Vol. XXXV · 2004Editors' NotesIN RECENT YEARS, each volume of the Austrian History Yearbook has brought evidence of the refreshing new perspectives that scholars have been advancing for whole areas of Austrian and Habsburg historiography. Volume XXXV is no exception in this regard. While over the last decade political scientists have shown new interest in the growth and dynamics of the state and other political institutions, historians of Central Europe, too, have been offering new insights into the development of the modern state and the state’s changing relationship with society. Fredrik Lindström's article on Ernest von Koerber's reform plans for the Austrian government just after 1900 offers a challenging reassessment of the meaning and purposes of those initiatives. In analyzing the character and role of agrarian societies in Bohemia and Moravia in the middle and late eighteenth century, Rita Krueger reminds us of how provincial elites joined with state authorities in advancing some of the projects of enlightened reform even while they resisted others. The research of Jeffrey Leigh on official press policy in the 1850s demonstrates that later, even under Bach absolutism, a government that was determined to quash free political activity in society still tried to respect the rule of law and to cultivate public opinion in positive ways. The Habsburg dynasty and the elaborate protocol of the imperial court and imperial celebrations were always, of course, important symbolic and functioning parts of the state apparatus. Michael Yonan offers new insights on the daily life and ceremonial of the Schönbrunn Palace in Maria Theresa's reign, while Peter Urbanitsch reassesses the role of the emperor and imperial monuments and celebrations in upholding the Habsburg state and encouraging popular identification with it during its last century. In the essays by Fred Stambrook on Bukovina, Peter Bugge on Bratislava/Pressburg/Pozsony/Pres¡ porok, and Maura Hametz on Trieste, readers will find excellent illustrations of historians’ growing appreciation of the contingency, ambiguities, and mutability of popular political loyalties, group identities, and the discourse that expressed those identities in late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century Central Europe. Discourse and language have been a significant interest for Robert J. W. Evans for a number of years. His Robert A. Kann Memorial Lecture, published in this volume, makes a compelling argument for the importance of language and languages as such, alongside the politics of language, in the history of the Habsburg monarchy. With the publication of volume XXXV, we note also several milestones in the life of the Yearbook. Having given dedicated service as a member of the editorial board since 1995, James Van Horn Melton has stepped down to devote himself to other responsibilities. We welcome as a correspondent for the Italian and Swiss historical communities Marina Cattaruzza, formerly of the University of Trieste and now professor of history at the University of Bern. From Oxford, the Regius Professor of Modern History, Robert J. W. Evans also joins the roster of correspondents, as does Eva Kowalská from the Historical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava and Yaroslav Hrytsak of the L'viv National University. The editing and publication of the Austrian History Yearbook each year would not be possible without the extraordinary efforts of our colleagues at the Center for Austrian Studies in Minneapolis, Nicole Phelps, Barbara Krauss-Christensen, Daniel Pinkerton, and Virginia Martin; and at Berghahn Books, Marion and Vivian Berghahn and their staff. We depend enormously on the skills and dedication of these gifted colleagues in presenting the work of our authors in proper form to the readership. As in years past, we are deeply grateful to the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York and to the Austrian Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs for generously subsidizing this volume through the purchase of copies.
Catherine Albrecht |