The German term `Mitteleuropa' was coined to designate Central Europe at the time when the Habsburg monarchy exercised its domination over the Danube area and when the Eastern borders of the Reich proclaimed in 1871 were formed, thus from the end of the eighteenth century to the end of the First World War. Mitteleuropa constitutes an ambivalent `lieu de mémoire', a notion in which Central Europe has invested its memory of the past and its identity: such a notion (...) is negative when it brings to mind the mental map of German imperialism both exploited and perverted in the Third Reich; it is positive when it is interpreted as a federative idea, opening supranational perspectives associating the countries of German culture with Slavic peoples — the Hungarians, the Romanians — and with the Jews. Since the formation of the `Habsburg myth' as a retrospective utopia of a defunct harmony of nationalities in the `third Europe' situated between Western Europe and the Russian world, the Austrian tradition has become the focus of the new notion of `Zentraleuropa', prefiguring Central European union. (shrink)

The political significance of Mitteleuropa has grown in that much of it is now within the EU. Mitteleuropa is a discourse; it is not just a semantic term or a label to refer to a geopolitical region in which power and culture are interwined. Although people may identify with it, it is not primarily a term of identity but a cultural mode of interpretation. It can be called, along with other concepts of Europe, a conflicting field of interpretation. (...) The concept reflects a civilizational context based on imperial models of modernity and cosmopolitan cultural resonances. Europe is an ongoing cultural battleground and the idea of Mitteleuropa is a reminder of a shift to the margins and the emergence of a multiperspectival Europe along with new notions of geopolitical space and historical-time consciousness. (shrink)

This article compares the Mitteleuropa visions of Friedrich List and Friedrich Naumann, two liberal thinkers from two different centuries. Their conceptualizations demonstrate how fragile the connection is between free trade and democracy. Friedrich List was a liberal thinker in pre-revolutionary Germany who was very interested in the question of how to create a political economy based on a strong nation-state. List stretched the concept of Mitteleuropa to include an area from the Baltic and the North Sea to the (...) Mediterranean and the Black Sea in the south. List was a typical liberal of that time with a belief in the combination of free trade, democracy and nationalism. Friedrich Naumann's goal was to reconcile the categories of state and economy, the Emperor and the working class, German and Slavic populations, understood as opposites by many in the debate of his time. The task he set himself was to reconcile these opposites and connect them to liberal thoughts about constitution and democracy. His utmost goal was to unify the national and the social, the Kaiser and the Volk. On this point, Naumann failed, as we know. As we also know, other forces then took up his search for ways to unite the national and the social. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to provide a description, an analysis and an explanation of Mitteleuropa and of other closely related concepts, such as East-Central Europe. The first section briefly addresses the broad historiographical issues. The second addresses the more strictly political and intellectual history of the concept in the period between 1975 and 1989 while the third section will describe the evolution of the concept after the end of the Cold War. The final part outlines the future (...) directions in which the concept will change. (shrink)

(1990). “Mitteleuropa”—Does it still exist, or Is it a mere geopolitical abstraction? World Futures: Vol. 29, The Future of European Integration, pp. 218-226.

Claudio Magris’s revisitation of the idea of Mitteleuropa in the essay-novel Danubio is often read as a contribution to the imperial nostalgia inherent in the Habsburg myth, the process of transfiguration of Austrian history that Magris himself observed and theorized. This reading, however, suggests that in the context of the Cold War, Magris’s emphasis on the non-national legacy of Mitteleuropa, conceived as a strategy of resistance against the totalitarian reaches of authoritarian regimes, resists the allure of a straightforward (...) and easy nostalgia. The narrator of Magris’s extended travelogue takes the reader on a textual journey through local narratives and literatures along the Danube, where a palimpsest of discarded and overwritten histories reveals neglected and almost forgotten paradigms. These rhetorical dockings on the banks of the Danube, located at the intersection of fiction and essayism, reflect upon the legacy of Mitteleuropa and attempt to chart a possible postnational future for Europe. (shrink)

