Subjects, citizens and others: the handling of ethnic differences in the British and the Habsburg Empires (late nineteenth and early twentieth century)

Abstract This article focuses on the role of ethnic inclusions and exclusions in administering citizenship and nationality within the British and the Habsburg Empires. The analysis discerns three ways of dealing with ethnically heterogenous populations. One follows the nation-state model and aims for internal ethnic homogeneity and legal equality. This model coined developments in Canada and Hungary. The second obeys an imperialistic pattern and implements legal discrimination between different ethnic groups. It played a decisive role in East Africa and in Bosnia to a certain degree. The third model follows a statist logic and enforces either supra-ethnic neutrality or a politics of recognition. It was most influential in Austria and India. In the British as well as in the Habsburg context ethnic differences gained significance around 1900. This ethnicising of law and administrative practice produced different results, though, in both cases, mainly due to the empires' divergent political structures. Whereas within the Habsburg Empire the three models were juxtaposed, British law and administration came to be dominated by the imperialistic pattern of ethnic discrimination against 'non-white' subjects. Thus, the customary distinction between a politically inclusive nationalism in Western Europe and an ethnically exclusive one in the continent's Eastern half – sometimes linked with the difference between ius soli and ius sanguinis – cannot be upheld. Keywords: nationalitycitizenshipethnicityimperial and comparative history Notes 1. London, PRO: FO Citation926/17: Letters from the British consul at Mansura, 24, 25 and 26 June 1882. 2. CitationVienna, HHStA: MdÄ, Konsulat Jerusalem, Ktn. 141. 3. This brief characterisation of ethnicity is based on three theoretical caveats against a primordialist or essentialist understanding of ethnic identity. These are grounded in constructivist, anthropological and poststructuralist criticisms of a concept of ethnic identity as objectively true, invariable and clear. See Ottersbach (Citation1997), Cohen (Citation2000), Wieviorka (Citation2003). 4. See Banton (Citation1998), Fredrickson (Citation2004). 5. Identification processes from below, as it were, and in the sphere of the everyday life have been studied in detail, e.g. by Sinha (Citation1995) and King (Citation2002). In doing so, recent studies of the Habsburg context have especially emphasised the persistence of national indifference among the population in spite of all attempts at nationalisation (Judson, Citation2006; Zahra, Citation2008). 6. This article distinguishes between nationality denoting the legal status of belonging to a political entity, and citizenship as the substantive rights and obligations granted to and demanded from nationals (Gosewinkel, Citation1995). It is important to note that this analytical distinction is not congruent with contemporary legal terminology. Whereas in the British context nationals were called 'subjects', they were named 'citizens' ('Staatsbürger') in Austria and 'nationals' ('Staatsangehörige') in Hungary. 7. This article summarises some of the arguments more fully developed in CitationGammerl (forthcoming). 8. Brubaker (Citation1992). Critiques of Brubaker's approach have emphasised the role of ethnic exclusion in the French context. See also Noiriel (Citation2001), Weil (Citation2002). On the other hand, research on the German case has stressed the modern and revolutionary character of ius sanguinis as opposed to the feudal tradition of ius soli and indicated the relevance of territorial elements in German law and administrative practice (Gosewinkel, Citation2001a). 9. This distinction dates back at least to Friedrich Meinecke (Meinecke, Citation1908). Karen Barkey argues explicitly against this East–West dichotomy, claiming that 'both political cultures had civic and ethnic components' (Barkey, Citation1997: 108). In a later publication, Roger Brubaker also criticised simplifying contrasts between 'ethnic' and 'civic nationalism' (Brubaker, Citation2004). For a similar critique see Gosewinkel (Citation2004). 