At Home in the Commune: Liberals in the Tyrol

Thomas GÖ¶tz. BÖ¼rgertum und Liberalismus in Tirol 1840-1873. Zwischen Stadt und "Region", Staat und Nation. KÖ¶ln: SH-Verlag, 2001. 598 pp. EUR 68.00, cloth, ISBN 978-3-89498-101-3. Reviewed by Pieter M. Judson Published on HABSBURG (February, 2003) At Home in the Commune: Liberals in the Ty‐ should be considered a critical part of their histo‐ rol ry by foreigners from Germany to the United Readers of HABSBURG will perhaps tolerate States to Japan? this reviewer's compulsion to note at the outset, Continuing in this tradition of foreign inter‐ some of the unintentional ironies that the appear‐ ventions, Thomas Götz, a German scholar situated ance of this volume evokes. First of all, the title in Regensburg, brings considerable erudition and alone gives us pause for thought. As Goetz himself methodological sophistication to his exhaustive points out at the outset, Liberalism in Tyrol? Isn't study of the Vormärz roots and Gründerzeit tri‐ that already a contradiction in terms? A second umphs of the liberal movement in the Tyrol. Aus‐ more general irony is that the two most impres‐ trian scholarly neglect of liberalism --one might sive local studies to address issues relating to Lib‐ almost call it recalcitrance in the face of resurgent eralism in the Habsburg Monarchy that have ap‐ liberalism studies since the 1980s -- has freed peared in the last few years -- the volume under writers like Götz to some extent from having to review here and Laurence Cole's study Für Gott, engage with a significant Austrian historiography. Kaiser und Vaterland [1] -- are in fact regional Instead, Götz brings to this project a commanding studies involving that most illiberal province of knowledge of liberalism studies drawn from the all, the Tyrol. Third, is it not also ironic that Aus‐ histories of other nineteenth-century European trian liberalism has benefited from the scholarly states, particularly in Central Europe. attention of historians from everywhere but Aus‐ This is not a bad thing. The lack of a tradition tria? Certainly articles by Austrians here and of Austrian liberalism studies enables Götz to ex‐ there occasionally examine aspects of this subject, amine his Tyrolean subjects in a context that but where are the grand syntheses? Surely it must crosses present-day national borders and their surprise reflective Austrians to learn that an his‐ historiographies. He is, at least, not handicapped toric phenomenon they have traditionally ignored by national tradition. In fact the question of what H-Net Reviews meanings to give to both the terms "nation" and gument. When Goetz invokes the long shadow of "region" is the subject of considerable debate and the state, it is to narrate the complex ways in political cleavage among his nineteenth-century which the Bürgertum managed to free itself from subjects. In the particular case of the Tyrol, a relationship of dependence and to forge an inte‐ Goetz's work achieves even greater distinction grated movement independent of its sometime than most in that it examines and compares the ally, the state bureaucracy. separate and occasionally intertwined phenome‐ If Austrian liberals particularly in the Tyrol na of liberalism in both the Italian- and German- appeared to have a close relationship with the speaking regions. Not only is there far too little central state it was because their agenda ft well writing about liberalism in this part of the world with the secularizing and centralizing liberal vi‐ to begin with, but there is no serious unified histo‐ sion for reorganizing the state. The Conservative riography that treats these two regions of the Ty‐ majority that dominated the Tyrolean Landtag rol comparatively. If this book helps to re-shape vigorously pursued a particularistic and narrowly scholars' understanding of provincial liberalism Catholic vision for society. The liberals were in the Monarchy, it positively demands a sensible forced to look to the State for allies to help them revision of the political historiography of nine‐ to realize their alternate visions. teenth-century Tyrol. But more importantly, provincial liberalism The other subject of this book, the Bürgertum, benefited from a third component of Austrian lib‐ can claim more historiographic interest in Austri‐ eral policy, namely the establishment and the an academic circles. Excellent local and regional post-1862 reorganization of communal autonomy. studies of Bürger class formation, cultural values It was, argues Goetz, the thwarted liberal institu‐ and social networks in several Austro-Hungarian tions of communal autonomy established after cities and towns have significantly enriched our 1848 (put into practice briefly under the Stadion understanding of the social history of the Monar‐ constitution) along with the creation of Chambers chy in the past twenty years. Still, Austrian schol‐ of Commerce and a growing print media that fa‐ ars' unwillingness to link the rise of this new and cilitated the Bürgertum's political emancipation self-conscious