Fall 2011 | Issue 21

Fall 2011 | Number Twenty-One | The Berlin Journal | 29
BEYOND NATIONS
Rethinking the history of Habsburg Central Europe
By Pieter Judson
COURTESY THE AUTHOR AND THE ÖSTERREICHISCHE NATIONALBIBLIOTHEK; SOURCE: FLUGBLÄTTER FÜR DEUTSCHÖSTERREICHS RECHT, WIEN, VERLAG ALFRED HÖLDER, 1919
DEUTSCHÖSTERREICH SPRACHGRENZE MAP BASED ON THE 1910 CENSUS
Since the Balkan Wars of a century
ago, historians, journalists, and
policy makers in Europe and the US
have repeatedly interpreted nationalist
political claims and nationalist conflicts in
terms largely devised by nationalists themselves.
In allowing nationalists to shape our
understanding of both historical and contemporary
conflicts, we unwittingly follow
a logic that – taken to extremes – demands
both physical separation and independent
statehood for ethnically defined national
populations. This logic rests on claims that
social life is normally organized by communities
of descent, defined according to
factors as diverse as race, culture, religion,
language, or some vaguely defined ethnicity.
If we wish to prevent violence from
breaking out among neighboring peoples,
this logic demands that political power be
organized on the basis of separation.
Within Europe, the classic locus for the
problem of conflict among nations has
traditionally been understood to be Central
and Eastern Europe. And indeed one could
argue that in the twentieth century, much
blood appeared to be shed for nationalist