The Formation of the Modern Austrian Nation

The idea of writing this book first came to me in 2008, when I was an exchange student in Austria. Not only had I had the opportunity to witness the reaction of Austrian society to the death of a controversial politician, Jörg Haider, but also to experience the political influences of the populist right in that Alpine republic. It was then that I noticed there was something bewildering about the national identity of the Austrians. Haider had rejected the mainstream vision of Austrians as an independent nation and claimed they were still part of the greater German nation. In talks with my Austrian friends, I encountered a national identity that—at least in my opinion—seemed undefined and feeble: quite the opposite of the Polish national identity, which for me was set in stone. While writing my master’s thesis on Haider and the radical right I delved even deeper into the topic. What I found fascinating was that there is a massive amount of literature on the Austrian national identity—much more in fact than in the Polish case. Of course, there are monographs published about the character of the Polish nation, and about how it has been perceived by various writers, politicians, and so forth. But I have never found works that either tried to prove the existence of the Polish nation, or on the other hand, questioned its existence. The more I read about the Austrian case the more questions I had.

Any scholar writing about nation formation will soon be confronted with the “curse of abundance.” Studies regarding nations, nationalisms, and national identity may come from fields such as history, the political sciences, sociology, anthropology, psychology, linguistics, economics, or even biology. Each provides a distinct methodology, and thus it becomes almost compulsory that research on any nation will either be interdisciplinary or highly focused on one aspect. Then issues with the understanding of basic terms appear. Not only is there little consensus about what a nation really is, but there is also little agreement among Austrians themselves. Anyone who wishes to investigate the Austrian case will be confronted not with a lack of sources but with an overabundance of such works.

When trying to determine how many books tackle the difficult topic of Austrian nationhood, it is easy to be surprised by their sheer numbers. A rather small nation, Austria has been the object of a scholarly dispute that has not been solely limited to Austrians but has attracted scholars from all over the world. For a Polish reader, the amount of literature about the Austrian nation and Austrian national identity is astounding. “There is no historical structure in Europe that is as strongly associated with the identity problems of its members as Austria,”¹ as Friedrich Heer puts it. Perhaps it is this uncertainty of identity (such a foreign feeling for a Pole) that incites Austrian scholars and writers to deal with the issue again and again. Yet despite the number of works about the Austrian nation, there are areas that seem to be untouched by scholars. I will list the shortcomings of the literature on the topic below.

While historians have been discussing the subject since the foundation of the Second Austrian Republic in 1945, it was in the late 1970s and 1980s that the two most important works were produced: Friedrich Heer’s Kampf um die Österreischiche Identität (The Struggle for Austrian Identity) and Ernst Bruckmüller’s Nation Österreich (Austrian Nation).² These books are fundamental and form the backbone of the intellectual work on the topic of the Austrian nation. There is, however, a problem with them, namely, they barely—if at all—touch on the modern Austrian nation. Herr ends his narrative with the Anschluss of 1938 and Bruckmüller devotes only a very short and superficial chapter to the modern Austrian national identity (called Zugehörigkeitsidentität, belonging), which he basically compares to the German Verfassungpatriotismus (constitutional patriotism).³ In this work I will try to prove that the comparison is not entirely apt in the Austrian case. But before these two pinnacles emerged, several discussions on the subject were published in the journal Forum in the 1950s. In the 1960s, readers were presented with the volume Die Österreichische Nation: Zwischen zwei Nationalismen (1967) (The Austrian Nation: Between Two Nationalisms), edited by Albert Massiczek. Then from an unexpected—American—direction came William Bluhm’s contribution, Building the Austrian Nation (1973), which focused mainly on interviews with party members. It is an invaluable source in regard to national consciousness among the elites. Unfortunately, Bluhm’s work omitted interviews with members of the Freedom Party, who opposed the idea of the Austrian nation. The present book will fill this omission. Another American, Peter Katzenstein, in his book Disjoined Partners: Austria and Germany (1976), proposed an abstract model for the coexistence of the two states. While focusing on systemic processes of integration and disintegration, he demonstrated that it was not cultural development that led to the formation of the Austrian nation but rather external and internal systemic differences. Other indispensable contributions on the topic of the Austrian nation were Felix Kreissler’s Der Österreicher und seine Nation: Ein Lernprozess mit Hindernissen (1984)⁴ (The Austrian and His Nation: A Learning Process with Obstacles) and Nation und Nationalbewußtsein in Österreich (1998) (Nation and National Consciousness in Austria) edited in two volumes by Albert Reiterer, and Identität und Nationalstolz der Österreicher (1996) (The Identity and National Pride of Austrians) edited by Max Haller. The most important work, however, is Peter Thaler’s book The Ambivalence of Identity (2001), which covered most of the ground in regard to intellectual and institutional nation formation. Thaler’s work, though priceless for the topics it addresses, has several deficiencies. While emphasizing the role of historians, Thaler does not investigate the issue of history schoolbooks. He also focuses more on state institutions, which leads to an underrepresentation of the role played by political parties, and in the Austrian case these are of utmost significance.⁵ Furthermore, the last chapter of Thaler’s book, which promises to compare Austrian nation formation with theories of nationhood, does not deliver. One of the goals of this work is to fill the gaps that Thaler left.

