Emperor Maximilian I spared no expense or eff ort to ensure that he would be remembered the way that he wanted to be remembered. Th roughout his reign he concentrated on his image, crafting it to suit his political and dynastic goals. He justifi ed his efforts by claiming that, “Whoever prepares no memorial for himself during his lifetime has none after his death, and that same person will be forgotten along with the sound of the bell that tolls his passing. And so the money I spend on my memorial is not lost; rather, to spare expense on my memorial is to suppress my future reputation. For what I do not produce toward my own memorial during my lifetime will not be celebrated after my death by you or anybody else.” A key aspect of the emperor's memorial was his patronage of and skill in astrology. The image of Maximilian as patron and student of astrology was one of his own making. In his autobiographical writings, Maximilian emphasized his efforts to learn and practice astrology. His personal secretary and adviser, Joseph Grünpeck, who worked on early draft s of the emperor's autobiography and wrote a biography of Maximilian, consistently portrayed the emperor as an avid and gift ed student of astrology. In the biography, which he dedicated to Emperor Charles V, Grünpeck recounted Maximilian's enjoyment in reading astrological and astronomical literature, especially Ptolemy. Not long after Maximilian died, Johannes Schöner praised the emperor for his efforts in astrology and numbered him among the most important patrons of astrology. Toward the end of the sixteenThcentury, Henry Ranzovius, in his history of great patrons of astrology, singled out Maximilian and labeled him a lover of the art.

In a memorandum presented to the Hungarian-Czechoslovak Boundary Commission on 23 February 1922 by the inhabitants of the southern Slovak town of Viškovce (Hungarian: Ipolyvisk), the twenty-five signatories requested “humbly for consideration and well-meaning settlement of the following concern.” The municipality was bordered on three sides by the Ipeľ (Hungarian: Ipoly) River, but had been cut off from the only usable road by the border, making communication extremely difficult. In winter and at high water in the spring and autumn, the place was “completely cut off from the outside world.” For three years, they had observed how provisional boundaries were continuously redrawn, and bore the brunt of these changes. The inhabitants said that all alternative routes had become inaccessible during that time and the center of Šahy (Hungarian: Ipolyság), which was just ten kilometers away, had become extremely difficult to reach even in urgent cases. Thus, they requested that the only existing road “be opened to us as quickly as possible and our traffic given back to us.”

Recent surveys on post-soviet Eastern Europe reveal that ethnicity and ethnic differentiation are gradually losing their salience among local citizens, while social identification (for example, identities of workers or businesspeople) has become increasingly important as a way for people to perceive both themselves and ongoing political and economic changes. This tendency purports to herald the emergence of a society in which citizens compete for rewards and opportunities on the basis of merit rather than ethnic heritage. In Lithuania and Western Ukraine, however, this is not the case. National identification axes are the most important, and a strong national identity promotes democracy and opposition to communism.

In few Austrians were preoccupations with post-empire culture and politics stronger than in Hans Eibl, Richard von Kralik's most enthusiastic disciple. Like may young Austrians who had wintnessed the crumbling of the Habsburg empire, Eibl longed for vanished glories, for an all-encompassing Germanic community, and for a leader who combined regenerative religious qualities with political greatness. Though Eibl himself tried to fill these needs with a synthesis of religion and politics, he fell victim to his own endeavors. Given his personality and professional specialization, as well as him mentors, plus the instability of the First Republic, it perhaps could not have been otherwise.

By abolishing feudalism, the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 helped to create the economic preconditions and the legal-political framework necessary for capitalistic development. This made it possible for Hungary to adapt her economy to the market possibilities offered by the Industrial Revolution in western and central Europe and to share in the agrarian boom of the period between 1850 and 1873. The previously existing division of labor between western and eastern Europe and between the western and eastern parts of the Habsburg monarchy continued on a scale larger than before, with the significant difference, however, that this practice now speeded up rather than retarded the development of preconditions for capitalism. During the first half of the nineteenth century the preconditions for capitalism had come into existence in the Cisleithanian provinces at considerable expense to the Hungarian economy.

