Creating Patriotism

Daniel Unowsky Creating Patriotism Imperial Celebrations and the Cult of Franz Joseph Despite the role of the dynasty in the the four or five decades preceding World creation of the Habsburg state and the War I witnessed the 'invention of tradi continued power and influence of the tion' on a massive scale. 2 emperor in domestic and foreign affairs Many European states introduced pub ( even after 1867), little scholarly atten lic holidays and built monuments ven tion has been paid to Habsburg cele erating the ruling house and cultivat brations under Emperor Franz Joseph I. ing state and dynastic loyalty. Promot My work-in-progress, a study of the cre ers of dynastic celebrations often com ation, dissemination, and reception of the peted with national movements, which image of Franz Joseph as a potential commemorated events of allegedly cru symbol of common identity within the cial significance in the development of the Austrian half of the Habsburg Monarchy nation and extolled national rather than 1 (Cisleithania) , addresses this gap in the dynastic heroes. During dynastic cele historiography. I concentrate on the offi brations, government figures, aristocrats, cial presentation of the imperial cult, as and members of the ruling houses them weil as on the use or rejection ofthe image selves publicly equated national and state of the emperor by regional social and eth interests in order to counter and to har nic factions. By looking at both the pro ness popular nationalism. duction of the cult of the emperor and its The Habsburgs, however, could not reception, this project analyzes the ten claim to embody the spirit of the Ger sion between national and supra-national man nation without alienating the non identity in an age of mass political partic German majority in the monarchy. In any ipation. case, such an association of the dynasty The Habsburgs and their supporters with the interests of a 'nation' would have were not alone in redefining and ex been an admission that sovereignty arises panding the role of royalty for the cre from the people, independent of the his ation of state-oriented political identities toric rights of the dynasty - an unlikely in the second half of the 19th century. As concession from this most traditional of Eric Hobsbawm and others have noted, ruling families. The Habsburgs and their 280 ÖZG 9/1998/2 F o r u m , 269- 293 supporters instead promoted the emperor symbol of state unity in the 19 th and 20 th as a living symbol of state unity. centuries have received as much scholarly Habsburg invention and alteration of attention.3 This gap is all the more glar tradition is at the center of my study. I ex ing in the case of the Habsburg monarchy, amine the principal apparatus of monar a heterogeneous patchwork of territories chical representation - the court - as weil acquired largely through the ambitious as the display of imperial ritual, cere marriage politics of the ruling house. Few mony, and celebration to the population scholars treat supporters of the dynasty of Cisleithania. The project is divided as actors in the public sphere or look at into three tnain sections. I begin by look the use of dynastic symbols to justify var ing at changes in the presentation of the ious political programs.4 Habsburg histo emperor in the early decades of Franz riography has traditionally focused on na Joseph 's rule. In the wake of the revolu tionality and nationalism rather than on tions of 1848/1849, the Habsburg court imperial loyalty. The concern with nation sought to renew old traditions that could ality is understandable to all familiar with help legitimize the neoabsolutist system. the history of the monarchy, yet histori The second section analyzes the major ans often too readily assume that imperial imperial inspection tours of Galicia. The and national identities were by definition emperor's tours of the provinces brought mutually exclusive. Certainly, the post- the theater of court ritual to the masses 1848 period witnessed economic transfor outside of Vienna. This case study illus mations leading to the rise of peasants' trates how the appropriation of the dy and workers' movements and the radical nastic cult could affect local politics. The isation of ethnic politics, but the diver third section looks at celebrations mark sity of the monarchy's regional political ing the emperor's fiftieth and sixtieth Ju structures allowed for alternative routes bilees in 1898 and 1908 respectively. Al to the definition of national identity, some though the focus here is largely on the of which were compatible with imperial court and Karl Lueger's Christian Social loyalty. In fact, socialist agitation and city government in Vienna, I also con nationalist confrontation coexisted with sider how the Jubilees were celebrated in an unprecedented increase in official and the provinces and how information about popular manifestations of imperial loyalty the great festivities in Vienna