When the Hapsburg monarchy disintegrated after World War I, Austria was not considered to be a viable entity. In a vacuum of national identity the hapless country drifted toward a larger Germany. After World War II, Austrian elites constructed a new identity based on being a "victim" of Nazi Germany. Cold war Austria, however, envisioned herself as a neutral "island of the blessed" between and separate from both superpower blocs. Now, with her membership in the European Union secured, Austria is reconstructing her painful historical memory and national identity. In 1996 she celebrates her 1000-year anniversary. In this volume of Contemporary Austrian Studies, Franz Mathis and Brigitte Mazohl-Wallnig argue that regional identities in Austria have deeper historical roots than the many artificial and ineffective attempts to construct a national identity. Heidemarie Uhl, Anton Pelinka, and Brigitte Bailer discuss the post-World War II construction of the victim mythology. Robert Herzstein analyses the crucial impact of the 1986 Waldheim election imploding Austria's comforting historical memory as a "nation of victims." Wolfram Kaiser shows Austria's difficult adjustments to the European Union and the larger challenges of constructing a new "European identity." Chad Berry's analysis of American World War II memory establishes a useful counterpoint to construction of historical memory in a different national context. A special forum on Austrian intelligence studies presents a fascinating reconstruction by Timothy Naftali of the investigation by Anglo-American counterintelligence into the retreat of Hitler's troops into the Alps during World War II. Rudiger Overmans' "research note" presents statistics on lower death rates of Austrian soldiers in the German army. Review essays by Gunther Kronenbitter and Gunter Bischof, book reviews, and a 1995 survey of Austrian politics round out the volume. Austrian Historical Memory and National Identity will be of intense interest to foreign policy analysts, historians, and scholars concerned with the unique elements of identity and nationality in Central European politics.

When the Hapsburg monarchy disintegrated after World War I, Austria was not considered to be a viable entity. In a vacuum of national identity the hapless country drifted toward a larger Germany. After World War II, Austrian elites constructed a new identity based on being a "victim" of Nazi Germany. Cold war Austria, however, envisioned herself as a neutral "island of the blessed" between and separate from both superpower blocs. Now, with her membership in the European Union secured, Austria is reconstructing her painful historical memory and national identity. In 1996 she celebrates her 1000-year anniversary. In this volume of Contemporary Austrian Studies, Franz Mathis and Brigitte Mazohl-Wallnig argue that regional identities in Austria have deeper historical roots than the many artificial and ineffective attempts to construct a national identity. Heidemarie Uhl, Anton Pelinka, and Brigitte Bailer discuss the post-World War II construction of the victim mythology. Robert Herzstein analyses the crucial impact of the 1986 Waldheim election imploding Austria's comforting historical memory as a "nation of victims." Wolfram Kaiser shows Austria's difficult adjustments to the European Union and the larger challenges of constructing a new "European identity." Chad Berry's analysis of American World War II memory establishes a useful counterpoint to construction of historical memory in a different national context. A special forum on Austrian intelligence studies presents a fascinating reconstruction by Timothy Naftali of the investigation by Anglo-American counterintelligence into the retreat of Hitler's troops into the Alps during World War II. Rudiger Overmans' "research note" presents statistics on lower death rates of Austrian soldiers in the German army. Review essays by Gunther Kronenbitter and Gunter Bischof, book reviews, and a 1995 survey of Austrian politics round out the volume. Austrian Historical Memory and National Identity will be of intense interest to foreign policy analysts, historians, and scholars concerned with the unique elements of identity and nationality in Central European politics.

Following the transformations and conflicts of the first half of the twentieth century, Austria’s emergence as an independent democracy heralded a new era of stability and prosperity for the nation. Among the new developments was mass tourism to the nation’s cities, spa towns, and wilderness areas, a phenomenon that would prove immensely influential on the development of a postwar identity. Revisiting Austria incorporates films, marketing materials, literature, and first-person accounts to explore the ways in which tourism has shaped both international and domestic perceptions of Austrian identity even as it has failed to confront the nation’s often violent and troubled history.

