W Fischer, South Slavs in Vienna Difference and the City. Migrants from Predominantly South- Slavic Speaking Regions in Vienna around 1900 © Wladimir Fischer To be published in Wien um 1900: Migration und Innovation in Wissenschaft und Kultur. Eds. Rathkolb, Oliver and Elisabeth Röhrlich. Zeitgeschichte im Kontext. Wien: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012 (forthcoming). I. Intro This chapter gives an overview on migrants from regions where South Slavic languages were predominantly spoken, concentrating sending regions inside the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, with excursions on Ottoman subjects. This means that we will mainly deal with migrants from areas that are now in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Serbia (Vojvodina), and Italy (Trieste), but also from Serbia proper, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Macedonia. We will not exclude migrants whose native languages were other than Serbo-Croat, Slovene, Bulgarian and Macedonian neither do we exclusively cover the majority confessions Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim. In contrast to nowadays, the groups of people we are speaking about were not large, but the numbers are not really known, as we will discuss in more detail below. Therefore we will start with a discussion of the relevance of the topic, the state of the art as well as the historical numbers and what is problematic about them. Then, after a description of the political and cultural context, we will describe the networks of migrants from the predominantly South-Slavic speaking parts of the monarchy that are 1 W Fischer, South Slavs in Vienna discernible, and the organized communities that have been coming out of these networks, and their publicity. There are several reasons why to write a chapter on migrants from the Southeastern parts of the Habsburg Monarchy instead of a chapter on, for instance, Serbian, Croatian or South Slav migrants in Vienna. The reason lies mainly in the contemporary history of Austria, to be more exact in the history of contemporary labor migration to Austria that started in the mid 1960s. The according treaty signed between the Federal Republic of Austria and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, later in the seventies also the treaty with the Republic of Turkey, opened up temporary employment opportunities for millions of workers of mostly rural backgrounds in the post WWII Austrian economy. The initial plan of both the sending countries and Austria, to have the gastarbeiters return after a short period of time, failed. Although many did return, many others stayed and established families in Austria.1 During the oil crisis of the early 1970s, functionaries of the Austrian trade unions and the Socialist Party became increasingly uneasy about what they considered a threat to »Austrian jobs« (the unions had agreed to the gastarbeiter policy after a historic deal with the employers). What followed was the first racist election campaign in the Second Republic.2 Vienna has been the main destination of these labor migrants and it is estimated way over ten percent of the population have such a 1 Eva Kreisky, “Vom bürokratischen Nutzen ständiger Unsicherheit — Arbeitsmigranten zwischen Anwerbung und Abschiebung,” in Ausländische Arbeitskräfte in Österreich, ed. Hannes Wimmer (Frankfurt/M.; New York: 1986). 2 Wladimir Fischer, “Vom 'Gastarbeiter' zum 'Ausländer'. Die Entstehung und Entwicklung des Diskurses über ArbeitsmigrantInnen in Österreich,” Österreich in Geschichte und Literatur 53, no. 3 (2009); Ljubomir Bratić, “Diskurs und Ideologie des Rassismus im österreichischen Staat,” Kurswechsel 17, no. 2 (2003); Eveline Wollner, “Ausländer/innenbeschäftigungspolitik und Migration. Zur Rolle des österreichischen Gewerkschaftsbundes und zur Bedeutung von Migration aus Weltsystemperspektive,” Grundrisse 7(2003). 2 W Fischer, South Slavs in Vienna background today. Nearly eight percent said in 2001 they speak a Southeast European language.3 However, there are still few studies of the history of this large segment of the Vienna population. This seems all the more pressing as migrants have been the target of racist discourse in Austria, and history is one way of empowering actors who have so far been under-voiced.4 However, there is a notorious problem in historicising the labor migrants in Austria. Since the 1970s Kolaric campaign, there is a notion that the Czech labor migrants of the late 19th century were the typological predecessors of the contemporary Yugoslav and Turkish migrants. However, the situation of migrants from Bohemia was in several decisive points different from that of the modern migrants.5 The Czechs were Austrian citizens, and had therefore the same rights as other Viennese (with the exception of Heimatrecht, yet this was also true for many german speaking Viennese). 