Suchergebnisse

Volltext // 2010 digitalisiert von: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München. Exemplar mit der Signatur: München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek -- Ph.pr. 792 x-1

von Friedrich Bran ; Volltext // 2011 digitalisiert von: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München. Exemplar mit der Signatur: München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek -- H.misc. 216 m-1797,2

von Friedrich Bran ; Volltext // 2011 digitalisiert von: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München. Exemplar mit der Signatur: München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek -- H.misc. 216 m-1797,1

von Friedrich Bran ; Volltext // 2011 digitalisiert von: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München. Exemplar mit der Signatur: München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek -- H.misc. 216 m-1797,3

von Friedrich Bran ; Volltext // 2011 digitalisiert von: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München. Exemplar mit der Signatur: München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek -- H.misc. 216 m-1797,4

Towards the end of the 20th century the Italian literature created outside Italy finally started to receive proper attention, because research began to focus on the socio-cultural analysis of the different forms of internal and external postcolonialism. As a result, both imperialism and nationalism are seen as responsible for phenomena of cultural alienation in many territories outside as well as inside the national borders of the country and are exposed as ideological constructs. Nevertheless research still neglects the one undoubtedly outstanding region in the production of Italian literature outside Italy, i.e. Austria, more precisely the territories of the Habsburg Monarchy, where for nearly 500 years - from early Humanism to the First World War - the tradition was the richest in quantity as well as in quality. This first part of a comprehensive history of the Italian literature created in Austria for an Austrian public has been written with the intention of filling this gap. The unique position the Italian language held at Vienna's imperial court at least from the middle of the 17th to the middle of the 18th century is well known: Italian was not only an official language for the purpose of representation, it also served as a vehicle of cultural communication in the inner circle of the imperial family. The numerous political connections between the House of Habsburg and the ruling Italian dynasties are a major reason for the manifold cultural transfers between the Austrian territories and the Italian States. The great number of strategic marriages led to intense cultural as well as economical relations, which obviously did result in occasional implications in territorial conflicts and in military alliances not always favorable to the mutual understanding. As a consequence of the above mentioned economical and dynastical connections the Habsburgs often intervened politically in Italy, first in the Early Modern Period, especially during the reigns of Charles V and Ferdinand I. Two centuries later, the Habsburg administration of the Kingdom of Naples (1707-1734) as well as of Lombardy during most of the 18th century (1714-1797) was decisive for the continuation of those interchanges, which ended however, when the Italian movement of unification began to create a totally new situation. Humanism, baroque and enlightenment, three currents which are amply discussed in the present volume, could more easily expand from Italy to Austria because of the before described dynastical connections and they established themselves still deeper because of the immigration or the long stays of Italian authors in the cultural centers of the Austrian monarchy, first of all of course in Vienna. Not surprisingly however, we possess so far only an inadequate and unsystematic documentation of the activities and literary productions of the great majority of those authors: As is well known, the 19th century created a nationalistic base for literary studies, a view which still for a long time influenced the 20th century for a long time. The Italian authors working and publishing in Austria did so in their own language, but in a foreign country and for a foreign sovereign. For this reason they obtained practically no attention in Austrian literary studies, because there works were not composed in the national language, and their appearance in Italian studies is all but nonexistent because they made no direct contribution to the national literary tradition.

The present monograph focuses on the history of Italian literature and language in Austria's Habsburg past, covering the period from the Peace of Campoformido between Napoleon and Francis II in 1797 to the end of the Habsburg monarchy in 1918. The study reveals that Italian court poetry was amazingly alive in the 19th century as it gradually had been adapted to the changes in the fields of politics, society, and the press. After analyzing the end of the golden era of Italian poetry in Austria, the author presents Archduchess Maria Beatrice d'Este and her literary circle. She was the last patroness of Italian artists and poets and kept up the old-style tradition of court poetry until her death in 1829. During the 19th century, however, this tradition faced an ever increasing popularization, with Italian language books and instruction getting more and more common. The Italian language was never discriminated against in the Habsburg monarchy. On the contrary, it was even extensively taught at universities because officials with a good command of Italian were needed both in the federal government and in the Italian regions of the monarchy. Moreover, the Habsburgs' language policy favored the publication of quality papers and literary magazines in Italian. The study also deals with Italian school books and anthologies for schools in the Italian parts of the monarchy, which were usually written and published in Vienna. In the last part of this chapter, records of the future Emperor Franz Joseph's Italian instruction are presented and analyzed on the basis of archive materials. Anachronistically, court poetry survived the 1848/1849 revolution and continued until World War I. The Emperor was popularized in jubilee editions, newspapers, and ceremonies, but also in the Italian poetry which was no longer of high quality, but still instrumental in presenting Franz Joseph as the "father of the nation".