ROBERT S. WISTRICH
Austrian Legacies: Jews and the Question of
National Identity
S
EVEN YEARS AGO,
the former Chancellor of Austria, Franz Vranitzky,
stood on the Mount Scopus campus of the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, having just received an honorary doctorate, and acknowl–
edged the "collective responsibility" of Austrians for the part that they
had played in the suffering of the Jewish people between 1938 and 1945.
He spoke in simple and clear language in the name of a democratic, inde–
pendent Austria, which had decided to open a new page in its relations
with Israel and with the Jewish people. Dr. Vranitzky observed that
nationalism, xenophobia, and intolerance were still rampant throughout
Europe but also expressed his confidence about the future of Austria in
glowing words, which would surely be considered utopian today.
Let us put such painful thoughts aside for a moment and take a jour–
ney back in time and space, to approximately one hundred years ago–
to the strange world of Kakania-the K.u.K. Monarchie, then still ruled
by the House of Habsburg.
As the Austrian writer Robert Musil ironically observed in his classic
novel
Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften,
this vanished universe of Kakania
(the
Kaiserlich
and
Koniglich
Empire) was one in which K.K. (Imperial–
Royal) and K.u.K. (Imperial and Royal) theoretically applied to every
thing and every person but few were really sure which was which. The
K.u.K. Empire was officially ca ll ed Austria-Hungary but was more usu–
ally referred to in speech as Austria-a name it had solemnly renounced!
This was a
Rechtsstaat
with a progressive constitution and a semi-feu–
dal, conservative system of government; a land in which clericalism was
rampant but the way of life was liberal; in which all citizens were equal
before the law but "not everyone of course was a citizen"; where there
was a parliament "which made such vigorous use of its liberty that it
was usually kept shut"; an Empire in which the national struggles were
so violent "that they caused the machinery of State to jam and come to
a full stop several times a year." The satirical genius of Musil should not,
of course, be confused with historical reality-least of all when it comes
to explosive issues like the "Jewish Question" or national identity. But
