154
I'AltTISAN ItEVIEW
Through the anonYll1ity of an ,liert, .1utodidactic spectator the reader is
drawn into the dark undercurrents
of./ill-ar-siCr/c
Vienna that erupted in the
social arena and political theatre ot' ,I lI1ulti-ethnic ell1pire in the final stages
of collapse.
Young H.,jobless, twice rejected by the Acadell1Y of Fine Arts, was an
avid spectator at parliall1entary sessions, which he attended almost daily. With
516 representatives, the parliament was the largest in Europe. In 19()7, uni–
versal sufn-age (that did not include wOll1cn) went into dlect for the first time
and brought many more reprcscntativcs ti'om the non-Ccrll1an speaking dis–
tricts. The embittercd battles in thc Imperial parliamcnt for recognition of
n,ltional diflerence in the Habsburg cll1pire eerily forcshadow contemporary
cui ture wars. Thc question of r,KC was complicltcd by thc issue of language.
It was language that defined a people
,IS
a nation. The jews cOll1pliclted the
problem. Spread out across the ElI1pirc, thcy spokc diHl:rcnt Lmguagcs and
thcrcforc could not be defined ;IS ,I Il.ltion. For the tirst tinle, the Cerman
speaking group was in the minority. To contclllllli the volatile racial issues,
many assimilated jews were ardently cOll1mittl'd to Cl'rll1an culture, among
thell1 Theodor Herzl ,md Victor Adler, the brilli,mt leader of the Socialist
Worker's Parry. L30th of thl'lI1 started out in pan-Ccrll1anic organizatiol1S.
They werc eventually l'Xpel led by thl' nl'wly introduccd Aryan clause, which
no longer diHl:rentiated betwccn religious ,md assill1i1atcd jcws.
In legal tcrll1s Austria didn't cvcn exist as a country, only as the hyphen–
,Itcd Austro - Hung,lri,lIl nlon,lrchy. Stratcgics ,md rhctoric In the
construction of national idcntity in cOll1petition with the narrative of the
Aryan origin of Westcrn cui turc by pan- Certllan pscudo- philosophers along
thc precarious dividc betweell reLltivized history and politicizcd mythology
m,lke the Impcrial Endgall1e thc uncann y cradle of postillodernity.
If all else failed, opposing
politici,m~
and p,lrtics could be ruilled with
smcar campaigns aill1ed at their
~ex
lives. Priests WLTC
t~lVorite
targcts, if they
wcrc not ardent proselytizers of ,mti-Scll1i tislll ,md the superiori ty of the
Ccrman race. Thc pan-Ccrm;ms' unprintable anti-Sclllitic rhetoric was the
order of the day. It was endorsed :md furthcr cxpandl'd by the Christian
Socialists, which evolvcd frolll
;1
group calling itseir The Ami - Scll1ites. This
was thc party of Vienna's belovcd Illayor Karl Lucger, Hitler's acknowledged
role model , who is sentimentalized to this day as thc
H('r~lZo1f
!JOII
I,Vim,
the
"lord god" of Vicnna. It was Lucgcr who boastcd "I dccide who is a jew."
And so he did, publicly dcmonizing thc jews while ;Ippointing SOllle as his
closcst advisors.
To makc their poillt in p,l rli ,lIlll' llt, represelltativcs could ulk tc)r hours in
their native languages, which wcrc understood only by a
kw
and not rccord–
cd in the official protocols, which WLTC in Certll,lIl. Czechs bcclIlle masters
in holding the floor by rcci ting poctry or repcating nonscnsc scmcnces over
