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JOSEPH VON HORMAYR: AUSTRIAAND GERMANY Title: Österreich und Deutschland (Austria and Germany) Originally published: Gotha, In der Beckerschen Buchhandlung, 1814 Language: German Excerpts used are from Kurt Adel, ed., Joseph Freiherr von Hormayr und die vaterländische Romantik in Österreich (Wien: Bergland Verlag, 1969), pp. 132–135. About the author Joseph von Hormayr, Baron of Hortenburg [1781, Innsbruck – 1848, Munich]: historian and publicist. He came from an old aristocratic family from Tyrol. Hormayr studied law in Innsbruck and began a career in administration. From 1799 to 1802, during the wars against revolutionary France, he served as a volunteer. Afterwards he moved to Vienna and worked in the Chancellery of State. After 1808, he was the director of the State and Imperial Archive, a position which enabled him to edit the Archiv für Geschichte, Statistik, Literatur und Kunst (Journal of History, Statistics, Literature and the Arts) between 1810 and 1837. Hormayr’s loyalty to his native Tyrol shaped both his political activity and the historiographic interpretation of Austrian history he advocated in his writings. During the Napoleonic Wars (1804–1815), Tyrol was incorporated in the Kingdom of Bavaria. In 1809, with the support of Archduke Johann of Austria (1782–1859), the population of Tyrol revolted against the Bavarian and French authorities in the so-called ‘Tyrolean Fight for Freedom.’ Together with Andreas Hofer (1767–1810), Hormayr was one of the leaders of the Tyrolean uprising. In 1812 and 1813, Hormayr organized another Tyrolean movement against Napoleon known as the Alpenbund. When Metternich was informed about the movement he ordered the arrest of Hormayr and his collaborators (1813). Eventually, Tyrol reverted to Habsburg government in 1815. In 1828, Hormayr moved to the Bavarian court and became the Bavarian envoy in Hannover and later in Hamburg. In his late works, Anemonen (1845–1847) and especially in Kaiser Franz und Metternich (1848), Hormayr criticized the Metternich regime. In 1846, Hormayr returned to Munich where he died in 1848. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Hormayr was referred to as one of the main representatives of documentary history, who nevertheless attempted to accommodate his vision of independent regional identity to the necessity of building a strong monarchy in Austria. 28 HISTORICIZING THE NATION Main works: Österreichischer Plutarch, oder Leben und Bildnisse aller Regenten und der berühmtesten Feldherren, Staatsmänner, Gelehrten und Künstler der österreichischen Kaiserstaates [The Austrian Plutarch, or the lives and portraits of all regents and the most famous generals, statesmen, scholars and artists of the Austrian Empire] (1807–1814); Taschenbuch über Vaterländische Geschichte [Pocket-Book on national history] 18 vols., (1811–1848); Österreich und Deutschland [Austria and Germany ] (1814); Geschichte Andreas Hofers [The history of Andreas Hofer] (1817) (also known as: Das Land Tirol und der Tirolerkrieg); Wien, seine Geschichte und seine Denkwürdigkeiten [Vienna, her history and memorabilia] 9 vols., (1822–1825); Anemonen aus dem Tagebuch eines alten Pilgersmannes [Anemones from the journal of an old pilgrim] (1845–47); Kaiser Franz und Metternich [Emperor Francis and Metternich ] (1848). Context The theme of loyalty towards the House of Habsburg has been subject to many historiographic interpretations since the Middle Ages, as dynastic historiography was a well-established trend in Austria. Court historiographers generally devoted their studies to the family genealogy, legal questions and diplomacy as well as to the heraldry of the House of Habsburg. Hormayr combined his interest in dynastic topics with the new trends in critical historiography as exemplified by several authors in Austria at the end of the eighteenth century, such as Marquard Herrgott (1694–1762), Adrian Rauch (1731–1802), and Franz Kurz (1771–1843). Herrgott, the Benedictine historian and diplomat, published a much praised history of the Austrian Imperial family, Genealogia diplomatica Augusta Gentis Habsburgicæ (1737), while Rauch synthesized much of the eighteenth-century developments in Austrian historiography in his Österreichische Geschichte (3 vols., 1779–1781). These authors established a critical historiographic apparatus based on large editions of sources they helped collect and edit. In many respects, Hormayr belonged to this historiographic tradition. In a monumental work published between 1807 and 1814, Österreichischer Plutarch , he depicted the historical achievements of Austria as some of the most remarkable in European history. Hormayr followed the main tenets of dynastic historiography and presented the accomplishments of former monarchs as meaningful examples of patriotic values. Considering the political situation in Austria during the Napoleonic Wars, Hormayr’s task was to convince the Austrians of the danger of revolutionary change and the integrity as well as necessity of the monarchy...

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