was con in the last decades of Habsburg rule. veyed to the population outside the impe My study of the court, the presentation rial capital. The project also briefly con of the emperor, and the use, manipula siders the presentation of the Empress tion, and rejection of the mythic narra Elisabeth, imperial celebrations in World tives of Habsburg power, which were cre War I, and the burial of Franz Joseph. ated and bolstered during imperial cele While there is an extensive litera brations, reveals much about the work ture on European medieval and absolutist ings of the state. The study examines gov courts and court society, neither the per ernment attempts to build support for sistence of court ritual and ceremony, nor its programs, the place of the court in the presentation of the ruling house as a politics and society, and the ways local F o r u m • 269 - 293 ÖZG 9/1998/2 281 political elites strove to defend and ex endary Habsburg reverence for the Rost, pand their power positions through the this ceremony offered an opportunity to manipulation of the imperial cult. I uti display the majesty of the court and the lize records from the imperial court, docu semi-sacred character of the emperor.6 ments from the Interior Ministry and the The bishops of Austria joined in the pro Ministry of Education and Culture, po cession. Franz Joseph, head uncovered in lice reports from Vienna, Lemberg (the a gesture of humility, walked behind the provincial capital of Galicia, now Lviv, priest bearing the Rost from Stephans Ukraine), and Krakow, the papers of the dom to four stations in Vienna's inner Lower Austrian and the Galician provin city. At each stop, excerpts from the cial administrations, memoirs, newspa New Testament were read. Yet the Cor pers, and pamphlets. pus Christi Procession was never merely a display of Habsburg humility. Imperial Court, Church, Dynasty guards in colorful uniforms and the high From the moment Franz Joseph ascended est aristocrats of the realm clothed in the throne on December 2, 1848, the the robes of the various Habsburg House neoabsolutist regime placed great empha Orders surrounded the emperor. An im sis on the representation of monarchical posing military parade followed the 1849 grandeur through ceremony and ritual. procession, in sharp contrast to that of This Habsburg appeal to 'tradition' be 1848, when Vienna's citizens had orga came necessary in part because of dy nized their own procession in the absence nastic discontinuity and the rejection of of the imperial family and without army tradition: Ferdinand abdicated and the participation. On Holy Thursday 1850, in rightful heir was passed over in favor of another display of Habsburg piety, for the Franz Joseph. The dynasty had broken first time the new emperor knelt in the with its own (relatively new) tradition of Ceremonial Hall of the Imperial Palace to primogeniture, something Franz and Met wash the feet of twelve old men in imita ternich had refused to do when securing tion of Christ. These Catholic ceremonies the succession for the debilitated Ferdi demonstrated the return to order and the nand. renewal of stability after the chaos of rev Franz Joseph 's court moved swiftly to olution. revitalize the Catholic ceremonial role The annual Foot Washing ceremony of the Habsburg monarch. Once sym and Corpus Christi procession, presented bolizing the baroque alliance of Church to the broader public through newspa and Dynasty, public expressions of the pers, commemorative publications, and Catholic piety of the Habsburg ruler, sermons, portrayed the emperor as a de like the annual Foot Washing and Cor vout son of the Church whose rule and pus Christi processions, had diminished new order were sanctioned by Heaven. in importance under Joseph II. and his Even after the cancellation of the Con successors.5 In 1849 Franz Joseph parti cordat with Rome in the early 1870s, cipated in his first Corpus Christi pro Franz Joseph rarely missed either cele cession as emperor. Its origins in the leg- bration and regularly kissed relics, at- 282 ÖZG 9/1998/2 F o r u m , 269 - 293 tended church services, and was blessed inspection tours the emperor became, by Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and Is as surely as he did when performing lamic clergy. The exhibition of Habsburg Catholic ceremonies in Vienna, a living religious devotion had regained its earlier symbol promoting dynastic loyalty and prominence, but Habsburg public piety identification with the state he ruled. The now projected a very different meaning. second section of my project is a case The Catholic bigotry of the Habsburg study of Franz Joseph's three major vis past had been transformed into a general its to Galicia (1851, 1880, 1894) and the respect for organized religion as a source aborted 1868 Kaiserreise - my study will of stability against the threat of revolu touch only briefly on the 1855 inspection tion.

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