General Information

Language

German.

Published

Wien : C. Gerold's Sohn, c2008.

Physical Description

2 v. : ill., col. maps ; 25 cm.

Contributors

Contributor

Konrad, Helmut, 1948-

Maderthaner, Wolfgang, 1954-

Contents/Summary

Summary

To no small extent, anniversaries structure the interest and attention of historians and their audience alike. In Austria, the founding of the republic in 1918 was commemorated in 2008 - not least with a large exhibition in the representative columned hall of the Parliament in Vienna. The building, modeled on a Greek temple, was erected between 1873 and 1883 for the Imperial Council of the Habsburg Monarchy. On November 12, 1918, after Emperor Karl had renounced government business, the German-speaking deputies proclaimed the Republic of German-Austria on the ramp in front of it. Shortly after the multiple anniversary year 2005 (60 years of the Second Republic, 50 years of the State Treaty, 10 years of EU membership - in addition to other "smaller" round anniversaries for the trade union federation, the armed forces, the Burgtheater and State Opera as well as television), another opportunity presented itself to celebrate Austria. However, the focus on 90 years of the Republic of Austria largely hides the fact that this is by no means an uninterrupted development: in a few years, between 1938 and 1945, Austria did not even exist on the map as a sovereign state. (Which of course says nothing about the participation of Austrians in the events and above all in the crimes of the time.) During the Nazi era, the parliament building was used as the seat of the district administration of Vienna. However, the parliament had already been switched off four years earlier by the Christian Social Chancellor Dollfuss in favor of a clerical-authoritarian "corporate state". The story is more complicated and far less linear than the number magic of the anniversaries suggests. The road to establishing democracy in Austria and also an independent Austrian identity as it presents itself to us today was long and winding. Helmut Konrad, Professor of Contemporary History in Graz and Head of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Social and Cultural History, and Wolfgang Maderthaner, Managing Director and Scientific Director of the Association for the History of the Labor Movement in Vienna, both distinguished by a large number of works in the fields of Cultural and social history as well as science managers took the Republic's anniversary as an opportunity to gather more than 30 international authors from various disciplines - all recognized experts in their fields of research - and focus on the difficult founding and early years of the First Republic allow. The result was two volumes with a total of almost 700 pages, covering the end of the First World War, border issues, political, The claim to bring a standard work onto the market is obvious and was openly formulated by Helmut Konrad at the book presentation - in the Federal Chancellery, not in Parliament. The equipment is accordingly high-quality: the volumes contain a large number of photographic testimonies, central documents are reproduced in an appendix, and four reprinted maps are also enclosed. Here, too, it seems inevitable that it will very quickly become state-supporting: Federal President Heinz Fischer and (now ex-) Federal Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer, both Social Democrats, have contributed a foreword and foreword. Contemporary Austria is reflected in history. In fact, the Second Republic understands itself, as Fischer - himself a lawyer and qualified political scientist - emphasizes, both as a continuation of the First Republic, not least by resorting to the constitution, and as an alternative to it, which succeeded in overcoming the distortions and contradictions between the political camps, which ultimately led to the civil war and the "Anschluss" to the German Rich have led to balance. The Second Republic is no longer a state that nobody wants, although a look at the history of the years from 1918 to 1933/34 and 1938 to 1945 can still open up rifts. There is practically no consensual picture of this time across the camps. The title "... the rest is Austria" takes up a statement made by French Prime Minister Clemenceau at the peace conference in Saint-Germain when the former Habsburg Empire was divided up. But the early years of the First Republic and its “constitutive ambivalences”, which the two editors focus on, cannot of course be understood without taking a look at the formative forces of the First World War. Consequently, there are two contributions at the beginning that deal with the end and the traumatic experiences of the Great War and their lasting political, but also cultural-historical consequences (Manfried Rauchensteiner, Lutz Musner). Not only the form and constitution of the new state, In the second large section of the first volume, the specifics of Austrian development are placed in the context of the upheavals in Central Europe after the end of the war (Wolfgang Maderthaner), the special role of Otto Bauer is acknowledged (Ernst Hanisch) and the political camps - Red Vienna (Helmut Konrad), the Christian Socials (Dieter A. Binder) and the German Nationals (Kurt Bauer) – as well as the role of Jews and women (Malachi Hacohen, Gabriella Hauch). The lines of conflict between the various social groups and the willingness to use physical violence (Gerhard Botz) are examined, as are the development of the constitution (Alfred J. Noll) and the denominational situation in Austria, which is dominated by the Catholic Church (Andreas Weigl). Part of the second volume is devoted to economic and social-historical aspects and thus to the central question of the viability of the new small state, which initially was no more than the rest of the Habsburg Empire: inflation and monetary policy are just as much a topic here as the associated issues speculative capitalism (Fritz Weber, Herbert Matis, Niko Wahl). The situation of the bourgeoisie (Peter Berger) and the position of women in society and the world of work (Karin M. Schmidlechner) are analyzed. The socialization and socialization practices in economic life are treated alongside the flourishing economic theory production of these years - using the examples of Joseph Schumpeter, Ludwig Mises and Othmar Spann (Johann Brazda/Robert Schediwy, Robert Stöger, Finally, the last section is devoted to art and culture. In a more culture-theoretical essay, the emergence of avant-garde and mass culture, the "crisis of perception and visual culture" as an effect of the world war is described here (Siegfried Mattl). Individual contributions then turn to the literary scene and theater life in Vienna, but also to the spectator spectacle of football, with which the social underclass conquered new possibilities of articulation and their own public (Alfred Pfoser, Julia Danielczyk/Birgit Peter, Roman Horak). Finally, Eugenie Schwarzwald's reform-pedagogical activities, Freud's mass-psychological theory, which emerged from the experiences of the World War, Konrad/Maderthaner and their authors do not present an overall account of the history of the First Republic. However, they offer a cleverly composed panorama of their early years, which, thanks to its broad thematic range and the excellent selection of the contributors, is convincingly able to fulfill the claim of a standard work and offers an important basis for any further study of the First Republic. In view of this, one might miss at most a concluding summary by the editors, which formulates further research perspectives on the basis of what has been presented, or a more weighted and content-oriented foreword.

Subjects

Subject

Austria > History > 1918-1938.

Austria > Politics and government > 1918-1938.

Austria > Economic conditions > 1918-1945.

Austria > Civilization > 20th century.

Bibliographic Information

Responsibility

Helmut Konrad, Wolfgang Maderthaner, Herausgeber.

Title Variation

Rest ist Österreich

Note

Four maps on folded leaves in pockets.

Library Special Collection

The Roger Griffin ComFas Collection

ISBN

9783950263107

Holdings

Item Type	Current Location	Collection	Call Number	Volume Info	Shelving Location	Public Note
Book	OSA Archivum Library	General collection	943.6051 KON vol. 1		General Stacks	Volume 2 is missing.

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