined the government and held the important ministry of the interior. At the same time, the rise of the NSDAP in Germany strained the coherence of the Austrian Heimwehr. Its radical factions cooperated with the Austrian National Socialists and ran an independent list in the parliamentary elections of November 1930, whereas the more moderate and Austrianist circles flocked to the Christian Socialists. The relatively weak showing at the elections and the failed putsch attempt of the Styrian wing symbolized the beginning decline.

Lauridsen ascribes the Heimwehr's ultimate failure to its inherent contradictions. The movement used revolutionary rhetoric, but is leaders could not make up their minds on whether to pursue a parliamentary or a military route. In fact, the ties between the Heimwehr and the bourgeois government were so close that they were largely seen as two sides of one coin. As long as the electorate supported the established parties, the Heimwehr was bound to play second fiddle. When increasing segments of the population embraced radical alternatives, in turn, the domesticated Heimwehr no longer seemed the most natural choice.

Lauridsen also highlights the divergent economic interests within Austrian industry. Some sectors hoped for economic salvation through union with Germany, whereas others feared the increased competition this would entail. The former began to move toward the NSDAP when the Heimwehr joined the conservative Austrian government and supported the Lausanne Protocol. Hence, the Heimwehr proved unable to contain the radical segments of the petty bourgeoisie and often ended up as a mere springboard to the NSDAP.

Lauridsen endorses Gerhard Botz's thesis that the NSDAP was able to attract peripheral Social Democratic and Christian Social voters. Based on an analysis of the 1932 provincial elections in Salzburg, he even argues that the NSDAP achieved a political breakthrough within substantial segments of Alpine farmers, which indicated that Christian Social core voters were also deserting the party. Pointing to select local elections in Tirol and Lower Austria in 1932/1933, where the National Socialists averaged around 30 percent of the vote, he diagnoses further potential for growth. As a consequence, he strongly rejects the early postwar Austrian interpretation that viewed the Austrian NSDAP as a purely imported phenomenon.

John Lauridsen has written a massive (548 pages), ambitious, and stimulating study—with an unusual genesis. The underlying research was started in the late 1970s and substantially completed in 1994. Much has changed in Austrian society and historiography, and Lauridsen's pointed criticism of both can therefore sound slightly outdated at times. In other regards, his outside perspective can be thought-provoking, as when he marvels at the ease with which former Austro-fascists were integrated into the democratic canon of postwar Austria.

In Lauridsen's eyes, there was substantial agreement among the parties of the interwar Austrian right. He rejects Wandruszka's triangular view of Austrian politics and recognizes only a Socialist and a bourgeois camp, whereas he views the Catholic Conservative and German nationalist parties as different strains of the same political tradition. Whether this downgrading of cultural and ideological influences does justice to the impact of religious and national sentiments on political affiliation is debatable. For an explanation of the Heimwehr's cross-party appeal, by contrast, the model of bourgeois unity proves helpful.

To Lauridsen, the rise of fascism represents the radicalization of the petty bourgeoisie following the discrediting of the political establishment in a period of crisis. The petty bourgeoisie did not turn left because Socialism threatened to destroy the socioeconomic system on which this class based its sense-of-self. Hence, Lauridsen's core argument is rooted in his economic, class-oriented view of history and draws repeatedly on interwar Austro-Marxist interpretations—even if he pokes fun at the Austrian practice of attaching the prefix Austro to such international phenomena as Marxism and fascism.