The idea of Mitteleuropa began to gain momentum in the German geopolitical science of the beginning of the twentieth century. German geopolitics, which became famous through the works of Karl Haushofer, had set out a geographical and political notion of Mitteleuropa that supported a political project based on German expansion. As such, Mitteleuropa developed as both a political and scientific concept, a project and a `reality'. With an analysis of the core elements defining the term Mitteleuropa (...) one can begin to appreciate the characteristics that differentiate it from other geographical concepts, as well as the features which some conservative authors have promoted following the geopolitical scientists. As a `geopolitical idea', Mitteleuropa can be shown to designate a way of understanding politics, nature and culture, or more specifically, their relationship. (shrink)

Article Kollektive Standardisierungen der materiellen Kultur im ausgehenden Neolithikum und am Beginn der Bronzezeit in Mitteleuropa. Ein Fallbeispiel zu „Riesenbechern“ und glockenbecherzeitlicher Siedlungskeramik was published on October 26, 2017 in the journal Zeitschrift für Kultur- und Kollektivwissenschaft (volume 3, issue 2).

Der vorliegende Forschungsband möchte der kulturelle Bedeutung der Ersten Republik und deren Leistungen einen gebührenden Platz einräumen. Während sich nämlich Wiener Moderne und Weimarer Republik heute einer fortdauernden Aufmerksamkeit erfreuen, sind die Kultur der Ersten Republik und hier vorab des soziokulturellen Laboratoriums Wien – vermutlich schon in der Wahrnehmung vieler Zeitgenossinnen und Zeitgenossen unterbelichtet geblieben. Versammelt sind Beiträge zur Volksbildung im Roten Wien, zu Architektur und Stadtplanung, zu neuen Diskursen in der Psychoanalyse oder zur Neuorientierung Musils nach 1918, die später (...) zu seinem epochalen Roman »Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften« führen wird. Was ihn von anderen Publikationen unterscheidet, ist ein komparatistischer Aspekt, der etwa im Vergleich zwischen der Revolution 1918 in Wien und Österreich und der (kurzlebigen) Räterepublik in Ungarn aber auch in der Analyse der ungarischen Medien in der Zwischenkriegszeit zum Ausdruck kommt. Durch diese erhellenden Vergleiche fällt neues Licht auf die spezifische Besonderheit der Ersten Republik und der Situation im Roten Wien. (shrink)

This article reviews several strategies of technology transfer in early modern Central Europe and will focus especially on transfers between individuals: the transfer of know-how in the context of apprenticeship that became an institutionalized kind of professional education; and the transfer of technology by migration. The essay deals with different evaluations of the effects of technology transfer in the crafts production and will reflect recent discussions of the advantages and disadvantages of the tramping system. The intensive debate over the utility (...) of tramping began in the eighteenth century, especially in the contemporary scientific journals and as a question in academic prize competitions. The discussion stressed all the strategies of transfer. In special workshops – as in porcelain manufacturing – the protection of know-how was widespread. While some European states like England in the later eighteenth century tended towards a policy of secrecy, the German territories depended on the acquisition of new technologies, and therefore preferred a policy of openness in technological knowledge. (shrink)

BALOGH, Piroska – FÓRIZS, Gergely [eds.] : Anthropologische Ästhetik in Mitteleuropa 1750–1850/ Anthropological Aesthetics in Central Europe 1750–1850. Hannover: Wehrhahn Verlag 2018. 304 pp.

BALOGH, Piroska – FÓRIZS, Gergely [eds.] : Anthropologische Ästhetik in Mitteleuropa 1750–1850/ Anthropological Aesthetics in Central Europe 1750–1850. Hannover: Wehrhahn Verlag 2018. 304 pp.

BALOGH, Piroska – FÓRIZS, Gergely [eds.] : Anthropologische Ästhetik in Mitteleuropa 1750–1850/ Anthropological Aesthetics in Central Europe 1750–1850. Hannover: Wehrhahn Verlag 2018. 304 pp.

BALOGH, Piroska – FÓRIZS, Gergely [eds.] : Anthropologische Ästhetik in Mitteleuropa 1750–1850/ Anthropological Aesthetics in Central Europe 1750–1850. Hannover: Wehrhahn Verlag 2018. 304 pp.

