Justifying Political Power in 19th Century Europe: the Habsburg Monarchy and Beyond

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Level: 
Master's
CEU credits: 
4
ECTS credits: 
8
Academic year: 
2009/2010
Academic year: 
2010/2011
Semester: 
Winter
Start and end dates: 
9 Jan 2012 - 30 Mar 2012
Co-hosting Unit(s) [if applicable]: 
Department of History
Stream/Track/Specialization/Core Area: 
Social and Political History in a Comparative Perspective
CEU Instructor(s): 
Maciej Janowski
Additional information: 
The goals of the course: As regards the methodology, the goal is to broaden the traditional historian’s source basis by including non-written sources (iconography, architecture). Obviously, many historians use these sources nowadays but they still look less familiar than written sources to most of us. Here we have the opportunity to try to interpret the visual sources ourselves. As regards the subject matter, the goal is to question the over-simplistic vision of 19th century political development as a stream of democratization. I try to argue that monarchic institutions managed, to a high degree, to accommodate themselves to the new political and social situation, and in early 20th century they probably looked stronger that 100 years earlier. I would like to stress the amazing strength of traditional modes of imagining the nature of state power. What numerous historians call “coexistence of asynchronisms”, is very clearly visible in how the idea “legitimate state” was being constructed and reconstructed through the 19th century. Thus, to sum up, my final goal is to make the participants reflect about the nature of the sources they use and epoch they study and to present a picture slightly more complicated than one encountered in general handbooks.
Learning Outcomes: 
Ideally, the desired learning outcome for the participants would be to develop skills of interpretation of various historical sources, and to get some hints at interesting interpretative perspectives of the 19th century history. All this may later serve as help in university studies or (hopefully) as an incentive for further individual reading. The course should introduce the students to the problems of political legtimization in 19th century Europe; It should encourage to use the comparative perspective and to analyze various types of historical sources (including iconography). It should help to discover a variety of legitimisation discourses that are often overlooked.
Assessment : 
Class activity Short oral presentation (15 minutes) Short essay (max. 10 pages, double-spaced)
Full description: 

1. General introduction.

Reinhard Bendix, Kings or People. Power and the Mandate to Rule, University of California Press, p.3-15. [savepdf]
Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution, Chapter 1 (The Cabinet), Chapter 2 (Monarchy) [savepdf] 
Numa-Denis Fustel de Coulanges. The Ancient City Doubleday Anchor Books, New York, p.120-133. [savepdf]
Max Weber, Legitimacy, Politics and the State, in: Legitimacy and the State, ed. W. Connolly, New York University Press, New York 1984, p. 32-62. [savepdf]

2. German and British Theories of State.

J.K.Bluntschli, The Theory of the State, Oxford 1921, 3rd ed., pp15-24 [savepdf1]; 81-108 [savepdf2][savepdf3]; 305-326 [savepdf4][savepdf5]; 430-438 [savepdf6]; 493-513. [savepdf7]
Herbert Spencer, The Great Superstition, in: idem, The Man Versus the State, ed. D. Macrae, Penguin Books, 1969, p.152-183. [savepdf]
Asa Briggs, Victorian People, Penguin Books, p.95-124 (Chapter 4: Trollope, Bagehot and the English Constitution) [savepdf]

3. Rituals of Monarchy.

Philippe Buc, 1701 in Medieval Perspective: Monarchic rituals between the Middle Ages and Modernity, Majestas, vol. 10 (2002), p/ 92-117.

Clifford Geertz, Centers, Kings and Charisma: reflections on the Symbolics of Power, in: idem, Local Knowledge. Further Essays in interpretative Anthropology, BasicBooks, p.121-145. [savepdf]
Hugh LeCaine Agnew, Ambiguities of Ritual: Dynastic loyalty, Territorial Patriotism and Nationalism in the last three royal coronations in Bohemia 1791-1836, Bohemiavol. 41 (2000), p. 3-22. [savepdf]

4. Monarchic ritual transformed.

Michael Walzer, Introduction, in: Regicide and Revolution. Speeches at the trial of Louis XVI, ed. M. Walzer, Columbia University Press, New York 1992, p. 1-15; 47-68. [savepdf]
Sudhir Hazareesingh, Religion and Politics in the Saint Napoleon Festivity, 1852-70: Anti-Clericalism, Local Patriotism and Modernity, The English Historical Review, vol. CXIX, No 482, June 2004, p.614-650. [savepdf]

