When we hear the term “colonial empire”, what usually comes to our mind are the Spanish, Portuguese, British, French or Dutch Empires. We might also recollect a few younger, yet notorious contestants like Germany or Belgium. Who would think of Denmark, Sweden, or Switzerland, though? Yet, these smaller, ‘peripheral’ European nations are all currently exploring their own contributions to the history of European colonialism.
In the small series #Us too I introduce you to the many ways in which academic researchers and cultural institutions are presently re-writing these “black chapters” of their national past. Part one and two of the series introduced you to Danish colonialism and Swiss colonialism without colonies. Part three leads us further east – to Austria.
Nr. 3 Austria – Reading the Habsburg Monarchy from a postcolonial perspective
Just like Switzerland, Austria-Hungary (as it was called from 1867) never possessed any formal colonies. More than in the other countries, moreover, Austria‘s involvement in alternative practices of colonial rule and exploitation remains a side issue of public discourse almost completely reduced to academic circles. Here, I would like to address three main themes from academic debate: 1) the question whether the Habsburg Monarchy in Central Europe can be framed as an example of internal, cultural colonialism; 2) the question whether Bosnia-Herzegovina (the bone of contention and starting point of the First World War) functioned as a sort of substitute colony for Austria-Hungary in the Near East; and 3) the many colonial projects and fantasies directed towards overseas that individual citizens from the k.u.k. monarchy shared with other contemporaries.
1 The internal or cultural colonialism of the Habsburg Monarchy
Postcolonial readings of the late Habsburg Empire have mainly emerged from two research centres: the SFB Moderne at the University of Graz and the network Kakanien revisited at the University of Vienna. As the researchers themselves stress, their postcolonial approach helps to challenge two older, ideologically blurred frameworks: on the one hand, the so-called „Habsburg myth“ – a nostalgic romanticization of the k.u.k. monarchy as a multinational state in Central Europe glued together by a phenomenon called „unity in plurality“ – and, on the other hand, the idea of the “peoples’ prison” – a justificatory backdrop for diverse k.u.k. nationalisms. Instead, postcolonial readings draw a more nuanced image of hierarchical power structures and hegemonic practices within a highly heterogenous realm.
The Habsburg Empire was a conglomerate state that united a number of ethnically and religiously diverse, polyglot lands with disparate political traditions, social, cultural and economic developments under one imperial crown: Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Galicia and the Bukovina as well as, finally, Bosnia-Herzegovina. All the lands were inhabited by numerous ethnicities: German, Hungarian, Czech, Croatian, Italian, Slovenian, Slovak, Serbian, Romanian, Ruthenian…
By adopting a broader definition of colonialism – not just as the racially justified rule over overseas territory, but rather as the more generalized exercise of power by a small number of colonial masters over a large number of colonized people however distant from the power centre – postcolonial researchers have been able to draw attention to colonialist practices within mainland Europe. Re-appropriating a concept originally used to describe relations between England and its “Celtic Fringe” (Scotland, Ireland and Wales), they have stressed how the multiethnic k.u.k. monarchy was indeed a site of “internal” or “cultural colonialism”:
On the one hand, emperors such as Joseph II or Francis Joseph practiced a politics of homogenization and centralization from above which subjected all the different regions to the rule of a monarch emerging from a comparatively small coreland (Austria) – a politicis visible, for example, in the choice of official languages. On the other hand, individual national groups within the conglomerate state were themselves fighting for political and cultural hegemony based on a projected hierarchy of ethnicities. This fight culminated in the introduction of the dual monarchy in 1867, with the Austro-Germans aiming to dominate the Western and the Magyars the eastern part of the realm. South Slavs or Rumanians, meanwhile, were looked down upon.
2 Bosnia-Herzegovina as a substitute colonly?
While one might argue that the concept of “internal colonialism” merely adds a couple of new nuiances to an already strong academic investigation into k.u.k. nationalisms and ethnic tensions, there is also one territory of the Habsburg monarchy which could be called a colony in the stricter sense: Bosnia-Herzegovina.