The Myth of Austrian victimization at the hands of both Nazi Germany and the Allies became the unifying theme of Austrian official memory and a key component of national identity as a new Austria emerged from the ruins. In the 1980s, Austria's myth of victimization came under intense scrutiny in the wake of the Waldheim scandal that marked the beginning of its erosion. The fiftieth anniversary of the Anschluß in 1988 accelerated this process and resulted in a collective shift away from the victim myth. Important themes examined include the rebirth of Austria, the Anschluß, the war and the Holocaust, the Austrian resistance, and the Allied occupation. The fragmentation of Austrian official memory since the late 1980s coincided with the dismantling of the Conservative and Social Democratic coalition, which had defined Austrian politics in the postwar period. Through the eyes of the Austrian school system, this book examines how postwar Austria came to terms with the Second World War. Peter Utgaard was raised in Carbondale, Illinois where he studied German at Southern Illinois University. After study and teaching in Lower Austria he pursued his doctorate at Washington State University. Utgaard returned to Austria as a Fulbright researcher at the Austrian Ministry of Education for dissertation research. Utgaard currently serves as Chair of History and Social Sciences at Cuyamaca College in San Diego where he was awarded the college's Excellence in Teaching Award.

"When the Hapsburg monarchy disintegrated after World War I, Austria was not considered to be a viable entity. In a vacuum of national identity the hapless country drifted toward a larger Germany. After World War II, Austrian elites constructed a new identity based on being a "victim" of Nazi Germany. Cold war Austria, however, envisioned herself as a neutral "island of the blessed" between and separate from both superpower blocs. Now, with her membership in the European Union secured, Austria is reconstructing her painful historical memory and national identity. In 1996 she celebrates her 1000-year anniversary.In this volume of Contemporary Austrian Studies, Franz Mathis and Brigitte Mazohl-Wallnig argue that regional identities in Austria have deeper historical roots than the many artificial and ineffective attempts to construct a national identity. Heidemarie Uhl, Anton Pelinka, and Brigitte Bailer discuss the post-World War II construction of the victim mythology. Robert Herzstein analyses the crucial impact of the 1986 Waldheim election imploding Austria's comforting historical memory as a "nation of victims." Wolfram Kaiser shows Austria's difficult adjustments to the European Union and the larger challenges of constructing a new "European identity." Chad Berry's analysis of American World War II memory establishes a useful counterpoint to construction of historical memory in a different national context.A special forum on Austrian intelligence studies presents a fascinating reconstruction by Timothy Naftali of the investigation by Anglo-American counterintelligence into the retreat of Hitler's troops into the Alps during World War II. Rudiger Overmans' "research note" presents statistics on lower death rates of Austrian soldiers in the German army. Review essays by Gunther Kronenbitter and Gunter Bischof, book reviews, and a 1995 survey of Austrian politics round out the volume. Austrian Historical Memory and National Identity will be of intense interest to foreign policy analysts, historians, and scholars concerned with the unique elements of identity and nationality in Central European politics."--Provided by publisher.

This study seeks to explain the impact of historical narratives on the inclusiveness and pluralism of citizenship models. Drawing on comparative historical analysis of two post-imperial core countries, Turkey and Austria, it explores how narrative forms operate to support or constrain citizenship models.

The "Maratha period" of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when an independent Maratha state successfully resisted the Mughals, is a defining era in the history of the region of Maharashtra in western India. In this book, Prachi Deshpande considers the importance of this period for a variety of political projects including anticolonial/Hindu nationalism and the non-Brahman movement, as well as popular debates throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries concerning the meaning of tradition, culture, and the experience of colonialism and modernity. Sampling from a rich body of literary and cultural sources, Deshpande highlights shifts in history writing in early modern and modern India and the deep connections between historical and literary narratives. She traces the reproduction of the Maratha period in various genres and public arenas, its incorporation into regional political symbolism, and its centrality to the making of a modern Marathi regional consciousness. She also shows how historical memory provided a space for Indians to negotiate among their national, religious, and regional identities, pointing to history's deeper potential in shaping politics within thoroughly diverse societies. A truly unique study, Creative Pasts examines the practices of historiography and popular memory within a particular colonial context, and illuminates the impact of colonialism on colonized societies and cultures. Furthermore, it shows how modern history and historical memory are jointly created through the interplay of cultural activities, power structures, and political rhetoric.