Outside of historical and political works, Anton Pelinka’s numerous rather essayistic works and Robert Menasse’s interesting and well-written essays also contribute to the discussion about the Austrian nation.⁶ Two essays written by a German historian, Karl Dietrich Erdmann, in a short book, Die Spur Österreichs in der deutschen Geschichte. Drei Staaten—zwei Nationen—ein Volk? (Austria’s Trace in German History: Three States—Two Nations—One People?) (1989) created quite a stir in the Austrian discourse. Erdmann proposed a vision of one people divided into three states: West Germany, East Germany, and Austria. His essays were fiercely rejected by the Austrians and created an interesting discussion.⁷

The list would not be complete without mentioning the contributions made by historians such as Georg Wagner, whose edited volume Österreich. Von der Staatsidee zum Nationalbewußtsein (Austria: From the Idea of the State to National Consciousness) (1982) preceded the massive Österreich Zweite Republik (The Second Republic of Austria) (1983–1987).⁸ In both these works, Wagner sought the origins of the Austrian nation in the most ancient period. The edited volume is a great source for understanding the mindset of those Austrian historians who have tried to prove the continuity of the Austrian nation back to medieval times (or even earlier). Wagner published his opus magnum to celebrate the first thirty years of the Second Austrian Republic. In 2005, his fellow countryman and historian Olivier Rathkolb also published his work for an anniversary date: Die paradoxe Republik: Österreich 1945 bis 2005 (The Paradox Republic: Austria from 1945 to 2005).⁹

There are several other works that deal with the topic of Austrian identity. Of these, Zur diskursiven Konstruktion nationaler Identität (On the Discursive Construction of National Identity), edited by Ruth Wodak, is the most significant. By focusing on discourse, this breakthrough work introduced a new quality to research on nation formation. Wodak followed the constructivists, especially Benedict Anderson, who stressed the importance of communication in creating the imagined community of a nation. Discourse analysis is multilayered, and pertains to speeches, interviews, and discussions. Austrian national identity is understood as a cultural construct that creates a cultural nation. Wodak directly contradicts Bruckmüller’s proposal of a political nation. The idea of the discursive construction of national identity served as a great inspiration for the present work, although the focus here will be shifted more to discourses that were relevant in the past rather than current ones. Wodak tries to answer the question of what the Austrian nation is, rather than how it was formed. It is worth noting that a group work in which Wodak participated—the 2020 book Österreichische Identitäten im Wandel Empirische Untersuchungen zu ihrer diskursiven Konstruktion 1995–2015 (Austrian Identities in Transition: Empirical Studies on Their Discursive Construction)—continued this line of research and broadened its scope.

In 2003, Sussane Frölich-Steffen’s book, Die österreichische Identität im Wandel (Austrian Identity in Transition), was presented and discussed in the Austrian parliament. The president of the National Council, Andreas Khol, spoke of Austrians’ ever-growing approval—in spite of historical ups-and-downs—for their state, which in the 1920s “nobody wanted.” Khol expressed his conviction that the population’s approval of Austria had become “great.”¹⁰

Additionally, the yearly Contemporary Austrian Studies has to be mentioned. It is produced by Center Austria, based in New Orleans, and its main editors are Günther Bischoff and Anton Pelinka. This journal is often the best introduction to Austrian studies, as it features texts from all the prominent scholars who deal with the topic. Of the 26 volumes that have been published to date, several are of value for the subject of Austrian nation formation, especially Volume 5, which is specifically dedicated to this problem.¹¹ Very often though, the texts submitted are just abbreviated versions of books, monographs, or articles that have already been published in German in Austria.