As numerous historians have stressed, the military occupation (1878), the administration and later the annexation (1908) of the provinces Bosnia and Herzegovina exhibit strong (semi-)colonial features. On the one hand, Austria’s attempt to incorporate a former Ottoman province and thus to expand its empire south needs to be seen against the wider backdrop of the “Age of Empire” (Eric Hobsbawm): an era when all the major European powers scrambled for the remaining territories of the world, mainly Africa and the crumbling Ottoman Empire. If the French acquisition of Tunis and the English acquisition of Egypt go under the header of colonialism – why not Austria too?
On the other hand, Bosnia-Herzegovina was treated differently from the other Austrian lands in decisive ways: Acquired by military conquest instead of marriage policy, it never became an imperial province, but rather legally remained a Reichsland and thus the only Habsburg territory which never had any legal representation in either the Vienna or the Budapest parliaments. Austrian rule was established instead through a process that we know from British India as “indirect rule” (by harnessing existing, often Muslim elites) as well as through the installation of a patronizing civil administration consisting almost exclusively of foreigners (see Ruthener, Habsburg’s only colony).
Finally and most importantly, Bosnia-Herzegovina, after 1878, was subjected to an “othering”, exoticist discourse which strongly resembles the “Orientalism” identified by Edward Said as one of the decisive justifications of colonial rule. In the wake of the political-territorial upheavals of the late 19th century, the “Balkans” (formerly simply designating a mountainous region in South-East Europe) were re-imagined in Western European popular discourse as an exotic, uncivilized region inhabited by barbarous peoples and characterized by political turmoil as opposed to the civilized West (see the seminal book “Imagining the Balkans” by Maria Todorova).
The ethnographic literature about Bosnia-Herzegovina was particularly pervaded by “Orientalist” rhetoric of a civilizing mission by which the Austrian occupants were meant to bring European standards, culture and values to a pittoresque peasant society suffering from years of primitive eastern rule. As in the case of overseas colonial expansion, this discourse was used to justify “structures of governance that were less democratic than in the motherland, and the status of Bosnians and Herzegovinans as second-rate k.u.k. citizens” (Ruthener). Considering these quasi-colonial conditions, it was no wonder that Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, was to become the site of the fateful assassination that started the First World War.
3 Colonial projects and colonial fantasies
The investigation of any further Austrian overseas colonialisms runs along the lines of Swiss “colonialism without colonies“. As Walter Sauer, the leading researcher in the field, has stressed, Austrian interest in colonial expansion did not differ much from other European countries. In the early 18th century, Austria, like Britain or Denmark, held trading companies in Africa and West India, although they were abandoned early due to conflict surrounding the female succession of Empress Maria Theresia. In the early 19th century, the Austrian government focused on overseas trade with the Levant and, in particular, with Egypt – a “special relationship” which could also be termed informal imperialism. Countless individuals, moreover, often harbouring their very own colonial dreams, undertook ethnographic expeditions or entered the service of other powers ( e.g. Rudolf Slatin in British Sudan or Oscar Baumann in German East Africa) thus preparing the ground for the formal penetration of overseas territory.
What was different in Austria, in comparison, for example, with Germany, was the lack of a broad liberal bourgeoisie calling for colonial expansion – and, most importantly, the lack of government support at critical moments in history such as the “Scramble for Africa”. This was due to the domestic troubles of the multiethnic empire. In a way, one could argue that “internal colonialism” precluded “external colonialism”.
Interestingly enough regarding the research interests of the “Armchair Sailor”, two of the few episodes when Austria-Hungary followed more active colonial policies at state level were decisively connected with two Archdukes which could both be called “Sailor” or at least “Sailing Princes”.
