The set of articles that comprise this forum in honor of Professor Emeritus of History at Purdue University Charles Ingrao appears as the result of an initiative undertaken by a group of young scholars who benefitted from his mentorship as graduate students. Professor Will Gray organized, and the Department of History at Purdue University sponsored a symposium in April 2016 showcasing Ingrao's contributions to the field of Habsburg history. Some of his current and former students gave presentations that recognized his influence on international history, political and diplomatic history, as well as his meaningful engagement as a public intellectual with the development and implications of the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s through his Scholars’ Initiative.
Over the decades, students have been drawn to Purdue to work with Charles Ingrao, inspired by his contributions to Habsburg studies, his commitment to scholarly discipline, and his valued stewardship of the field. One of Professor Ingrao's foremost contributions to the vitality of Habsburg studies was his tenure as editor of the Austrian History Yearbook from 1997 through 2006. He founded the Central European Studies book series at Purdue University Press in 1997, serving as the driving force behind the dissemination of significant original studies and works in translation. He is also recognized as the initiator of the Habsburg network on H-Net, from October 1991, the “first internet discussion group dedicated to a historical theme.”Footnote 1
Ingrao's In Quest and Crisis: Emperor Joseph I and the Habsburg Monarchy (West Lafayette, IN, 1979) remains a critically important study. It is a model political biography deeply rooted in archival research conducted in Austria, Germany, Hungary, and Great Britain and in a profound understanding of the complex issues at stake. As historian Franz Szabo has written, Charles Ingrao's other studies, The Hessian Mercenary State: Ideas, Institutions, and Reform under Frederick II, 1760–1785 (Cambridge, 1987) and The Habsburg Monarchy, 1618–1815 (Cambridge, 1994), are also characterized “by their deft combination of lucidity and economy, with rigorous and suggestive analysis.”Footnote 2
Professor Ingrao shifted his interests in the latter part of his career to immerse himself in problems of ethnic conflict, justice, and reconciliation efforts, working with teams of scholars and activists occupied by the Yugoslav conflict of the 1990s. Professor Ingrao's enormous and far-reaching response as a scholar and public intellectual to the Yugoslav crisis led to a number of publications and projects, including Confronting the Yugoslav Controversies: A Scholars’ Initiative (West Lafayette, IN, 2009), a collection of essays co-edited with Thomas Emmert. An expanded and revised edition was also published in 2010 in Sarajevo in Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian translation. With the goal of bringing scholars to the same table to establish rational dialogue and consensus on the events surrounding the disintegration of Yugoslavia and its aftermath, Charles Ingrao advanced the much-needed cause of peace-building and cooperation.
Nevertheless, Professor Ingrao's students kept him grounded in early modern and modern Habsburg history. All the articles here approach in their own ways the relationship between the Habsburg political, diplomatic, and cultural center in Vienna, with its domestic imperial borderland outposts and its early modern dynastic neighbors. The authors give close attention to local, personal interactions of individuals in their studies, be these predominantly of the civilian-military order in Fortress Przemyśl, interethnic relations in the Banat of Temesvár, confessional and marital alliances in the case of the Wittelsbachs and Hohenzollerns, or among historians themselves in comparative consideration of the prevailing Ottoman decline narrative. Each piece underscores Ingrao's students’ thorough training in archival research and scholarly analysis with fine attention to detail and story. Each demonstrates their commitment to comparative, multilayered scholarship in Habsburg studies, and is the fruit of substantial time spent in the region supported by prestigious fellowships.
These four articles reflect the important legacy of Professor Ingrao, whose own groundbreaking work and broader commitment to the field encourage us to pursue rigorous scholarship while taking responsibility for fostering the greater good of our profession and the world around us.
