The course is intended to introduce students to the developments in East Central Europe before World War One. Partitioned Poland will be examined in addition to the focus on the sprawling Habsburg Empire, in a survey that begins in medieval times. Within the examination of the Austrian Empire (later Austria-Hungary), special attention will be devoted to four areas of wider concern: the nationalities question, with an eye cast toward theories of nationalism; the pace of modernization in the economic, societal and political spheres (given the traditional notion that Eastern Europe is somehow “backward”); the role of the nineteenth-century alliance system and the desires and actions of the Great Powers before World War One; and the role these and other factors played in the ultimate dissolution of the empire.

Required Books:

Charles Ingrao. The Habsburg Monarchy, 1618-1815. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. (2)

A.J.P. Taylor. The Habsburg Monarchy 1809-1918. Chicago: UC Press, 1976 [1948]. (3)

Josef Roth. The Radetzky March. Woodstock/NY: Overlook Press, 2002. (2)

Gerhart Hauptmann. Three Plays: The Weavers, Hannele, The Beaver Coat. New York: Ungar, 1977. (2)

VERY highly recommended (can be read in place of the Taylor):

Robert Kann. A History of the Habsburg Empire, 1526-1918. Berkeley: UC Press, 1980 [1974, 1977]. (2)

Jean Berenger. History of the Habsburg Empire, 1700-1918. London/NY: Longman, 1997. (2)

C. A. Macartney. The House of Austria: The Later Phase, 1790-1918. Edinburgh: University Press, 1978. (2)

The first four of the above are (or will very shortly be) available at the Columbia University Bookstore. The number in parentheses after each title indicates the number of copies on reserve in Butler. Unless otherwise indicated, all other readings are/will also be in Butler Reserves, and should be scanned in, too.

Grading:

Midterm Exam: 20%
Final Exam: 30%
Final Paper: 30%
Discussion section attendance and participation: 15%
Quiz grade: 5%  

The midterm exam will be an in-class, blue-book exam, while the final will be split, with the essay portion to be completed within an agreed time period of not more than 24 hours. The final paper, of 9-11 pages, will require you to pick a nationality of the Habsburg Empire and discuss how successful that nationality was, under Habsburg tutelage, in modernizing its political, economic, and social life during the 19^th century. More detail will be forthcoming in class.

Reading Assignments

18/20 January. Introduction: Who Lived In East Central Europe and Why Were They “Backward?”

Taylor. 7-32.

Ingrao. 1-22.

Daniel Chirot. “Causes and Consequences of Backwardness” and Robert Brenner. “Economic Backwardness in Eastern Europe in Light of Developments in the West.” In: Daniel Chirot, ed. The Origins of Backwardness in Eastern Europe. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1989. 1-52. Available on LibraryWeb through CLIO.

Larry Wolff. Inventing Eastern Europe. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1994. 1-16. Four copies on reserve.

25/27 January. And You Thought the Nineteenth Century Was a Long Time Ago.

Skim Ingrao. 23-149.

Norman Davies. Heart of Europe. Oxford: OUP, 2001. 245-77.

Piotr Wandycz. The Lands of Partitioned Poland, 1795-1918. Seattle: Univ. of Washington, 1974. 2-23.

Adam Mickiewicz. Selection from “The Books of the Polish Nation.” Handout.

Set of statistical data and a map.

1/3 February. The Enlightenment and Napoleon Come to Town: The Habsburgs 1740-1815.

N.B. The quiz will be administered in discussion section this week.

Ingrao. 150-247.

“The Pragmatic Sanction” and “The Edict of Toleration of Joseph II.” In: Stephen Fischer-Galati, ed. Man, State and Society in East European History. NY: Praeger, 1970. 93-9. Handout.

8/10 February. Who Was This Metternich and Why Does He Get His Own Age?

Taylor. 33-46.

David Good. The Economic Rise of the Habsburg Empire, 1750-1918. Berkeley: UCP, 1984. 1-10, 38-73.