In the 1850s, Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, the popular younger brother of Emperor Francis Joseph and Commander-in-Chief of the Austrian navy, harboured hopes of positioning the Habsburg Empire as a commercial centre connecting Central and Northern Europe to East Asia by way of the picturesque harbour of Triest and the Suez Canal. Eager to establish colonial footholds along the prospective shipping route, he initiated an exlploratory voyage to Socotra Island in the Red Sea by the famous later Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff (1857) as well as a mission to the Nicobar Islands by the Austrian flagship Novara en route around the world (1857-1859). There were also plans for a colony in the Sudan under the pretext of Jesuit mission. None of the plans materialized and in 1863, Ferdinand Maximilian, an unwelcome rival of his less charismatic and visionary emperor brother, fatefully accepted the crown of the newly-created Mexican empire. The exotic adventure would end only three years later with his execution by the hands of a Republican government intent on stopping all foreign invasions.
In the years 1892-93, meanwhile, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Francis Joseph’s successor-in-waiting, undertook a widely-publicized voyage around the world which signalled a new course of global involvement. Accompanied by the navalist re-armament and colonialist propaganda typical of the time, it ushered in a new phase of colonialist plans which would also never materialize: In 1895-96, a military expedition set out to put the Pacific Solomon Islands (rich in much-needed nickle) under Austrian authority; there were plans to occupy oil fields in Anatolia and the Middle East or for settler colonies in the “empty space” of the Sahara or Kenya; and in 1900, Austria-Hungary took part in the suppression of the Chinese “Boxer” rebellion, resulting in a 160-acres concession zone in Chinese Tianjin similar to German Kiautschou. Ironically, the global-minded Franz Ferdinand, who would have been willing to concede more rights to the Slavic parts of the Habsburg Monarchy to safeguard its continued existence, would be assassinated by a Bosnian nationalist in Sarajevo in June 1914. The subsequent world war would end all colonialist plans and, eventually, dismember the entire Habsburg empire.
Exhibitions and other projects
Interestingly, the year 2014 – marking the centenary of the beginning of the First World War – sparked research and wider popular engagement with forms of Austrian colonialism. Thus, the Weltmuseum Wien (Vienna’s ethnographic museum) hosted an exhibition about the world tour of Archduke Franz Ferdinand entitled “Franz is here!” The exhibition juxtaposed excerpts from his travel diaries and its wide media coverage with a small selection from the almost 10,000 ethnographic objects that he collected during his tour and later presented in his very own museum. It aimed, on the one hand, to shed new light on the ambivalent character of a polarising figure, and, on the other, to put into its historical context a journey that was a mixture of private grand tour, exoticist sightseeing, and quasi-political mission. The journey was also the subject of several research projects: by Regina Höfer (2018), Sissi Hummel-Hammer (2021) and Aglaja Weindl (ongoing). Translations from Franz Ferdinand’s published travel diaries can be found on the web page “Franz Ferdinand’s world“.
Also in 2014, Walter Sauer, an expert in Austrian colonial and, particularly, African-Austrian history, published “Expeditionen ins afrikanische Österreich. Ein Reisekaleidoskop” (Expeditions into African Austria. A travel caleidoscope). The book is conceptualized as a travel guide to all the diverse and unexpected places (churches or museums, monuments, street signs or restaurants etc.) where we can find traces of African history in Austria, thus telling tales about slave trade and colonialism, Catholic mission, migration and integration. On his personal web page, Walter Sauer presents a rich collection of essays and studies that he groups into a kind of African-Austrian cultural history.
The project “Decolonizing Vienna” offers a range of guided tours through Austria’s capital city pointing out places of colonial entanglement or African-Austrian history.