BALOGH, Piroska – FÓRIZS, Gergely [eds.] : Anthropologische Ästhetik in Mitteleuropa 1750–1850/ Anthropological Aesthetics in Central Europe 1750–1850. Hannover: Wehrhahn Verlag 2018. 304 pp.

This essay explores the narratives of Claudio Magris and Amin Maalouf as a literature of identity, memory and testimony that seeks to foster social justice, dialogue and inclusivity in twenty-first-century Europe and the Mediterranean. In On Identity (Les Identités meurtrières, 1998) Maalouf investigates individual and collective identities, their elusive and treacherous dynamics, through a reflection that encompasses the Levant, the north-south Mediterranean divide and its endless permutations. Similarly, Magris’s fictional characters occupy liminal worlds in which identities contaminate, overlap, and often (...) dissolve, while exclusivist belonging reveals itself as a deceptive chimera. In Blindly (Alla cieca, 2006), Magris explores the legacy of twentieth-century destructive identitarian myths and presents an alternative history that derives from inhabiting alterity, in a process that makes his characters privileged interpreters of the past, often brothers and sisters of the subversive castaways of history. Maalouf’s Balthasar’s Odyssey (Le Périple de Baldassare, 2000) spans the Middle East and Europe and scrutinizes their respective fault lines and connective tissues that solicit transcultural and composite approaches to identity. Balthasar records his permanent alterity by unceasingly questioning and adapting his own perception of the self in an ever-changing world, at a time of impending catastrophe. From the vantage point of Mitteleuropa, Mediterranean Europe, and the Levant, considered not as independent geopolitical entities, but as interconnected, rhizomatic geopolitical networks, the works of Maalouf and Magris emphasize the need to give voice to “other” accounts of history, to question our identitarian assumptions and to nurture the European project, a fragile, but irreplaceable possibility for a shared future. (shrink)

This essay discusses Claudio Magris’s concept of Mitteleuropa—which is central to his view of Europe—by situating it within the context of Triestine cultural history. It first presents the reflections on Europe formulated by the early generations of journalists in La Favilla, the newspaper founded in Trieste in 1836. This is followed by a discussion of the cultural and political writings of Scipio Slataper (1888–1915) and Giani Stuparich (1891–1961). Like Magris these journalists and writers assumed the role of public intellectuals (...) and reflected on three pivotal periods in the history of Trieste by focusing on the question of cosmopolitanism (La Favilla), political and national identity (Slataper), and the feasibility of a European project after World War II (Stuparich). Against the prevailing totalizing nationalist vision, these writers explored the possibility of a non-national political identity based on a cultural notion of Europeanism. The different views of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Triestine journalists and writers of the idea of Europe, of Trieste as a border city, and of European identity, are illuminated by Magris’s own theoretical elaborations on borders, on Europe, and on Mitteleuropa, which further highlight their historical and conceptual intricacies. (shrink)

This chapter relates post-1918 Italy to the collapse of the Habsburg Empire and the ascent of the successor states, and analyses, from the Trieste’s vantage point, fascist projects, practices and networks of ‘empire’ in the Adriatic Sea, in Mitteleuropa and in the Balkans between 1918 and 1938. It focuses on three connected aspects. Firstly, the northern Adriatic was the first setting of the ascent of squadrismo, a model of violent action against ‘enemies within’ then replicated elsewhere. Secondly, Italian nationalism (...) and imperialism aimed to reconfigure the post-Habsburg economic space and to reconnect the Adriatic with Central and Balkan Europe. Thirdly, Italian nationalist (then Fascist) élites from Trieste played a critical role, by boosting processes of empire-building and defending Austria vis-à-vis the prospects of Anschluss. In sum, the Habsburg legacies kept on shaping the dynamics of Italianization and fascistization in northern Adriatic and on feeding the search for Italy’s informal empire in Central and Southeastern Europe. (shrink)

The myth of the homeland -- The Nietzschean self-assertion of the German University -- The geo-politics of Heidegger's Mitteleuropa -- Heidegger's Greeks and the myth of autochthony -- Heidegger's "Nietzsche".

