Konferenz: Empire, Socialism and Jews: The Postwar Years

By linking Empire and Republic through Socialism and Jews, the project may make a long-term (longue durée) Austrian narrative possible and open up new avenues for rethinking Austria’s contribution to pre-, anti-, and post-national Europe. Previous conferences addressed pre-WWI Austria and interwar Austria. The present conference tracks the imperial legacy among Socialists and Catholics during the Cold War years, highlights the discovery of the Wiener Moderne in the 1980s through joint American, Austrian, and Central European efforts; and discusses the permutations of Vienna 1900 in Austria over the recent decades. The conference concludes with a reconsideration of Chancellor Bruno Kreisky as the “last emperor,” and with re-envisioning the Empire’s place in Austrian, European, and global history.