The Invention of Tradition as Public Image in the Late ... - PSI424

INVENTING TRADITION AS PUBLIC IMAGE 29
existing elements of sacrality to buttress Tsardom.96 In a similar vein, the
Japanese Emperor cult, which took shape in approximately the same period,
focused on "elements drawn from the recent or the ageless past (which) were
cast into molds which were newly formed in the Meiji years to suit the needs
of the time."97
Much closer to home, the Austrian Habsburgs made something of a family
business out of the glorification of the dynasty as a reaction to encroaching
nationalism.98 It was no longer a question of mere obedience. What was being
sought was, in Weberian terms, "the transition from the merely unreflexive
formation of a habit to the conscious acceptance of the maxim that action
should be in accordance with a norm."99 What the Ottoman elite, like their
counterparts in other imperial systems, were trying to foster from the midcentury
onwards was just this transition from passive obedience to active and
conscious subscription to a new normative order.
96 Richard Wortman, "Moscow and Peterburg: The Problem of Political Center in Tsarist
Russia 1881-1914," in Sean Wilentz, ed., Rites of Power (Philadelphia, 1985), 244-75.
97 Carol Gluck, Japan's Modern Myths (Princeton, 1985), 39.
98 Istvan Deak, "The Habsburg Monarchy: The Strengths and Weaknesses of a Complex
Patrimony." (Monarchies Symposium, Columbia University, October 26-27, 1990).
99 Max Weber, Economy and Society (New York, 1968), 327.
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