social milieu to a particular and im‐ from the state. Despite the abrogation of some of portant new brand of politics -- liberalism -- that these institutions under neo absolutism, their existed at a national level as well as at a local or original establishment helped create a new politi‐ regional one is astonishing. cal culture in Tyrolean towns that brought the Götz himself focuses on the idea of the "long economic Bürgertum to the fore and severely shadow of the state" (a phrase most famously in‐ shortened the shadow of the state. voked by Ernst Hanisch [2]) to explain why schol‐ Götz's analysis ranges broadly but is most ars fnd Bürger politics problematic. Viewing Aus‐ centered on an account of the integration and trian Bürger politics as perennially subservient to consolidation of different Bürger groups in the the interests of a powerful state and its far-reach‐ four cities of Bozen/Bolzano, Innsbruck, Rovereto, ing bureaucracy, many scholars assume that the and Trient/Trento. The rising Bürger political cul‐ Bürgertum never fully emancipated itself and ture in each of these four cities assumed different failed to create a fully independent politics. Götz forms, particularly since local economies were not only abandons this tired Sonderweg thesis for oriented in different directions. Bürger interests a refreshingly different story; he also makes the help create Bürger political visions, and lent an very emancipation of the Bürgertum from the ideological character to social or economic cleav‐ State at mid century into a central part of his ar‐ ages (state/nation, city/region, urban/rural, etc.) 2 H-Net Reviews The interregional commercial interests of the analysis of quotidian political culture in the four Italian-speaking regions for example, often made communes under examination. Götz's methodolo‐ them open to Zollverein membership or to partici‐ gy here is not particularly new, but the rigorous pation in parliamentary deliberations in Frank‐ consistency of his investigation combined with an furt and Vienna/Kremsier in 1848-49. Their desire unerring eye for the fascinating twists and turns to foster commercial links to the rest of Central of communal politics, produce a book that far sur‐ Europe forced them to define their interests sub- passes a simple history of regional politics. regionally (in terms of a "Trentino") against those Götz in fact analyzes everything the archives articulated by the more parochial and conserva‐ will yield him, from familial relationships to eco‐ tive-dominated Tyrolean Landtag in Innsbruck. nomic ones, from the vagaries of local religious The latter forged a "Tyrolean" identity largely in practice to the practice of a new liberal festival opposition to Frankfurt or Vienna, one that reject‐ culture, from the changing exclusivities of local ed the nation for (or defined it in terms of) region. social, scientific and literary associations to the This common interest helped create a unifed poli‐ founding of regional newspapers, from the ups tics of liberalism in the South, as did the absence and downs of specific political careers to the cre‐ there of a Kulturkampf, the failed liberal struggle ation and management of provincial networks. against conservative Catholicism that dominated Nothing written (or drawn) on paper seems to events in the German Tyrol. have eluded the exhaustive grasp of this remark‐ Both the creation of a constitution and the able historian, and his inclusiveness occasionally rise of a broader Kulturkampf in the 1860s exhausts the reader who tries desperately to re‐ brought the German and Italian liberal move‐ main focused on the larger issues for the more ments together for a brief moment during the lib‐ than fve hundred pages it takes to traverse the eral era. Both groups opposed the conservative period 1840-1873. Tyrolean Landtag and both sought to realize their Götz, like the best practitioners of Austrian particular agendas by strengthening the local history today, tells a story that demonstrates how commune and the central parliament in Vienna. political cultures at the communal, regional, and The culmination of the process of integration state level became linked and integrated. His un‐ came with the parliamentary elections of 1873. Up relenting focus on the commune enables him to until this point the provincial diets had elected assert new ways of understanding both Tyrolean the central body. New legislation designed to free history and the history of the Empire. Those older the Vienna parliament from political dependence traditions Götz critiques simply cannot stand up on the conservative periphery (a periphery in‐ to the wealth of research and analysis he offers. creasingly intent on bringing down the system by And his regional, a-national approach to the histo‐ boycotting the central parliament) made condi‐ ry of the region makes his a model for historians tions for a united liberal movement possible in of all parts of Central Europe in the nineteenth the Tyrol.

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