10. In spite of the methodological difficulties attached to comparing maritime and land-based empires such endeavours have repeatedly been suggested and asked for (McGranahan and Stoler, Citation2007; Miller, Citation1997; Ruthner, Citation2001). CitationKomlosy recently (2008) undertook such a comparison. The elaboration of my approach is deeply indebted to the discussions with my colleagues at the Berlin School for Comparative European History. 11. Lieven (Citation1999), 165. A similar line of thought is followed by Cooper (Citation2004) who compares the ratio between 'incorporation and differentiation' within empires (p. 269). Mc Granahan and Stoler (2007) emphasise 'degrees of tolerance, of difference, of domination, and of rights', instead (p. XI). In terms of shared characteristics the colonial features of the Bosnian context within the Habsburg Empire are another case in point. 12. These processes are very well researched for the French and the German context (Noiriel, Citation2001; Weil, Citation2002; Gosewinkel, Citation2001a; Brubaker, Citation1992). 13. Marshall (Citation1992). For a comprehensive account of the nation-state pattern see Gosewinkel (Citation2001b). 14. This pattern has primarily been described in relation to the policy of different German states before 1870 (Fahrmeir, Citation1997). For vital insights into the politics of recognition in the Austrian context see Stourzh (Citation1985). 15. So far there have only been a few studies on nationality in the colonial context (Oomen, Citation1997; Wildenthal, Citation1997). Terminologically, it is important here to note the difference between the word 'imperialist' referring to situations stamped by asymmetric power relations and 'imperial' as an expression more generally designating ethnically and politically heterogeneous contexts. 16. For a more detailed comparison between Canada and Hungary see Gammerl (Citation2007). 17. The statist view was promoted by Szilágyi (Pester Lloyd, 5 November 1879), while Szederkényi and Veßter amongst others argued along national lines (Pester Lloyd, 29 October and 5 November 1879). Pester Lloyd was a liberal German-language newspaper published in Budapest. It comprised very detailed and often verbal accounts of the parliamentary debates. 18. Hungary: GA L of Citation1879. 19. This included offering emigrants information, financial assistance and accommodation as well as 'furthering their religious and intellectual needs'. Hungary: GA IV of 1903: §35. Here, as with all other quotations in this article that are in German in the original, the translation is by the author. 20. Freifeld (Citation2000), Puttkammer (Citation2003), Karády (Citation1990). 21. One newspaper comment that was supportive of the Bill went as far as claiming that the maintenance of the 'racial hegemony of Magyardom' was one of its main purposes (Balogh, Citation1908). 22. Brownlie (Citation2006) attributes the low numbers of enfranchised 'Indians' to a certain degree of reluctance on the side of the First Nations, who wanted to keep their special status, and to the reservations of the Canadian authorities. 23. Nichols (Citation1998), 254ff. 24. Roy (Citation1989), Knowles (Citation2000). 25. CitationCanada: Immigration Act, 1910. 26. Burger (Citation2000), Hirschhausen (Citation2007). 27. Actually, such calls were rarely voiced (Die Stellung der Frau, Citation1912; Karminski, Citation1887). On the same discussion in Germany and in Britain see Gosewinkel (2001a; Dummett and Nichol, 1990). For a proposal to facilitate the retention of Austrian nationality by emigrants see Caro (Citation1909), 217f and 229f. 28. Vienna, HHStA: MdÄ, Adm. Reg., F 15, Ktn. 10: 24768-1914: Letter of the k.u.k. Kolonialgesellschaft to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 28 March 1914. According to this letter, the aim of permanently binding emigrants to the Habsburg Empire should be the establishment of 'economic colonies' as Austria-Hungary had failed to gain direct military control over any colonial territories. 29. When, for example, the Viennese Magistrat tried to prohibit local citizenship acquisition (Heimatrecht or Gemeindezugehörigkeit) by non-German-speaking Austrians in the first years of the twentieth century, the Austrian central government and the administration court put an end to these exclusionary practices. CitationVienna, AVA: MdI, Allg., 11/4, Ktn 433: 6982-1900 and 52534-1906. 30. On the politics of recognition in the Austrian context see Baier (Citation1983), Wingfield (Citation2003), Winkler (Citation2000). 31. Glassl (Citation1977), Malíř (Citation2000). For a compromise on the local level in Budějovice/Budweis see King (Citation2002). 