In Innsbruck, students from the faculties of history and ethnology have recently put together an interactive online map called “Innsbruck postkolonial” (similar to Bern-kolonial). It leads users of the WebApp to both public and hidden sites that showcase the Alpine city’s colonial entanglements: They range from a memorial plate commemorating Jakob Huter, the founder of the Tyrolean baptists who fled persecution across the Atlantic to settle in the Americas; or the controversial collections of colonial origin that the early modern Emperor Ferdinand II amassed in the so-called curiosity cabinet of Ambras Castle; to a model of tin soldiers in the “Kaiserjägermuseum” which highlights the participation of the famous “Tyrolean Rifle Regiments” in the military occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Those interested in the ill-fated “Sailor Prince” Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian and his Trieste-based colonial dreams can be referred to the idyllic Miramare Castle and Park near Trieste. Built as a love refuge for Maximilian and his wife, Charlotte of Belgium, the residence directly points towards the Adriatic Sea as Austria-Hungary’s route to the wider world. Fittingly, Maximilian’s bedroom and office were designed to reproduce the cramped cabin and wardroom, respectively, of the frigate Novara – the warship on which the Commander-in-Chief of the Austrian navy had travelled the world between 1857 and 1859.
In 2013/14, the Wien Museum hosted an exhibition about the “Discovery of the Austrian Riviera” following the train connection between Vienna and Trieste in 1850. It highlights, among other things, how Habsburgs like Ferdinand Maximilian contributed to the “touristic colonization” of the Adriatic coast in Istria and Dalmatia and paved the way for the mass seaside tourism of the 1900s. A more general overview of exoticist tourism as a form of internal colonization within the Habsburg monarchy was also published in 2014: Peter Stachel / Martina Thomsen (eds), Zwischen Exotik und Vertrautem. Zum Tourismus in der Habsburgermonarchie und ihren Nachfolgestaaten (2014)
A 5-part TV series about the “Reisen der Habsburger” (“Travels of the Habsburgs”) features Crown Prince Rudolph and Archduke Franz Ferdinand. You have to be quick to watch it for free.
Further reading
The information rendered in this post is mainly taken from the following books.
On internal colonialism:
Johannes Feichtinger, Ursula Prutsch, Moritz Csáky (eds), Habsburg postcolonial. Machtstrukturen und kollektives Gedächtnis (2003)
On Bosnia-Herzegovina:
Clemens Ruthner, Habsburg’s Only Colony? Bosnia-Herzegovina and Austria-Hungary, 1878-1918 (2018)
Clemens Ruthner und Tamara Scheer (eds), Bosnien-Herzegowina und Österreich-Ungarn, 1878-1918. Annäherungen an eine Kolonie (2018)
Peter Stachel, Der koloniale Blick auf Bosnien-Herzegowina in der ethnographischen Popularliteratur der Habsburgermonarchie, in Habsburg postcolonial (see above)
Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (1997)
On colonial projects:
Walter Sauer, Habsburg Colonial: Austria-Hungary’s role in European overseas expansion reconsidered, Austrian Studies (2012) 20, pp. 5-23
Walter Sauer, k. u. k. kolonial. Habsburgermonarchie und europäische Herrschaft in Afrika (2002)
Colonial Austria: Austria and the Overseas, Austrian Studies Vol. 20 (2012)
On Franz Ferdinand and his world tour:
Schicklgruber, Christian, Franz is here! Franz Ferdinands Reise um die Erde (2014)
For a study about Franz Ferdinand as a foreign policy opponent of Emperor Francis Joseph see: Günther Kronenbitter, The Opposition of the Archdukes. Rudolf, Franz Ferdinand and the late Habsburg Monarchy. In: Frank Lorenz Müller and Heidi Mehrkens (eds), Sons and Heirs (2016)
The role of the Balkans, and of Bosnia and Serbia in particular, in the coming about of the First World War has been explored most recently by Christopher Clark in his fascinating study “The Sleepwalkers. How Europe went to war in 1914” (2012).
Further suggestions?
This is just a small collection of books and projects from Austria (for example I have left out literary studies). Are you missing a research project, exhibition, city tour or newspaper controversy worth mentioning? Please let me know in the comments!
Post Script:
While Austria-Hungary never formally acquired any overseas colonies, an Austro-Hungarian polar expedition discovered one in 1873: an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean now belonging to the Russian Republic which was named and retains the name Franz-Joseph-Land.
The Armchair Sailor's Story Book 
