Among all the recent attention to major commemorative milestones in modern Central European history, such as the 200th anniversary of the Congress of Vienna of 1814/15 or the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War One, the 150th anniversary of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 seems likely to pass by with comparatively little notice. Aside from the coincidence of the upcoming anniversary date in 2017, however, there are a number of important scholarly reasons for organising a conference on the question of dual statehood in modern Europe, as a means of placing the Compromise of 1867 in comparative international perspective.

In the first place, ever since Louis Eisenmann’s influential 1904 work on the 1867 agreement, historians of the Habsburg Monarchy have tended to assume that it was a unique form of constitutional settlement. In short, the Compromise seemed to confirm the exceptional nature of the Habsburg Monarchy and this sense of its distinctiveness still pervades much historical scholarship (for example, Paula Fichtner has recently described the Habsburg Monarchy as ‘one of a kind in its polity’). Nevertheless, few studies have closely examined such assumptions from a comparative perspective, even though numerous contemporary parallels existed. Austria-Hungary’s period of formal dualism from 1867 to 1918 coincided with similar situations in northern Europe, in the shape of Sweden-Norway (1814-1905) and Finland-Russia (1809-1917). In addition, on a smaller scale, personal unions and dual statehood situations of one kind or another existed in Denmark (with Schleswig-Holstein until 1864) and the Netherlands (with Belgium from 1815 to 1830, and with Luxemburg from 1815 to 1890). Clearly the permutations and significance of dual statehood varied in each case, but the existence of such examples certainly makes it clear that Austria-Hungary’s dynastic and constitutional arrangements were not entirely unique. Moreover, if – as many historians suggest – the notion of an informal or implicit dualism had already emerged in the Habsburg Monarchy in the eighteenth century, the comparison could be extended to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until its final destruction in 1795, and to eighteenth-century Great Britain, too.

From the above, it is clear that a closer exploration of potential similarities and dissimilarities between Austria-Hungary and other dual or multiple forms of statehood is necessary. At the same time, this raises questions for the broader debate about the nature of statehood in modern Europe. Renewed interest in the comparative analysis of empires in modern Europe has focused attention on issues of definition and categorisation, as well as questioning older assumptions about the distinctions between the ‘nation-state model’ and multinational empires. Recent work has suggested, on the one hand, that ‘empire’ was more the norm for Europe before 1918 than the nation-state, because states bearing a designation as ‘empire’ encompassed large parts of the European continent. On the other hand, many ‘nation-states’ were themselves colonial empires, aside from containing ethnic minorities within their core territories. In this sense the boundaries and dividing lines between how ‘nation-states’ and ‘empires’ were constituted, functioned and behaved have become increasingly blurred. For example, the Habsburg Monarchy embarked on state-building projects in ways similar to nation-states, while a country like Great Britain actually contained elements of multiple statehood or – to bring in a phrase usually associated with the early modern period – long retained elements of ‘composite monarchy’ (John Elliott).

Hence, this conference will seek to provide new perspectives on the history of Austria-Hungary as a dualist state by looking at it in comparative perspective as part of the wider phenomenon of ‘dual statehood’ in modern Europe.

The conference will take place at the University of Salzburg, in cooperation with the Commission for Modern Austrian History and with the main funding coming from an association established by the late Prof. Fritz Fellner.