32. When she formally assumed sovereignty over India, the government in London promised her Indian subjects 'of whatever race or creed … equal and impartial protection of the law'. Proclamation by the Queen to the Princes, Chiefs, and the People of India, 1 November 1858. Keith (Citation1922), 382ff. 33. London, IOR: V/26/261/1: Report of the Franchise Committee, Menon (Citation1965), Robb (Citation1976). 34. Hirschmann (Citation1980), Sinha (Citation1995). 35. This exclusion was not an object of extensive discussion in those days, yet legal specialists were very much aware of it: 'It has not yet been thought expedient to confer the status of British subjects upon the natives of Protectorates.' London, PRO: HO 45/10227/B36600: Law Officers to Foreign Office, June 5, 1901. On these grounds a group of Maasai who, in 1913, tried to sue the colonial administration for a breach of agreements, were refused to be heard by the East African High Court as the claimants were not considered to be British subjects and thus could not claim protection from British courts (Hughes, Citation2006), 5 and 90ff. 36. London, PRO: CO 630/3: Regulation No. 29 of 1915. Gatheru (Citation2005), 9 and 29. 37. From the ruling of the East African High Court dated 26 May 1913 dealing with the case brought forward by representatives of the Maasai: 'The idea that there may be an established system of law to which a man owes obedience, and that at any moment he may be deprived of the protection of that law, is an idea not easily accepted by English lawyers. It is made less difficult, if one remembers that the Protectorate is over a country in which a few dominant civilised men have to control a great multitude of the semi-barbarous.' Cited in Hughes (Citation2006), 97f. 38. In 1910 the representative of the 'European settlers' Lord Delamere requested measures to prohibit 'the settlement of Asiatics in this country'. CitationEast Africa Legislative Council: 3 August 1910. Finally, in 1918 the surety that 'non-white' immigrants had to deposit upon entry was raised to the often prohibitive level of 100 Rupees. London, PRO: CO 630/3: Regulation No. 5 of 1918. 39. Hughes (Citation2006), 25ff. The Crown Lands Ordinance of 1909 prohibited the lease or sale of land to 'Asiatics or Natives'. CitationEast Africa Executive Council: 6 November 1908. East Africa Legislative Council: 29 March 1909. Additionally, measures that economically coerced the 'natives' to take on wagework tried to ensure ample supply of cheap labour for the 'European settlers' (Gatheru, Citation2005), 25 and 30f. 40. London, PRO: CO 630/3: Regulation No. 22 of 1919. This measure was enacted in spite of massive protests by 'Indians' in Africa and in India that were supported somewhat hesitantly by the Delhi government and the India Office in London. CitationLondon, IOR: L/PO/1/1A. However, the decision to exclude the 'native' inhabitants from the franchise was scarcely discussed. Their interests were to be represented by 'European' officials or missionaries nominated by the Governor (Gatheru, Citation2005), 36. While the electoral law was very restrictive in terms of 'racial' discrimination, it was simultaneously rather progressive in gender equality terms since it gave the franchise to 'European' women. East Africa Legislative Council: 8 and 9 April 1919. 41. Whereas enlightened absolutism is most frequently connected with Emperor Joseph II in the Austrian context, in the Indian case it can be traced to the influence of utilitarianist thinking on many British administrators, especially in the first half of the nineteenth century. 42. Wien, HHStA: MdÄ, Adm. Reg., F61, Ktn 20: 29430-1886: Report of the Bosnian government, January 5 1886. 43. Wien, HHStA: MdÄ, Adm. Reg., F61, Ktn 20: 45127-1896: Letter of the common Ministry of Finance to the common Ministry of Foreign Affairs, October 2 1896. 44. The figures are taken from Vrankić (Citation1998), 2. 45. Bittiger (Citation2001), Donia (Citation1981), Velikonja (Citation2003), Vrankić (Citation1998). 46. See §5 of the Landeswahlordnung. Bernatzik (Citation1911), 1050ff., Heuberger (2001). 47. Baldwin (Citation2003), Karatani (Citation2003). Although Cesarani (Citation1996), Dummett and Nicol (Citation1990) and Paul (Citation1997) are more aware of the ethnically exclusive features of British law, their emphasis is chiefly on the ethnicising effects of post-1945 legal amendments. 