Austrian Studies at the University of Minnesota

Academic Year 2019-20

By Howard Louthan

Stone Arch Bridge in Downtown Minneapolis. The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities has been the home of the Center for Austrian Studies since 1977. It is the Western Hemisphere’s oldest and best-known research center investigating the past, present, and future of Central Europe with a specific focus on Austria and the successor states of the Habsburg Empire.
PHOTO: DAN ANDERSON, COURTESY OF MEET MINNEAPOLIS

It has been a year unlike any other at the Center for Austrian Studies (CAS). Though the first half of the year seemed like business as usual for our staff, faculty, and visitors, the second brought with it changes that none of us would have thought possible in the beginning of fall. The novel coronavirus upended our spring program and sent many of our visitors scurrying home. As we all adjusted to life in a time of pandemic and became used to its new rhythms, here in Minnesota we were rocked by another event that had repercussions across the globe. The murder of George Floyd in May convulsed the Twin Cities and sparked several nights of protest – and subsequently across the world. Such events put in proper perspective many of our activities at the CAS at the University of Minnesota.

That said, we had a full program in fall 2019. We ran our first Seminar Fellows Program abroad as we collaborated with the Austrian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for Habsburg and Balkan Studies. One of the signature initiatives of CAS, the Seminar Fellows Program, brings together advanced-level graduate students and recent Ph.D.s for an extended weekend discussing their research while networking with each other and senior mentors in the field. This time a delegation of junior scholars from North America was able to interact with their Central European colleagues as we met in Vienna. Our annual Robert A. Kann Memorial Lecture, (the 35th version), was also a transatlantic affair, as we welcomed the distinguished professor Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, Rector of the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin, to Minnesota to discuss aspects of her recent biography of Empress Maria Theresa. We ran other workshops and conferences during the fall, including a fascinating seminar on the urban architecture of the Habsburg successor states and a session with Professor Heather Morrison examining the use of Black labor in 18th-century Austrian scientific expeditions to the Americas. For the spring we had planned two exhibitions. The first, an examination of the architectural work of Elizabeth Scheu Close, began before the pandemic lockdown. Unfortunately, a second, “The YMCA and Relief for War Victims of World War I,” fell victim itself to the pandemic. We hope to bring back this exhibit in some form. It was designed by one of our graduate students, Dylan Mohr. Using the Kautz Family YMCA Archive at the University of Minnesota and a private collection from the descendent of a YMCA secretary, Mohr and his colleague, Lena Radauer, offered an intriguing view into the art and the life of Siberian POW camps in World War I that interned primarily Hungarian and Austrian soldiers.

None of these events would have been possible without an incredibly resourceful and flexible staff who quickly adapted to the changing circumstances. Several of our events after the lockdown were conducted via Zoom. CAS Program Manager Jennifer Hammer helped us make a near-seamless transition from in-person to online. Igor Tchoukarine assisted in so many different ways through the year. He oversaw a review study of the Austrian Studies Newsmagazine while producing yet another fine edition of the publication. This was Igor’s last year in that capacity, but he is not going far and will continue to have an impact on the Center as he began as an assistant professor in the Department of History at the university. Tim McDonald put in countless hours as he successfully completed his first year as assistant editor of the Austrian History Yearbook (AHY). Finally, with Jacob Smiley, we enjoyed the services of one of the most capable undergraduate workers we have ever had.

Though the coronavirus had a significant impact on our spring programming, it exercised less influence on our research agenda. The paper edition of the Austrian History Yearbook was delayed until July but was available online in the spring. Special thanks is owed to Tim McDonald who helped introduce a new series of editorial measures to help us publish on time. This edition of the AHY was impressive for both its chronological and geographical reach. We began in the fourteenth century and carried through to the First Republic and the interwar period. Geographically, we travelled from the Habsburg-Ottoman borderlands in the Balkans to the vaudeville theaters of New York City. In October members of a CAS research team reassembled in St. Louis to continue their work on a project examining war and violence in seventeenth-century Central Europe. That work resulted in a book contract with Routledge Press. Our series, Austrian and Habsburg Studies, with Berghahn Press continues to grow and expand. This last year we saw the publication of seven more volumes in the series: Heidi Hakkarainen, Comical Modernity: Popular Humor and the Transformation of Urban Space in Late Nineteenth Century Vienna; Klaus Hödl, Entangled Entertainers: Jews and Popular Entertainers in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna; Christian Karner, Nationalism Revisited: Austrian Social Closure from Romanticism to the Digital Age; Jiří Hutečka, Men under Fire: Motivation, Morale and Masculinity among Czech Soldiers in the Great War, 1914- 1918; Agoston Berecz, Empty Signs, Historical Imaginaries: The Entangled Nationalization of Names and Naming in a Late Habsburg Borderland; Gundolf Graml, Revisiting Austria: Tourism, Space and National Identity, 1945 to Present; Tim Buchen, Antisemitism in Galicia: Agitation, Politics, and Violence Against Jews in the Late Habsburg Monarchy.

Howard Louthan and Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger on the occasion of the Center’s 2019 Kann Memorial Lecture.
PHOTO: IGOR TCHOUKARINE

CAS also continued to prioritize the research of graduates, as reflected in our Seminar Fellows Program. We also sponsored a series of awards for graduate students at the University of Minnesota who work on Austrian and Central European topics. This spring we awarded two summer fellowships. One to history student James Gresock who is investigating how public executions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were experienced and understood by early modern European audiences—with a particular focus on Central Europe. Our second award went to Alexis Zanghi in the Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature, who is examining representations of housing in contemporary installation and social practice art. Both of them were planning to head to Vienna for their respective research this summer. Finally, we are pleased to announce the launch of the Central Europe Yearbook, an online journal for undergraduate research (https://pubs.lib.umn.edu/index.php/ cey). The first edition of the Yearbook features both digital projects alongside traditional articles on topics ranging from noble feuds of the sixteenth century to an innovative website on the Prague Spring.

Prior to the pandemic, we also hosted a number of visitors from Austria. Dr. Christina Traxler was our Fulbright visitor in the fall. An alumna of the Seminar Fellows Program, Christina dedicated several months in Minnesota to a project examining peace-making efforts between rival religious parties in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In the spring we welcomed Dr. Paul Schweinzer (Klagenfurt) as he was a guest professor in the Department of Economics. We also were very pleased to host Dr. Susanna Yeghoyan from the University of Graz who taught in the Department of German, Nordic, Slavic, and Dutch. Our doctoral fellow, sponsored by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Science and Research was Peter Wegenschimmel from the University of Vienna. Peter was with us for part of the spring while completing his dissertation that examines the fate of large state enterprise in former eastern bloc countries— specifically shipyards in Croatia and Poland—before having to return Europe as lockdowns began.

Howard Louthan, Ph.D., is Director of the Center for Austrian Studies and professor of history at the University of Minnesota. He specializes in the intellectual and cultural history of early modern Central Europe with special attention to religion.

For more information, programming, and events, please visit:
Center for Austrian Studies: https://cla.umn.edu/austrian