In consolidating his hold over the Austrian, Hungarian, and Bohemian territories which he acquired between 1521 and 1526, Ferdinand I (1521–1564) enjoyed one especially notable success: the suppression in 1547 of a Bohemian uprising during Emperor Charles V's (1519–1556) campaign against the Protestant Schmalkaldic League in Germany. Relying on the promise of the Schmalkaldian leader Elector John Frederick of Saxony to protect them, the Bohemian estates formed a league in 1547 which challenged, among other things, Ferdinand's rights to summon the diet, to have his son crowned during his lifetime, and to oversee the administration of his treasury.

The historian of the seventeenth century who bewails the absence of a creditable biography of Louis XIV or of William III underlines a significant development of historical writing in the twentieth century. Overpowered by those who deny that biography can be history and convinced that the masses have never secured their due share of attention in early modern times, the scholar uneasily plots an investigation of underground discontent in the gilds of Colbert's day or resolutely pens an essay that destroys once and for all the idea that the workers of France admired Napoleon. Meanwhile, in classes which race from Petrarch to Waterloo, the scholar turned teacher admits that there actually were an age of absolutism and an age of enlightened despotism, for the royal touch is inescapable.

This essay assesses the role of regionalism in interwar Austrian painting with a focus on the Tyrolean painter and architect Alfons Walde (1891–1958). At a time when painting was seen to be in crisis, eclipsed by the deaths of prominent Viennese artists such as Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, regionalism offered an alternative engagement with modern art. As the representative of a wider regionalist movement, Walde paved the way for a clearly identifiable image of rural Austria without foregoing the modernization process that took place in the Alps at the time. Filtering essential elements of local culture and synthesizing them with both a modern formal language and “modern” topics, most significantly ski tourism, he created a regionalism that reverberated beyond the narrow confines of his home province and caught particular momentum during the rise of the Austrian Ständestaat in the 1930s. Moving in between regional and national significance, Walde's work underlines the essential position of the region in Austria after 1918 and conveys that an engaged regionalism that responded to the rapid cultural and political changes taking place became a significant aspect of interwar Austrian painting.

The question that sparked this forum was to what extent we can see Prague as an important stage for Renaissance and Reformation exchange and as an internationally connected city. It is striking, though not unexpected, that all the authors have been drawn to some extent to sources and subjects in Rudolfine Prague. It must be stressed, however, that the emphasis of each of these studies is somewhat different to an older field of “Rudolfine studies.” The researchers here do not focus on the emperor's court but use it as context. It is tangential to their main focal points—on Jewish communities, religious change, and the exchange of scientific and musical knowledge—and these are first and foremost historians not of Prague but of social and cultural history, music, art, material culture, and religion. This indicates a marked shift from the historiography. For this generation of scholars, Prague is not only a city that is home to a fascinating and intriguing art historical moment but is also a city of early modern international connections. It provides a unique context for understanding communities, everyday experiences, religion, and culture in early modern Europe—a multilingual, multiconfessional, and multicultural mixing pot whose composition changed dramatically across the early modern period. Rudolf's court was certainly a catalyst for these crossings and encounters, but they did not fade away after his death in 1612, nor were they limited to the confines of the castle above the city.

This article examines Austrian perceptions of the people and landscape of Bosnia-Herzegovina from 1878 to 1908. It traces Austrians’ fantasies about and encounters with Bosnian Muslims, whom they often categorized as “Turks.” Following the Congress of Berlin, Austrians claimed to be doing the civilizing work of “Europe” in Bosnia. The article investigates the meanings of border and borderlands between the Habsburg Empire and Ottoman Bosnia, focusing in particular on crossings of the Sava River. Drawing on the writings of soldiers, administrators, journalists and travel writers, the essay considers a number of mental maps, imagined geographies of what Habsburg authors thought they knew about the land and people they occupied. It contributes to a growing scholarship on the Habsburg-Ottoman borderlands.

I well remember as a child in Bucharest being taught by a reputable high school teacher that to speak kindly of Romanian-Magyar sympathizers was tantamount to asking for a failing grade. From elementary school on I can recall only the most disparaging remarks by my teachers about my Hungarian neighbors, and I challenge my friend Istvan Deak to say that sympathizers of the Romanians were ever more kindly treated in the lyceums of Budapest or Debrecen. Fortunately, we are sufficiently sophisticated today to realize that the writing of history is a matter of dates. I am, nevertheless, bewildered by the thought that the same Romanian schoolboy studying the revolutions of 1848 in classrooms of 1940, 1952, and 1976 has been and is being taught that the villains of yesterday are the heroes of today.