48. UK Acts: 5 Edw. 7 ch. 13, sec. 3.1. Holmes (Citation2001). See also Reinecke (Citation2008). 49. Unfortunately the sources on British naturalisation practice that can be found in the archives are scarce. For the period between 1870 and 1914 only 62 files survived that deal with cases in which the application for naturalisation was declined. Thus, it is impossible to make any definitive statements about the principles that informed the decisions of Home Office officials. 50. Police reports on the applicants came to be part of the naturalisation procedure in the 1890s (Fahrmeir, Citation2000), 93. According to the files that survived, Noah Cohen was the first applicant whose naturalisation was refused because of an insufficient knowledge of the English language in 1901. London, PRO: HO 144/625/B36331. 51. These absolute numbers follow the naturalisation lists in London, PRO: HO 45. The explanatory power of these figures is restricted, though, as there is no information on the proportion of Jewish applicants in the total number of applications. 52. London, PRO: HO 144/354/B14881: application by Zelig Perelman, 1893. London, PRO: HO 144/467/V31725: application by Jacob Richman, 1900. Both applications were declined. 53. London, PRO: HO 144/625/B36384: application by Israel Woods, 1901. 54. London, PRO: HO 45/12183: Naturalisation Fee, 1892–1913. Baldwin (2003), 87f. 55. My distinction between a political and a sociocultural argument underlying British naturalisation policy is indebted to Baldwin (2003). However, whereas I would characterise British naturalization practice in the early twentieth century as oscillating between these two poles, as it were, Baldwin (pp. 62 and 92) emphasises the political intentions and thus arrives at the conclusion that ethnic neutrality was the prevailing principle. 56. UK Acts: 8 Edw. 7 ch. 40, sec. 2(2). 57. CitationUK Parliament, Lords: 20 July 1908: Viscount Wolverhampton. 58. UK Parliament, Lords: 28 July 1908: Viscount Wolverhampton. 59. The circumvention of the exclusive condition of 20 years' residence within the United Kingdom for persons who originally came from the British Isles was achieved by the introduction of the notion of 'home' into legal and administrative practice. 'A person's home is that place or country in which, either he resides … or in which he has so resided, and with regard to which he retains … the intention of residence' (Evans, Citation1908), 32. Thus, persons returning to the UK only had to state that they always wanted to come back in order to qualify for the receipt of a pension. This implied ultimately the introduction of an emotional relationship to the territory of the UK as a relevant matter of fact into British law. 60. UK Acts: 5 Edw. 7 ch. 13, sec. 1.3. According to two Members of Parliament 'the British born workman returning to visit his family' and those returning home 'to lay their bones in the sacred soil of their own country and in the graves of their forebears' should not be prevented from doing so by the procedures which the Bill applied to other alien immigrants. UK Parliament, Commons: 27 June 1905: Mr. Whitely and Mr. Flynn. 61. This contradicts the assertion by Dummett and Nicol (Citation1990) that 'ancestry… for persons born on "English soil"' would have only become a legally relevant matter of fact in 1981 (p. 22). 62. As far as women married to aliens were concerned the Act of 1914 allowed them, after they were divorced or widowed, to apply for re-naturalisation without fulfilling the necessary residence qualification. UK Acts: 4&5 Geo. 5 ch. 17, sec. II.2.5, III.10 und III.19.1.(j). Within the realm of social citizenship rights the Old Age Pensions as well as the National Insurance Act of 1911 contained similar regulations privileging such women over other aliens. UK Acts: 1&2 Geo. 5 ch. 55: I.45.3. and 1&2 Geo. 5 ch. 16: 3.1. Hoare (Citation1915). 63. UK Acts: 4&5 Geo. 5 ch. 17, sec. I.1.1. 64. Odgers (Citation1916), 7. This also demonstrates that Baldwin's (2003) assertion that 'arguments for descent-based nationality laws… never developed into concrete legal proposals' has to be re-thought (p. 69). 65. See also Gammerl (Citation2006). 66. Pester Lloyd, 14 November 1908, 4: Madaráß in the parliamentary debate on the emigration law. In 1900 the Hungarian Ministry of the Interior had already asked the common Ministry of Foreign Affairs to extend their support of Hungarian emigrants and at the same time offered to bear the costs arising from that. Vienna, HHStA: MdÄ, Adm. Reg., F 15, Ktn. 31: 106399-1900. 