The Habsburg Monarchy 1526-1918

History Seminar 364

Wed. 2:00-5:00 p.m.

 

Tanya Dunlap

dunlap@rice.edu

Office hours by appointment

Home phone: 713-666-7083

 

This topical and chronological course examines the rise and fall of the Habsburg Monarchy. Several general themes will provide structure for weekly class discussions. First, we address the question of diversity of geography and peoples in the empire. Next we investigate the historical relationship between state and society in the Monarchy, focusing attention on "confessionalization" and "enlightened absolutism." In addition to historical problems specific to the Habsburgs, the course analyzes "empire" as a form of polity, contrasting it to the nationalist movements that dominated the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. An examination of the religious, political, and socio-economic conflicts arising between the Monarchy’s diverse populations will help us gain more insight into the centrifugal forces that challenged the very notion of an imperial state. We will also study sources of cohesion in the empire that enabled the Habsburgs to hold the monarchy together until the Great War.

Requirements

Most class time will be devoted to discussion. Therefore, it is essential that you complete the readings, attend class, and participate in the discussions. Each student will lead at least one class discussion. You are required to email three thoughtful discussion questions to the instructor and discussion leader every Tuesday before 5:00 p.m. A discussion question should provoke your classmates to think. You may submit yes/no or factual questions, but they will not be considered discussion questions

Discussion leaders should be prepared to talk for about fifteen minutes. The talk should summarize important historical events and persons and make connections between the readings. After the initial talk, discussion leaders will take initiative to spark discussion using their own questions and the questions class members submitted. Leaders are not responsible for making other students talk, but they should encourage the full participation of all class members.

There are no exams in this course. A fifteen to twenty-page paper is due the last day of final exams. A prospectus for the paper is due during the ninth week of class and will be submitted for peer review. A rough draft of the paper is due the thirteenth week. It will also be submitted for peer review.

If you have a documented disability needing academic adjustments or accommodations please speak with me during the first two weeks of class. All discussions will remain confidential. Students with disabilities will also need to contact Disability Support Services in the Ley Student Center.

Grades

Grades are determined as follows:

Class participation:

30%

Leading discussion:

20%

Prospectus:

10%

Rough draft:

10%

Final Paper:

30%

 

Required and Recommended Reading

All readings are available at the Fondren Library Reserve Desk. Webcat only lists up to twenty reserved works. To circumvent this problem and get the full list of all items on reserve for this course, go to: http://www.rice.edu/Fondren/Catalog/Reserves/HIST.html#364 and scroll down to HIST 364.

The following books are available for purchase in the bookstore.

Required reading:

·        Joseph Roth, The Radetzky March (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1995).

·        Charles Ingrao, The Habsburg Monarchy 1618-1815 2nd ed.(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

·        Robin Okey, The Habsburg Monarchy (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2001).

·        Carl E. Schorske, Fin-de-sičcle Vienna (New York: Random House, 1981).

·        Frederic Morton, Thunder at Twilight (Cambridge, MA and New York: Da Capo, 2001).

Recommended reading:

·        Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 6th ed., rev.

·        John Grossman and Alice Bennett (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996).

·        Paul Robert Magocsi, Historical Atlas of East Central Europe (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1995).

 

Weekly readings and discussion topics

Week 1: Introduction to the course

 

Week 2: Introduction via the end of the monarchy

·        Joseph Roth, The Radetzky March

·        Paul Robert Magoci, Historical Atlas of East Central Europe, skim 1-47.

 

Week 3: The Reformation, Counter Reformation, and Thirty Years War

·        Béranger, A History of the Habsburg Empire 1273-1700, trans. C.A. Simpson (London and New York: Longman, 1994), 175-241.

·        Ingrao, Habsburg Monarchy, 23-52.

·        David Daniel, "Piety and Perversion: Noblewomen in Reformation Hungary," in Women in Reformation and Counter-Reformation Europe, ed. Sherrin Marshall, (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989), 68-88.

·        John A. Mears, "The Thirty Years’ War, the ‘General Crisis,’ and the Origins of the Standing Professional Army in the Habsburg Monarchy," Central European History, 21 (June 1988), 122-41.

·        "The Defenestration of Prague," "The Revised Constitution of the Kingdom of Bohemia," and "The Suffering of the Hungarian Protestants" in Habsburg and Hohenzollern Dynasties, ed. C.A. Macartney (New York: Walker and Company, 1970), 33-56.

 

Week 4: Confessional Absolutism and Resistance

·        Ingrao, Habsburg Monarchy, 53-104.

·        Charles Ingrao, ed., State and Society in Early Modern Austria (West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 1994), 27-80.

·        Winfried Schultz, "Estates and the Problem of Resistance in Theory and Practice in the Sixteen and Seventeenth Centuries," in Crown, Church and Estates, ed. R.J.W. Evans and T.V. Thomas (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991), 158-75.

·        Béla Köpeczi, "The Hungarian Wars of Independence in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in their European Context," in Hungarian History – World History, ed. György Ránki (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1984) 31-40.

 

Week 5: Imperial Baroque

·        John Spielman, The City and Crown: Vienna and the Imperial Court 1600-1740 (West Layafette, Indiana: Purdue UniversityPress, 1993), 27-216.

·        Beranger, A History of the Habsburg Empire, 338-55.

·        Ingrao, ed., State and Society in Early Modern Austria (West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 1994), 83-109.

·        Victor L. Tapié, "Central Europe" and "Imperial Baroque, in The Age of Grandeur: Baroque Art and Architecture, trans. A.R. Williamson, skim 191-225.