In Poland, Adam Romejko briefly analyzed the issue of Austrian identity.¹² Romejko’s lone article showed that there was need for a Polish monograph on the Austrian nation. Krzysztof Koźbiał later delved into the topic of Austrian national identity in light of the Austrian Accession Treaty to the EU.¹³

Although there are several works on the history of Austria that are relevant to the nation-formation subject, they mostly focus on the Habsburg period, for instance, Henryk Wereszycki’s fundamental Pod berłem Habsburgów (Under the Habsburgs’ Scepter) (1975) and Historia Austrii (History of Austria) (1972). Only a few historians have managed to include the time after 1945. One was Karol Fiedor, in his Austria: zarys dziejów politycznych (Austria: An Outline of Political History) (1996)—though the book is rather superficial—and another was Jerzy Kozeński, in Austria dzieje społeczne I polityczne 1918–1968 (Austria: A Social and Political History 1918–1968) (1970).¹⁴ Current Polish research is less focused on synthetic works and favors a more topical approach. For example, Agnieszka Kisztelińska-Węgrzynska has produced two monographs, one on Chancellor Bruno Kreisky’s policy in regard to the People’s Republic of Poland and the other about Austria in Polish public discourse: Bruno Kreisky. Polityka zagraniczna i dyplomacja wobec PRL (1959–1983) (2018); Austria w polskim dyskursie publicznym po 1945 roku (2016).¹⁵

Nevertheless, one thing has been lacking in all the research. Miroslav Hroch, for example, in his fundamental comparative study, made no mention of the Austrian case. He did not forget the Baltic nations (the Latvians, Estonians, and Lithuanians), but he omitted the Austrians. The Polish scholar Józef Chlebowczyk, who tried to find patterns in the development of small nations, made a similar omission. His only mentions of Austria concerned the ill-fated Austro-Hungarian Empire, and he referred to the German-speaking population of that country as German Austrians.¹⁶ Somehow the inclusion of the Habsburg realm seemed to be sufficient, and it is hard to blame anyone for such a view, as the Empire crumbled under the pressures of different national groups and provides a rich store of examples for scholars. And yet the complex history of the role of nations and nationalism in the fall of the Austrian Empire obscures the role that Austrian Germans played, and in fact this role is often overlooked. At the same time, Austrian researchers tend to focus on proving the existence of the Austrian nation before the Second World War, and while they have provided magnificent works, the theory of nation-building is often set aside. Paradoxically, the Austrian example was used for one of the most ground-breaking approaches to national identity: discursive analysis.¹⁷ The Austrian case is interesting because of the way it contrasts with other nations and nationalisms in Europe (or even solely in Central Europe). Unlike in other countries, nationalist movements and modern nation-building did not occur there in the nineteenth century but appeared in the second half of the twentieth century, and thus they have been compressed into the lifespan of barely two generations.

When researching nations, a myriad of theories from different fields, such as history, the political sciences, sociology, psychology, and so forth, could be applied. Each of these approaches would require the use of a different methodology. I intend to balance between history and the political sciences, and to employ methods from both these disciplines. Political science and history overlap with regard to many topics. In fact, in many cases the political sciences deal with recent history (Zeitgeschichte, or in Polish, historia najnowsza), which is usually considered to be the period after 1945. This work will rely on political-science theories of nationhood, nation formation, and nationalism. When talking about nation formation, a systemic approach, including the analysis of genetic, structural, and functional aspects of this process, are necessary. It is impossible to omit history, as the legacy of the past plays a pivotal role in the building of nations.

The goal of this work is to fill the gap and to confront findings about the formation of the Austrian nation with theories of nation formation. Only in this way, I believe, can the question be answered of how the Austrian nation was made. The said theories will be validated or falsified by the Austrian case study, and reflexively, Austrian nationhood will be validated (or not) by the theories. As a bonus, I will discuss Polish scholarship on nationhood theory and place it within the global mainstream.