“Mirrors of Habsburg Memory”

For more details please contact cziesielsky(at)mmg.mpg.de.

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This talk examines both memories and legacies of the Habsburg Empire in coastal areas of the former Austrian Littoral (Österreichisches Küstenland) and the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia (Königreich Lombardo–Venetien). The focus on coasts follows out of two principal questions:

1) In light of the often asserted cosmopolitan histories of multi-ethnic and multiconfessional maritime cities like Trieste and Venice, do we find memories or other indices of mixture and co-mingling associated with the Habsburg era?

If so, in what form and for what purposes? and 2) Given the predominant image of the Habsburg Empire as a continental or terrestrial power indelibly associated with a notion of Mitteleuropa, in what ways do memories of the Austrian era resonate in Adriatic/Mediterranean sites? To what degree do invocations of the Habsburg past map onto its enduring literary, linguistic, and architectonic legacies?