6 A look at migrants who did originate from roughly the 3 If you define Albanian, Serbo-Croatian (Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian), Greek, Bulgarian, Slovenian, Romani and Macedonian south-eastern European languages, it was 616,785 or 7.68% in 2001. Statistik Austria. Bevölkerung 2001 nach Umgangssprache, Staatsangehörigkeit und Geburtsland, (Wien2001). 4 Wladimir Fischer, “Gute Familien auf Abwegen. Eine unsichtbare Strömung unter den jugoslavischen ArbeitsmigrantInnen der 60er und 70er Jahre?,” Zwischenwelt. Zeitschrift für Kultur des Exils und des Widerstandes 28, no. 1-2 (2011); ———, “Migrant Voices in the Contemporary History of Vienna. The Case of Ex-Yugoslavs,” in Constructing Urban Memories: The Role of Oral Testimony, ed. Cynthia Brown and Richard G. Rodger, Historical Urban Studies (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007); ———, “Wege zu einer Geschichte von MigrantInnen aus dem Südosten in Wien um 1900,” Pro Civitate Austriae, NF 10, no. Themenschwerpunkt "Migration" (2005); ———, “An Innovative Historiographic Strategy. Representing Migrants from Southeastern Europe in Vienna,” in Enlarging European Memory: Migration Movements in Historical Perspective, ed. Mareike König and Rainer Ohliger (Stuttgart: Thorbecke Verlag, 2006); ———. Prominently Absent. Problems of ’Ex-Yugoslav‘ Migrants’ Representation in Vienna. Paper given at the 8th International Metropolis conference in Vienna, 16. September 2003. 5 Wladimir Fischer, “„I haaß Vocelka – du haaßt Vocelka“. Der Diskurs über die „Gastarbeiter“ in den 1960er bis 1980er Jahren und der unhistorische Vergleich mit der Wiener Arbeitsmigration um 1900,” in Wien und seine WienerInnen. Ein historischer Streifzug durch Wien über die Jahrhunderte, ed. Martin Scheutz and Vlasta Valeš (Wien: 2008). 6 Brigitta Bader-Zaar, “Foreigners and the Law in Nineteenth-Century Austria: Juridical Concepts and Legal 3 W Fischer, South Slavs in Vienna same regions the modern labor migrants are originating from reveals that also here there are many more differences than continuities. Basically, the historical migrants from the Southeast had a completely different profile than the gastarbeiters (see sections II. and IV.). Who are we talking about? Avoiding Groupism Historians of ethnic identity have grown very careful about using the language of »groups.« Rogers Brubaker for example suggests not to assume the existence of any group whatsoever but rather to investigate the processes in which identity managers whom he calls »ethnic entrepreneurs,« are trying to organize and maintain groups, such as ethnicities, but also other identity projects.7 In the case of South Slavs in Vienna such caution is especially appropriate. First of all, speaking of »South Slavs« already means to assume that there was such a group and that it consisted of people defined by a common linguistic practice. This is not correct as will be discussed in more detail below. Therefore, we are rather speaking about speakers of South Slavic languages and of migrants from regions where such languages were predominantly spoken, because these two groups were likely—the first more, the second less—to join in to a »south-slavic« identity project. Secondly, ethnic identity projects were just in the making at the end of the 19th century all around the globe, and in Central Europe such processes of »ethnicization« had been started later than for example in France or Rights in the Light of the Development of Citizenship,” in Migration Control in the North Atlantic World. The Evolution of State Practices in Europe and the United States from the French Revolution to the Inter-War Period, ed. Andreas Fahrmeir, Olivier Faron, and Patrick Weil (New York; Oxford: 2003); Sylvia Hahn, “Fremd im eigenen Land. Zuwanderung und Heimatrecht im 19. Jahrhundert,” Pro Civitate Austriae, NF 10, no. Themenschwerpunkt "Migration" (2005); Silvia Hahn, Ausweisung – Abschiebung – Vertreibung in Europa. 16.–20. Jahrhundert, Querschnitte ; 20 (Innsbruck; Wien u.a.: Studien-Verl., 2006). 4 W Fischer, South Slavs in Vienna England and more such ethnic projects were interacting in Austria-Hungary than in many of the neighboring states.8 Thirdly, especially South Slav identity projects were in an unclear state at the time (and maybe still are in case of the Yugoslav one), as will be discussed in more detail below. Several different ethnic projects were competing for the same individual persons, individuals did move between projects and often were undecided. It is near to impossible to determine from the present perspective how a historical individual situated him- or herself in this situation unless they produced texts about this. For instance it could well be that many of the migrants we are speaking about would have identified as some variety of the Roma, or spoken Romani, but