I did research on the Anschluss recently, and one of the lines comes back to when reading this fic. Something about how the Austrians had always belonged to some greater entity and thought that's the way it should be, but the more the Germans talked about Greater Germany and German this German that, the more the Austrians didn't feel like they were part of it.
Yes ! Yes, exactly ! Oh god, I'm so happy that reading this made you reflect and research a bit on history and everything :D !
It's mainly subtext and I didn't feel like pulling a Victor Hugo and write a complete Author Tract (It's fanfiction, so yeah, not a place to write an essay...) but I wanted to contrast the vision Bismarck's Prussia (I know he's not Kaiser, but he's the mastermind here, sorry House of Hohenzollern.) and Franz-Joseph's Austria-Hungary had of what should be a country. On one side, you have the German Empire led by Prussia, Bismarck's "Kleindeutschland" centered around protestant Prussia that comprises people that more or less share the same language and culture. On the other side, you've got the multicultural danubian Monarchy, that's centered around a common monarch (sexy, sexy neo-absolutism) that got its ass kicked out of the German nation in the Austro-Prussian War because it liked the idea of a "Großdeutschland" ressembling the Holy Roman Empire. (Also Bismarck. Never forget Bismarck.)
So right now, they're in 1871-1872, the German Empire just got proclaimed after kicking France's ass, Prussia sort of wants to rub it in Austria's face that he's on the top of the world right now and Austria sort of still feels angry about having to share his power with Hungary and marry her. But Realpolitik; Prussia's new nemesis isn't Austria, it's France, and he won't do the usual "I kicked your ass, give me everything now" people do, chosing instead to be a bit more subtle in making him his bitch (as in having him as an ally or neutral in case the German Empire gets in a war, with France, most probably). Austria accepts the idea of a German Empire without him passively, becomes Prussia's ally in the Triplice later on, turns toward the Balkans because he can't go West anymore. The thing is that the idea of "one nation = one country" is kind of terrible for the Hapsburgs (and Austria), given that they have a lot of nations in one political entity. The worst part is that, since the marriage sort of gave Hungary a bit of freedom on smaller matters, the other nationalities want the same. Also, Hungary's growing influence in the empire makes her a bit bossy around the other nationalities, to which she imposes her own culture and political system the same way Austria did before that.
Then stuff happens and WWI and YEAH I'M RAMBLING. Anyway, A!A is ridiculously happy right now that someone got a bit of the historical subtext and hopes that the story is still enjoyable without having to search Wikipedia for history stuff or anything. (I'm a total nerd for 19th century politics, but I understand how most people find it really boring.)
Talking about Wikipedia, some more stuff, if anybody is interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_question http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magyarisation
Thank you Anon for another great part of the fill :) You put out a very cute young Germany. Don't worry, I was getting the references about the Prussia-Austria dynamics. I did learn in school about how Prussia and Austria were kinda initially competing as who would be able to make a united Germany, but then the Habsburgs wanted to keep their other nationalities, and how then Prussia managed to exclude the Austrians from Germany.
About the so called "magyarization", it is a bit of a more complex problem, and just the article you linked is not showing all the sides to it. Laws were in place to protect nationalities, but they were not acted on the same way at different places, and often the differences were due to the different views and cultures of the nationalities. For example the croatians were part of the Hungarian kingdom as a partly autonomous kingdom since around the 1100s or something, and quite different to almost all other nationalities in the kingdom, the croations had their own nobles and intellectuals. In other nationalities, like slovaks and romanians, they were almost exclusively low-social status people to begin with (to better understand it as well, a lot of different nationalities moved into the Hungarian kingdom after certain wars decreased the population on certain areas, but people moving in were mainly very common, low-born people, so they were not bringing nobles etc with them), and had little say in politics. With time, they began to get intellectuals who could speak up for them, but quite critically, politics at the time were controlled by nobles, and with little to none representation from certain nationalities, their issues were harder to represent. I mean back then, the parliament was almost entirely composed of nobles, at least the high, decision making class of them, so nationalities without them would be sorely under-represented.
Also as I think there were differences in attitude as well. Like the german and jewish nationalities inside Hungary were willing to identify with being part of a Hungarian nation, and working with the system, instead of going against it. On the other hand, Romanians for example had a much more negative attitude towards Hungarian national identity, and felt that it threatened their own national identity, and as the more they reflected their negative attitude, the more the system pushed down on them. Also there are some post-trianon political considerations as to why some nations try to enlarge those Austro-Hungarian times policies, and may want to show them in a skewed light. The Slovaks are a pretty extreme example, where they even argue that they were physically aggressively oppressed even, citing events that are not very realistic representations (like the massacre, where the shooting was ordered by ethnic slovaks). It's a very complicated problem, that is not necessarily properly represented even or especially on wikipedia. There are cases when wikipedia is not necessarily the best to trust. Oh well, I need to get back to studying!