Paul Schroeder. “Did the Vienna Settlement Rest on a Balance of Power?” American Historical Review 97.3 (June, 1992) 683-706. Available online at: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8762%28199206%2997%3A3%3C683%3ADTVSRO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-8

Alan Sked. “Metternich and the Federalist Myth.” In: Crisis and Controversy. Essays in Honour of A. J. P. Taylor. London: Macmillan, 1976. 1-22.

Selections from Prince Richard Metternich, ed. Memoirs of Prince Metternich. NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1880-82. Handout.

15/17 February. The East-Central European Vormärz.

Taylor. 47-56.

Piotr Wandycz. “The November Insurrection and Its Aftermath,” Chapter Six of his The Lands of Partitioned Poland, 1795-1918. Seattle: UWP, 1974. 105-31.

Johann Hüttner. “Theatre Censorship in Metternich’s Vienna.” Theatre Quarterly 10/37 (Spring, 1980) 61-9.

Gerhart Hauptmann. “The Weavers.” In: Gerhart Hauptmann. Three Plays: The Weavers, Hannele, The Beaver Coat. New York: Ungar, 1977. 1-98.

22/24 February. To the Barricades! The Austrian Empire in 1848.

Taylor. 57-70.

Jiří Kořalka “Revolutions in the Habsburg Monarchy.” In: Dieter Dowe, et al., eds. Europe in 1848: Revolution and Reform. NY: Berghahn Books, 2001. 145-69.

Roger Price. “‘The Holy Struggle Against Anarchy’: The Development of Counter-revolution in 1848.” In: Dowe, ed. 25-54.

Alice Freifeld. “The Cult of March 15: Sustaining the Hungarian Myth of Revolution, 1849-1999.” In: Maria Bucur and Nancy Wingfield, eds. Staging the Past. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue UP, 2001. 255-85.

Collection of Hungarian Revolutionary Poems. Handout.

“Hungarian Declaration of Independence, April 1849.” Available online at: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~habsweb/sourcetexts/hungind.html

“Frantisek Palacky's Letter to the Committee of Fifty.” Handout.

1/3 March. The End of the Revolution and Developments in Poland through the January Rising.

N.B. The readings are shorter this week to allow you to prepare for the midterm. Use this well.

Taylor 71-82.

Heinz-Gerhard Haupt and Dieter Langewiesche. “The European Revolution of 1848: Its Political and Social Reforms, its Politics of Nationalism, and its Short- and Long-Term Consequences” In: Dieter Dowe, et al., eds. Europe in 1848: Revolution and Reform. NY: Berghahn Books, 2001. 1-23.

Piotr Wandycz. “The Decade of Hope and Despair, 1846-56” and “At the Crossroads – the January Insurrection.” Chapters Seven and Eight of his The Lands of Partitioned Poland, 1795-1918. Seattle: UWP, 1974. 132-79.

8/10 March. OK, OK, I Give. We’ll Talk About Nationalism.

N.B. Midterm is 8 March.

Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny. “Introduction: From the Moment of Social History to the Work of Cultural Representation.” In: Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, eds. Becoming National: A Reader. Oxford: OUP, 1996. 3-37.

Jeremy King. “The Nationalization of East Central Europe: Ethnicism, Ethnicity and Beyond.” In: Bucur and Wingfield, eds. Staging the Past. 112-52.

15/17 March. Spring Break. Come to class if you want to, but I won’t be here.

22/24 March. From Absolutism to Dualism: The Habsburgs 1850-1867.

Taylor. 83-140.

Peter I. Hidas. “The Peasants of Hungary Between Revolution and Compromise.” East European Quarterly 19.2 (June 1985) 191-200.

Herman Freudenberger. “An Experiment in Historical Causation: The Compromise of 1867.” In: Solomon Wank, et al., eds. The Mirror of History. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 1988. 51-67.

