Austro-Slavism

Austro-Slavism denoted a political tendency of the Slavs (especially the Czechs ) in Austria-Hungary in the second half of the 19th century following the Slavophile return and the first phase of the Czech national movement . It sought to transform the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy into a trialist (i.e. three-part) state. The main representatives were the old Czechs František Palacký and František Ladislav Rieger , but also Austrian social democratic theorists such as Otto Bauer , Viktor Adler and the Polish national activist Paweł Stalmach . Around 1890 the political ideas of the radical young Czechs replaced Austro-Slavism.

Not only trialism , but a more extensive federalization and democratization of Austria-Hungary was up for debate. It was about maintaining the monarchy, in which, however, the nationalities would be granted autonomy. With the Austro-Hungarian compromise in 1867 and the Hungarian-Croatian counterpart in 1868/1873 - in which, however, no far-reaching concessions were made - democratization in the sense of a federal structure of Austria-Hungary got stuck. In addition, the Hungarian half of the empire pursued a restrictive nationality policy ( Magyarization ) after 1867 , the aim of which was the formation of a uniform Magyar national state based on the Western European model.

The Slovenian Slavist Jernej Kopitar (1780–1844) is considered to be a pioneer of Austro-Slavism . In the early 19th century he gathered an extensive network, especially South Slavic scholars, around himself, collected Slavic antiquities and worked as a co-founder of Slavic studies in order to raise the reputation of Slavism within the Habsburg Monarchy in the sense of cultural nationalism.

literature

Gun-Britt Kohler, Hans Henning Hahn , Rainer Grübel (eds.): Habsburg and the Slavia (= Central Europe - Eastern Europe , Volume 10). Lang, Frankfurt am Main (among others) 2008, ISBN 978-3-631-53123-5 .
Andreas Moritsch: The Austroslavism: a premature concept for the political reorganization of Central Europe (= series of publications of the International Center for European Nationalism and Minority Research , Volume 1). Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 1995, ISBN 3-205-98362-9 .

Individual evidence

^ Ingrid Merchiers: Cultural Nationalism in the South Slav Habsburg Lands in the Early Nineteenth Century. The scholarly network of Jernej Kopitar (1780-1844). Sagner, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-87690-985-1 , pp. 131ff.

[1] Ingrid Merchiers: Cultural Nationalism in the South Slav Habsburg Lands in the Early Nineteenth Century. The scholarly network of Jernej Kopitar (1780-1844). Sagner, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-87690-985-1 , pp. 131ff.