5. The Habsburg state.

Henry Wickham Steed, The Hapsburg Monarchy, London 1914, 3rd ed., p.59-91. [savepdf]
R.J.W. Evans, Language and State Building: The Case of the Habsburg Monarchy,Austrian History Yearbook 35 (2004), p.1-24. [savepdf]
Laszlo Peter , The Dualist Character of the 1867 Hungarian Settlement, in: Gy. Ranki (ed.), Hungarian History World History, p. 85-165. [savepdf1][savepdf2]
Oscar Jaszi, the Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy (Chapter on the "Centripetal forces") [savepdf]

6. Hungary in the Habsburg Monarchy.

Laszlo Peter, The Holy Crown of Hungary, Visible and Invisible, The Slavonic and East European Review, vol. 81, July 2003, p.421-510. [savepdf]
Peter F. Sugar, The More It Changes, the More Hungarian Nationalism Remains the Same, Austrian History Yearbook vol. 31 (2000), p. 127-174. [savepdf]

7. Visual representation of power (two classes).

Roger Dixon, Stefan Muthesius, Victorian Architecture, London 1985, Thames & Hudson, 2nd ed., Chapter IV: Monumental Public Architecture. p. 142-181. [savepdf]
Sergiusz Michalski, Public Monuments. Art. in Political Bondage 1870-1997, London 1998, Reaktion Books, p. 56-75. [pdf]
Akos Moravanszky, Competing Visions. Aesthetic Invention and Social Imagination in Central European Architecture 1867-1918, Cambridge, Massachusets London, England, 1999, The MIT Press, Chapter 2: "The City as Political Monument", p. 25-61. [savepdf]
Carl Schorske, Fin de siecle Vienna. Politics and Culture, (Chapter on the Ringstrasse). [savepdf]

8. National identity versus state identity (two classes).

Jan Rueger, Nation, Empire and Navy: Identity Politics in the United Kingdom 1887-1914, Past and Present No 185, November 2004, p. 159-188. [savepdf]
Jennifer Mori, Languages of Loyalism: Patriotism, Nationhood and the State in the 1790s, The English Historical Review vol.CXVIII, No 475, s. 33-58. [savepdf]
Daniel Chirot, Herder's Multicultural Theory of Nationalism and its Consequences,East European Politics and Societies vol. 10, nr 1, Winter 1996, p.1-15. [savepdf]
Marius Turda, The Magyars: A Ruling Race: The Idea of National Superiority in Fin-de Siecle Hungary, European Review of History Revue europeenne d'histoire, 2003, No1, p. 5-32. [ ]
Agnes Deak, Miklos Wesselenyi on the Future of the Habsburg Empire and Hungary, in: Geopolitics in the Danube Region, Budapest 1999, CEU Press, p. 21-40. [savepdf]
Laszlo Katus, Jozsef Eotvos and Ferenc Deak: Laws on Nationalities, in: Geopolitics in the Danube Region, Budapest 1999, CEU Press, p.133-160. [savepdf]
John-Paul Himka, Young Radicals and Independent Statehood: the Idea of a Ukrainian Nation-State, 1890-1895, Slavic Review 1982, p.219-245. [p.140-148]. [saveJSTOR] 
R.W. Seton-Watson, The Southern Slav Question and the Habsburg Monarchy, New York 1969, p. 335-344, 350-361, 392-397. [savepdf]
Ivan L. Rudnytsky, Observations on the Problem of "Historical" and "Non-historical" Nations, Harvard Ukrainian Studies, vol. 5 (1981). [savepdf]
Jozsef Eotvos, The Dominant ideas of the 19th century and their impact on the State, vol.1-2, Boulder, Colorado, 1996-1998, vol. 1, p. 91-05 [savepdf]; vol. 2, p. 123-126; 349-358; 473-476. [savepdf]

Robert Seeley, The Expansion of England (from 1883, MacMillan and Co., 1914) Lecture IV. "How we govern India"; Lecture V. "Mutual Influence of England and India" [savepdf]

Frank Lorenz Muller, The Spectre of a People in Arms (English Historical Review, vol CXXII. No. 195, February 2007) p.82-104 [savepdf]

9. Liberals, Social Democrats and the Nationality Question.

Ephraim Nimni, Nationalist multiculturalism in late imperial Austria as a critique of contemporary liberalism: the case of Bauer and Renner, Journal of Political Ideologies (1999), vol. 4 No 3, p. 289-314. [savepdf]
Ian Reifowitz, Threads Intertwined: German National Egoism and Liberalism in Adolf Fischhof's Vision for Austria, in: Nationalities Papers vol. 29, No 3, 2001, p.441-458. [savepdf]
Robert S. Wistrich, The Jews and Nationality Conflicts in the Habsburg Lands,Nationalities Papers vol. 22, No1, 1994, p. 119-139. [savepdf]