67. Promoting military duties was described as a main consular authority task at a conference of Habsburg consular officials in the United States in 1911. According to this panel, 'preserving the national particularities of our emigrants' was not an for to their 'civic duties to their home country'. Vienna, Adm. Reg., F Ktn. Hungarian nationals the for financial from the government had to of their they were of the their Hungarian was to their Vienna, HHStA: MdÄ, Adm. Reg., F Ktn. In the representative in the Austrian Parliament, the government about features within the practice of the consular authorities. Vienna, HHStA: MdÄ, Adm. Reg., F Ktn In the newspaper published a by from who about the insufficient protection offered to emigrants who were at the of Ktn. in 1910 similar were against the Hungarian for emigrants in Vienna, Adm. Reg., F 15, Ktn. 31: Vienna, Adm. Reg., F Ktn. This was represented by the and at who to the raised in 1910 against the Hungarian by that from Hungary is the same and support of his national identity. immigrants are as as there is any discrimination against or of Hungarian Vienna, Adm. Reg., F 15, Ktn. 31: London, PRO: FO from to the British in 20 1900 and July 1901. The were an ethnic group between and London, PRO: FO by the consular on his visit to in November 1900. that the government a policy of over the British not these so and of British would London, PRO: FO in this was to a certain in by the Law Officers in London, who that by the of all subjects had British those in in 1886. London, PRO: FO in This had though, as it was to impossible to who had been a in 1886. Thus, the Law Officers on to British status by on a in with the authorities. London, PRO: FO on the of British in 1901. This is by an analysis of the by the British in and between and only to of 'non-white' into account the fact that there were far 'non-white' British subjects in this demonstrates the role of consular in from British London, PRO: F F F F und F on two cases from survived in which officials British from and In one the British representative about the procedure followed by his the decisions were upheld. London, PRO: FO from to at January London, PRO: FO in London, PRO: FO on and PRO: HO by the of the of the of the of for India, 27 January and by Mr. 26 July 1901. PRO: HO 45/10227/B36600: Law Officers to Foreign Office, 5 June 1901. For the that all persons born within British would be British subjects see 31. London, PRO: FO On the at of the of and on the of of by in Report of the of the April This was most by representatives of the African from suggested that should only be the if the was London, IOR: by 1911. See also In some officials in the and also in London were that the would its to 'racial' as as the is so as to exclude an Indian his is Mr. an and a who to his in the French and and all the of a liberal was asked to in many so the of in India and London, IOR: by of the in the India Office, May 1911. London, IOR: of India to India Office, March London, IOR: of India to India Office, 1 Legislative 25 In their for legal equality the representatives frequently the word which was in that very Thus, the concept of as legal equality of ethnic differences was very within India. It is that (Citation2006) in his on on developed within the Although all of these were more or less coined by to that some of can be as for supra-ethnic neutrality and legal equality. and thought it less important to 'It is to to the fact that the policy of of European within the Empire is with the idea that British whatever his have of to any part of the London, IOR: by 1911. London, IOR: Report by the of the 7 London, IOR: Foreign Office to Home Office, November London, IOR: of India to India Office, 27 July UK Acts: 4&5 Geo. 5 ch. 17, sec. from the of the notion of this is contemporary British legal emphasised that the Law concept of that was in feudal from its modern and revolutionary the idea of as it not the legal equality of all subjects and thus allowed for between different of subjects. This conclusion contradicts (2003) of British nationality law as Karatani argues that the legal status the law offered was the accommodation of a of while I would rather its intentions and 93. I indebted to the of in European at European in for the to this

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.