The Neue Freie Presse and the South Slavs of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1867-1914

SEER, Vol.85,No. I, J_anuaiy 2007 The J'feue Freie Presse and the South Slavs of the Habsburg Monarchy, I867-1 I94 ROBIN OKEY ONE of the defining featuresof modern intellectuallife, going beyond post-modernisttropes, is concern for the image, for the way in which culturaland social entities are constructedand perceived. From a different trajectory,the replacement of class by ethnicity as the leading focus of interest of much historical and social scientific research has reinforcedconcern with 'the Other', as issues of culturalcontact have acquiredmore saliencein views of the world'sfuture.Againstthisbackground , the notoriously multi-nationalHabsburg Empire might seem an inviting field for studies of mutual ethnic perception. Such studies exist,1but are not particularlynumerous, given that a generation ago an important book byJanik and Toulmin put the preoccupationwith styles of communication in a polyglot realm at the heart of the late Monarchy's multi-faceted cultural achievement.2Part of the explanation for this relativepaucity is no doubt technical,in the sheerdifficulty of linguisticdiversityin the region;but equally importantis the preference of the cultures concerned for contacts with the prestigiousWest rather than each other. Real communication across cultures is hard, practically and psychologically. Within a different imperial milieu John Stuart Mill and Lord Durham made telling observationson the linguistic impediment to inter-ethnic understandingin modern liberal society.3This article is an attempt to broach aspects of the theme in a Robin Okey is Professor of History at the University of Warwick. ' For example, M. Lammich, Das deutscheOsteuropabild in der Zeit der Reichsgrundung, Boppard am Rhein, I977 (hereafter, Lammich, Das deutsche Osteuropabild); V. Heuberger, A. Suppan, E. Vyslonzil (eds), Das Bild von Anderen.Identitdten, Mythen und Stereovpenin multietnischen europaischen Regionen, 2nd edn, Frankfurt am Main, I999; K. Gundich et al., Das Bild desAnderenin Siebenbiirgen, Bohlau, I998; J. Kren and E. Broklovi (eds), Obraz emc'u, Rakouska a N6me6ka v ceskespolelnostiig. a 20. stoleti,Prague, I998. 2A. Janik and S. Toulmin, Wittgenstein's Vienna,London, 1973. 3J. S. Mill, Considerations on Representative Government, London, I865, p. 297; TheDurham Report[on theaffairsofBritishNorthAmerica],an abridged version . . ., ed. Sir Reginald Coupland, Oxford, 1945, pp. 27-30. Mill wrote: 'Among a people without fellow-feeling, especially if they read and speak different languages, the united public opinion, necessary to the working of representative government, cannot exist.' Durham examined the linguistic roots of constitutional problems in nineteenth-century Canada. 8o THE NEUE FREIE PRESSE, I867-19I4 singlesmallsectoroftheoldMonarchy's experience, through reviewing what educatedGerman-speaking Austrianswould have learntabout the Serb,CroatandBosniakinhabitants of theirMonarchyfromtheir mostprestigious dailynewspaper. This choice of approachis open to severalmethodological objections .Evenifthestudyislimitedtowhatisherecalled'educated' opinion , one group'simageof anotherwillhavemultipleroots.In thecase of HabsburgSerbsand Croats,hearsayof theirrolein Austrian army history,or contactwithyoungconscripts in thepresent,wasprobably thewidestinformalinfluenceon the German-speaking publicat large. In moreformaldomainsthe educatedstratumcouldpotentially have beenreceptive to academicandtravelliterature. Limitedinterest in the formersphereis reflected,however,in the factthatwhen the Croat philologistVatroslav Jagic'was appointedto the new chairof Slavic studiesin Berlin,he hadno students forfiveyears,andlater,in a similarpostinVienna ,onlyfivepercentofdoctoralstudents he supervised were non-Slavs.4Travelliteraturehad a wider appeal,but showed a tendencyto concentrateon aspectsof a SouthSlavworlddeemed redolentof patriarchalexoticism:the 'Morlaks'of inner Dalmatia, Montenegrins and BosnianMuslims.5 A certainvoguefor southSlav folkpoetryin Germanintellectual circles,including GoetheandRanke, sinceAlbertoFortis's Italiantranslations of 1774 showedsimilartraits,6 andcouldnotpreventtheJfeue Freze Presse (NFP)alleginga century later thatDalmatiawasperhapsaswellknownin ViennaasHonolulu.7 Itis reasonable,therefore,to takethe periodicalpressas the basisfor the presentinquiry,becauseit was the quintessential mode of systematic communication in the late nineteenthand earlytwentiethcenturies. BetweenI847 andI873 thenumberofperiodical publications inAustria grew from 79 to 866; those representing explicit political tendencies rosebetweeni852 and I872 from22 to i63.8 'A. Angyal, 'Vatroslav Jagic und seine Zeit', in J. Tetzner (ed.), Deutsch-slavische Wechselseitigkeit in sieben?jahrhunderten, Berlin, I956; R. Jagoditsch, 'Der Lehrkanzel fur slavishe Philologie an der Universitat Wien, I849-1949', Wiener slavistischejahrbicher, 1,1 949, pp. I-5I. 5Z. Konstantinovic, DeutscheReisebeschreibungen uiber SerbienundMontenegro, Munich, I960, pp. I48-50. For examples from opposite ends of the period, see H. Noe, Dalmatienundseine Inselwelt,nebst Wanderungen durchdie ScharzenBerge,Vienna, I870; A. Achtleithner, Reisenim slavischen Siden (DalmatienundMontenegro), Berlin, I913. 6 A. Fortis's much translated Viaggioin Dalmazia, Venice, 1774, first popularized the lifestyle of primitive simplicity of the Morlaks, a term referring originally to the pastoral dwellers of the interior. Leopold Ranke's...

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