Alan Sked. The Decline and Fall of the Habsburg Empire, 1815-1918. NY: Dorset Press, 1989. 187-97.

Count von Beust. “Memoirs of the Ausgleich, 1867.” Handout.

29/31 March. Should We Talk About the Government? Austro-Hungarian Politics and Society, 1867-1900.

Taylor. 141-95.

Tibor Frank. “Hungary and the Dual Monarchy, 1867-1890” and the first ten pages of Géza Jeszensky. “Hungary Through World War I and the End of the Dual Monarchy.” In: Peter Sugar, et al., eds. A History of Hungary. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1990.” 252-77.

Zdenek Kárník. “Attempts to achieve a German-Czech Ausgleich in Habsburg Austria and the consequences of its failure.” In: Uri Ra’anan, et al., eds. State and nation in multi-ethnic societies. Manchester/NY: Manchester UP, 1991. 81-97.

Pieter Judson. “From Liberalism to Nationalism: Inventing a German Community, 1880-1885.” Chapter Seven of his Exclusive Revolutionaries. Ann Arbor: U. of Michigan Press, 1994. 193-221.

John Lukacs. “The City” and selections from “The People.” Chapters Two and Three of his Budapest 1900. NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988. 29-66, 76-83, 99-107.

5/7 April. The Much Renowned Austro-Hungarian Fin-de-Siècle (and Domestic Politics before 1914).

Taylor. 196-214.

Carl Schorske. “Politics in a New Key: An Austrian Trio.” Chapter Three of his Fin-de-Siècle Vienna. NY: Vintage, 1981. 116-81.

Péter Hanák. “The Garden and the Workshop: Reflections on Fin-de-Siecle Culture in Vienna and Budapest.” Chapter Three of his The Garden and The Workshop. Princeton: PUP, 1998.63-97.

12/14 April. The German and Russian Partitions before World War One, and the Place of Jews in the

 Habsburg Empire.

N.B. The readings for this and the subsequent weeks are shorter than in the past. This is because a) you need to be working on your papers and b) because I expect you also to be reading The Radetzky March for discussion the final week of classes.

Norman Davies. “Preussen.” Chapter Three of Volume Two of his God’s Playground. NY: Columbia UP, 1984. 112-38.

Piotr Wandycz. “Russian Poland and the Industrial Revolution,” selections from “The Rise of Mass Movements” and “From Revolution to World War.” Chapters Ten, Fourteen and Fifteen of his Lands of Partitioned Poland. 193-213, 288-303 and 308-30.

Readings on Jews TBD.

19/21 April. A Blurry Fast Run Through Nineteenth-Century Balkan History, and The Domestic

  Road to World War One.

Taylor. 214-32.

Samuel Williamson. “Austria-Hungary and the International System: Great Power or Doomed Anachronism?” and “The Domestic Context of Habsburg Foreign Policy.” Chapters One and Two of his Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War. London: Macmillan, 1991. 3-33. Several copies on reserve under another professor’s name, so use the author’s name.

Readings on the Balkans TBD.

26/28 April. World War One and the End of the Habsburg Empire.

N.B. Final papers are due 26 April.

Taylor. 233-51.

Joseph Roth. The Radetzky March. Woodstock/NY: Overlook Press, 2002.

Mark Cornwall. “Morale and Patriotism in the Austro-Hungarian Army, 1914-1918.” In: John Horne, ed. State, Society and Mobilization in Europe during the First World War. Cambridge: CUP, 1997. 173-91.

Gunther Rothenberg. “The Habsburg Army in the First World War: 1914-1918.” In: Robert A. Kann, et al., eds. The Habsburg Empire in World War I. Boulder: East European Quarterly, 1977. 73-86.

Stefan Zweig. “The First Hours of the War of 1914.” Chapter Nine of his autobiography, The World of Yesterday. Lincoln: U. of Nebraska, 1964. 214-37. Appended to it is the text of the “Hasslied,” to which Zweig refers.

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