 

Week 6: Maria Teresa, Joseph II, and "Enlightened Absolutism"

·        Ingrao, Habsburg Monarchy, 105-219.

·        Ernst Wangermann, "Maria Theresa: A Reforming Monarchy," in The Courts of Europe: Politics, Patronage and Royalty, 1400-1800, ed. A.G. Dickens (London: Thames and Hudson, 1977), 282-303.

·        H.M. Scott, "Reform in the Habsburg Monarchy," in Enlightened Absolutism: Reforms and Reformers in Late-Eighteenth-Century Europe, ed. H.M. Scott (London: Macmillan, 1990), 145-87.

·        John Komlos, "Stature and Nutrition in the Habsburg Monarchy: The Standard of Living and Economic Development in the Eighteenth Century," AHR (The American Historical Review) 90 (1985), 1146-61.

           

Week 7: Religion, Popular Culture, and Enlightenment Culture

·        Ingrao, State and Society in Early Modern Austria (West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 1994), 229-72.

·        "The Habsburgs and the Churches 1740-1792" in Habsburg and Hohenzollern Dynasties, ed. C.A. Macartney (New York: Walker and Company, 1970), 145-69.

·        Paul Bernard, "Joseph II and the Jews: The Origins of the Toleration Patent of 1782," AHY (Austrian History Yearbook), 4 and 5, (1968-69), 101-19.

·        William O. McCagg Jr., A History of Habsburg Jews, 1670-1918 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989), 1-43.

·        Gábor Klaniczay, "Witch Hunting in Hungary: Social or Cultural Tensions," and "The Decline of Witches and the Rise of Vampires under the Eighteenth-Century Habsburg Monarchy," in The Uses of Supernatural Power, trans. Susan Singerman, ed., Karen Margolis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990) 151-88.

·        Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization in the Mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), 1-16, 106-15.

           

Week 8: Mid-Term Break

 

Week 9: The Revolutionary Era, Napoleon, and Reaction

·        Ingrao, Habsburg Monarchy, 220-42.

·        Robin Okey, The Habsburg Monarchy, 68-127.

·        Walter Langsam, "Emperor Francis II and Austrian ‘Jacobins’" AHR 50 (1945), 471-90.

·        Joachim Whaley, "Austria, 'Germany,' and the Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire," in The Habsburg Legacy, ed. Richie Robertson and Edward Timms (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1994), 3-12.

·        Paper prospectus due

 

Week 10: Revolutions of 1848, Absolutism, Constitutionalism, and Compromise

·        Okey, The Habsburg Monarchy, 128-90.

·        Peter Sugar and Peter Hanak, eds., A History of Hungary (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990), 209-51.

·        Peter Hanak, The Garden and the Workshop. Essays on the Cultural History of Vienna and Budapest (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 44-62.

·        Peter Sugar and Ivo Lederer, eds., Nationalism in Eastern Europe (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1969), skim 3-28, read 28-54.

·        Discuss prospectus in small groups

 

Week 11: The Dualist Era in Hungary and the Nationalities Problem in the Empire

·        Okey, The Habsburg Monarchy, 283-368.

·        Martha Lampland, "Family Portraits: Gendered Images of the Nation in 19th Century Hungary," EEPS, 8 (1994), 287-316.

·        Keith Hitchins, "Romanian Socialists and the Nationality Problem in Hungary," in Hitchins, Studies on Romanian National Consciousness (Pelham N.Y.: Nagard Publisher, 1983), 187-206.

·        Karl F. Baum, "Beyond the Bourgeoisie," AHY, 1998 (part 1), 19-36.

·        Keely Stauter-Halstead, "Patriotic Celebrations in Austrian Poland: The Kosciuszko Centennial and the Formation of Peasant Nationalism," AHY, 1994, 79-95.

 

Week 12: No class. Work on paper drafts.

·        Rough Drafts Due at Noon on Monday 19 November 2001.

 

Week 13: Austria 1867-98: dynasty, economics, administration, and culture

·        Okey, The Habsburg Monarchy, 193-283.

·        Carl E. Schorske, Fin de sičcle Vienna, 3-23, 208-78.

·        Eda Sagarra, "Roman Catholicism and Austrian Identity in Two Women Writers," in The Habsburg Legacy, ed. Richie Robertson and Edward Timms (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1994), 94-106.

 

Week 14: The Idea of Empire

·        Alexander J Motyl, "From Imperial Decay to Imperial Collapse," in Nationalism and Empire, ed. Richard L Rudolph and David F. Good (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992), 15-43.

·        John Paul Himka, "Nationality Problems in the Habsburg Monarchy and the Soviet Union," in Nationalism and Empire, 79-93.

·        Dennison Rusinow, "Ethnic Politics in the Habsburg Monarchy and Successor States," in Nationalism and Empire, 243-67.

·        Soloman Wank, "The Disintegration of the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires," in The End of Empire? The Transformation of the USSR in Comparative Perspective, ed. Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrott (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1997), 94-120.

·        Soloman Wank, "Some Reflections on the Habsburg Empire and Its Legacy in the Nationalities," AHY 28 (1997), 131-46.

·        Oscar Jaszi, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Empire (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1961), 133-84, 212.

 

Week 15: The Great War and the Disintegration of the Empire

·        Frederic Morton, Thunder at Twilight.

·        Okey, The Habsburg Monarchy, skim 369-401.

·        Final Paper due at noon on Wednesday 19 December 2001.