Maßgebliche Vertreter der wissenschaftlichen Weltauffassung des Wiener Kreises wie Moritz Schlick, Otto Neurath oder Edgar Zilsel waren jenseits aller sonstigen Differenzen gemeinsam bemüht, gegenüber den im Gefolge der "Krise des mechanistischen Weltbüdes" (die gerade in Mitteleuropa auch eine Krise des Bürgertums überhaupt war) auftretenden Strömungen des Anti-Empüismus, Irrationalismus und Erkenntnispessimismus die Errungenschaften der neuzeitlichen Wissenschaft zu bewahren.Für die Auseinandersetzung mit der gegenwärtigen Phüosophie und Wissenschaft und üirer gesellschaftlichen Stellung wäre ein Anknüpfen an die damaligen Debatten von großer Bedeutung.

This translation of Carlo Michelstaedter’s _Persuasion and Rhetoric_ brings the powerful and original work of a seminal cultural figure to English-language readers for the first time. Ostensibly a commentary on Plato’s and Aristotle’s relation to the pre-Socratic philosophers, Michelstaedter’s deeply personal book is an extraordinary rhetorical feat that reflects the author’s struggle to make sense of modern life. This edition includes an introduction discussing his life and work, an extensive bibliography, notes to introduce each chapter, and critical notes illuminating the (...) text. Within hours of completing _Persuasion and Rhetoric, _his doctoral thesis, 23-year-old Michelstaedter shot himself to death. The text he left behind has proved to be one of the most trenchant and influential studies in modern rhetoric, a work that develops Nietzschean themes and anticipates the conclusions of, among others, Martin Heidegger. Publication of the book in English is an event of great magnitude for students of Italian philosophy, rhetoric, and literature as well as the culture of Mitteleuropa. (shrink)

The term ‘Continental philosophy’ designates not philosophy on the continent of Europe as a whole, but rather a selective slice of Franco-German philosophy. Through a critical analysis of the arguments advanced by Otto Neurath, the paper addresses the issue of why Austrian philosophers in particular are not counted in the pantheon of Continental philosophers. Austrian philosophy is marked by the predominance of philosophical analysis and of the philosophy of science. The paper concludes that it is not Austria which is the (...) special case when seen against the background of contemporary mainstream philosophy, but rather Germany and France. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDieser Beitrag ist Teil des Forums COVID-19: Perspektiven in den Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften. Die Figur des Pestarztes mit der schnabelförmigen Maske ist heute die am häufigsten zitierte Bildmetapher für die Pest. Es verwundert daher nicht, dass die Pestarztmaske in der Sammlung des Deutschen Medizinhistorischen Museums in Ingolstadt zu den am meisten nachgefragten Objekten und Bildmotiven des Hauses gehört. Der Forumsbeitrag spürt der Figur des Pestarztes auf mehreren Ebenen nach: Zunächst wird anhand zeitgenössischer Text- und Bildquellen diskutiert, welche Art von Schutzkleidung (...) zu Seuchenzeiten empfohlen wurde und welche Rolle das schnabelförmige Maskenattribut dabei spielte. Anschließend wird das Ingolstädter Exemplar unter die Lupe genommen, hinsichtlich seines Materials und seiner Machart auf Authentizität und Praktikabilität hin untersucht und mit dem Exemplar des Deutschen Historischen Museums in Berlin verglichen.Das Ergebnis: Die frühesten Belege für die Verwendung dieser speziellen Art von Schutzkleidung stammen aus Italien und Südfrankreich und datieren aus der Mitte des 17. Jahrhunderts. Für Mitteleuropa gibt es keinerlei Nachweise dafür, dass zu Pestzeiten jemals eine solche Schnabelmaske in Gebrauch gewesen wäre. Und die Pestarztmasken in Ingolstadt und Berlin? Bei kritischer Betrachtung finden sich bei beiden Masken Details, die gegen eine Verwendung als Schutzkleidung sprechen. Ob es sich dabei um ältere, historisierende Nachbauten oder bewusste Fälschungen handelt, muss offen bleiben. (shrink)