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Re: Der Totentanz der Mächtigen (3c/3)
(Anonymous) 2013-05-14 12:04 am (UTC)(link)Author here !
(Anonymous) 2013-05-14 02:13 pm (UTC)(link)It's mainly subtext and I didn't feel like pulling a Victor Hugo and write a complete Author Tract (It's fanfiction, so yeah, not a place to write an essay...) but I wanted to contrast the vision Bismarck's Prussia (I know he's not Kaiser, but he's the mastermind here, sorry House of Hohenzollern.) and Franz-Joseph's Austria-Hungary had of what should be a country. On one side, you have the German Empire led by Prussia, Bismarck's "Kleindeutschland" centered around protestant Prussia that comprises people that more or less share the same language and culture. On the other side, you've got the multicultural danubian Monarchy, that's centered around a common monarch (sexy, sexy neo-absolutism) that got its ass kicked out of the German nation in the Austro-Prussian War because it liked the idea of a "Großdeutschland" ressembling the Holy Roman Empire. (Also Bismarck. Never forget Bismarck.)
So right now, they're in 1871-1872, the German Empire just got proclaimed after kicking France's ass, Prussia sort of wants to rub it in Austria's face that he's on the top of the world right now and Austria sort of still feels angry about having to share his power with Hungary and marry her. But Realpolitik; Prussia's new nemesis isn't Austria, it's France, and he won't do the usual "I kicked your ass, give me everything now" people do, chosing instead to be a bit more subtle in making him his bitch (as in having him as an ally or neutral in case the German Empire gets in a war, with France, most probably). Austria accepts the idea of a German Empire without him passively, becomes Prussia's ally in the Triplice later on, turns toward the Balkans because he can't go West anymore. The thing is that the idea of "one nation = one country" is kind of terrible for the Hapsburgs (and Austria), given that they have a lot of nations in one political entity. The worst part is that, since the marriage sort of gave Hungary a bit of freedom on smaller matters, the other nationalities want the same. Also, Hungary's growing influence in the empire makes her a bit bossy around the other nationalities, to which she imposes her own culture and political system the same way Austria did before that.
Then stuff happens and WWI and YEAH I'M RAMBLING. Anyway, A!A is ridiculously happy right now that someone got a bit of the historical subtext and hopes that the story is still enjoyable without having to search Wikipedia for history stuff or anything. (I'm a total nerd for 19th century politics, but I understand how most people find it really boring.)
Talking about Wikipedia, some more stuff, if anybody is interested:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_question
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magyarisation
OP
(Anonymous) 2013-05-15 10:08 am (UTC)(link)About the so called "magyarization", it is a bit of a more complex problem, and just the article you linked is not showing all the sides to it. Laws were in place to protect nationalities, but they were not acted on the same way at different places, and often the differences were due to the different views and cultures of the nationalities. For example the croatians were part of the Hungarian kingdom as a partly autonomous kingdom since around the 1100s or something, and quite different to almost all other nationalities in the kingdom, the croations had their own nobles and intellectuals. In other nationalities, like slovaks and romanians, they were almost exclusively low-social status people to begin with (to better understand it as well, a lot of different nationalities moved into the Hungarian kingdom after certain wars decreased the population on certain areas, but people moving in were mainly very common, low-born people, so they were not bringing nobles etc with them), and had little say in politics. With time, they began to get intellectuals who could speak up for them, but quite critically, politics at the time were controlled by nobles, and with little to none representation from certain nationalities, their issues were harder to represent. I mean back then, the parliament was almost entirely composed of nobles, at least the high, decision making class of them, so nationalities without them would be sorely under-represented.
Also as I think there were differences in attitude as well. Like the german and jewish nationalities inside Hungary were willing to identify with being part of a Hungarian nation, and working with the system, instead of going against it. On the other hand, Romanians for example had a much more negative attitude towards Hungarian national identity, and felt that it threatened their own national identity, and as the more they reflected their negative attitude, the more the system pushed down on them. Also there are some post-trianon political considerations as to why some nations try to enlarge those Austro-Hungarian times policies, and may want to show them in a skewed light. The Slovaks are a pretty extreme example, where they even argue that they were physically aggressively oppressed even, citing events that are not very realistic representations (like the massacre, where the shooting was ordered by ethnic slovaks). It's a very complicated problem, that is not necessarily properly represented even or especially on wikipedia. There are cases when wikipedia is not necessarily the best to trust. Oh well, I need to get back to studying!