Este trabajo plantea un ejercicio de interpretación del relato bíblico de los macabeos, su rebelión y resistencia religiosa, política y militar frente a la imposición imperial desde algunas perspectivas recogidas de los escritos de Walter Benjamin sobre la juventud. Se ponen de relieve temas como la situación religiosa ante el horizonte de la Ilustración; la relevancia que tiene la religión en los movimientos sociales juveniles; el mesianismo reinterpretado por el movimiento romántico de los intelectuales judíos de la Mitteleuropa, según (...) lo ha estudiado el académico Michael Löwy para, finalmente, ensayar una reflexión sobre la ideología de la soberanía militar en contraste con el mesianismo utópico. (shrink)

Marx admirait grandement Aristote. En aurait-il pour autant accepté l'étrange réactualisation de l'ontologie, cette proto-science de "l'être en tant qu'être"? Toute son oeuvre atteste au contraire qu'elle relevait à ses yeux de "l'ancienne philosophie", conçue à une époque où se confondaient encore toutes les branches du savoir et dont il fallait "sortir d'un bond". L'élaboration par lui et ses continuateurs de cette logique supérieure qu'est la dialectique matérialiste offrait désormais la clé d'une connaissance positive d'un monde s'expliquant par lui-même, sans (...) adjonction d'aucune sorte. On peut s'étonner qu'au soir de sa vie, Georges Lukacs (1885-1971), une des figures les plus marquantes du marxisme contemporain, se soit lancé dans l'impossible tentative de réanimer cette antiquité philosophique. Riche en développements sur le travail et l'aliénation, sa monumentale Ontologie de l'être social n'en révèle pas moins un significatif écartèlement entre le penseur marxiste et l'homme de la Mitteleuropa qu'il ne dépouilla sans doute jamais complètement en lui. (shrink)

Durant le XIXe siècle, la montée socio-économique et l'assimilation culturelle des Juifs allemands engendrent deux tendances contradictoires: d'un côté, leur volonté d'intégration dans la nation allemande et, de l'autre, leur cosmopolitisme, lié à leur position, au centre d'un réseau socio-économique et d'un vaste mouvement migratoire de dimension continentale. Les Juifs contribuent ainsi à l'essor d'une idée culturelle de Mitteleuropa opposée à celle, géopolitique et expansionniste, défendue par le pangermanisme. Le cosmopolitisme judéo-allemand se manifeste dans plusieurs domaines: sur le plan (...) religieux, l'école de la « science du judaïsme » (Wissenschaft des Judentums) s'impose comme modèle de modernisation de la culture juive à l'échelle européenne ; sur le plan économique, les Juifs allemands émancipés consolident un réseau financier et commercial transnational dont les origines remontent à l'époque des «Juifs de cour» (Hofjuden); sur le plan politique, ils jouent un rôle majeur dans la diffusion du marxisme comme courant de pensée universaliste, dépassant les frontières nationales. D'une manière plus générale, les Juifs allemands seront le pivot d'un processus de transferts culturels étalé sur plus d'un siècle. Après l'avènement du nazisme, le cosmopolitisme judéo-allemand prendra la voie de l'exil, où il se chargera de sauver l'héritage de l'Aujkliirung. (shrink)

This translation of Carlo Michelstaedter’s _Persuasion and Rhetoric_ brings the powerful and original work of a seminal cultural figure to English-language readers for the first time. Ostensibly a commentary on Plato’s and Aristotle’s relation to the pre-Socratic philosophers, Michelstaedter’s deeply personal book is an extraordinary rhetorical feat that reflects the author’s struggle to make sense of modern life. This edition includes an introduction discussing his life and work, an extensive bibliography, notes to introduce each chapter, and critical notes illuminating the (...) text. Within hours of completing _Persuasion and Rhetoric, _his doctoral thesis, 23-year-old Michelstaedter shot himself to death. The text he left behind has proved to be one of the most trenchant and influential studies in modern rhetoric, a work that develops Nietzschean themes and anticipates the conclusions of, among others, Martin Heidegger. Publication of the book in English is an event of great magnitude for students of Italian philosophy, rhetoric, and literature as well as the culture of Mitteleuropa. (shrink)