The Habsburg Myth in the Writings of Ingeborg Bachmann
Mersiha ŠkrgićThe article examines references to the Habsburg myth in selected works by the author Ingeborg Bachmann. The texts that are mainly analyzed are the short stories from Simultan and the novel Malina. The texts are chosen based on Bachmann’s confrontation with the Austrian past and only texts with explicit examples of this matter are taken into consideration. Specific examples of the Habsburg myth in the author’s works indicate that Bachmann’s analysis of Austrian society after the Second World War drew attention to the causes and consequences of this catastrophe and linked it to the First World War. It warns against the glorification of the past and the lack of confrontation with one’s own history and guilt, which are particularly characteristic of Austria. It is shown that Bachmann does not continue the Habsburg myth, but demands a critical handling of this phenomenon which is also the way of the younger generation of authors in the Austrian literature who reject mythologizing the past. Bachmann creates the utopian idea of a House of Austria, which serves as a mental homeland for her protagonists and is not to be equated with the actual empire that has perished. She distances herself from the perpetuation of the Habsburg myth by calling for a confrontation with one’s own past instead of an idealization of the past.
Der habsburgische Mythos bei Ingeborg Bachmann
Mersiha ŠkrgićDer habsburgische Mythos bei Ingeborg Bachmann untersucht Elemente des habsburgischen Mythos in einigen Werken der Autorin Ingeborg Bachmann. Die Texte, die hier vorwiegend analysiert werden, sind der Erzählband Simultan und der Roman Malina. Die Textauswahl basiert auf der Frage nach konkreter Auseinandersetzung der Autorin mit der österreichischen Geschichte und beinhaltet nur die Werke, die sich damit explizit beschäftigen. Konkrete Textbeispiele für den habsburgischen Mythos in den Werken der Autorin zeigen, dass Bachmann bei der Analyse der österreichischen Gesellschaft nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg auf die Ursachen und Folgen dieser Katastrophe aufmerksam macht und diese auch mit dem Ersten Weltkrieg verbindet. Sie warnt vor der Verherrlichung der Vergangenheit und vor fehlender Konfrontation mit der eigenen Geschichte und Schuld, die besonders für Österreich charakteristisch sind. Es wird gezeigt, dass Bachmann den habsburgischen Mythos nicht fortschreibt, sondern einen kritischen Umgang mit diesem Phänomen fordert, womit sie sich in die Gruppe der jüngeren Autoren der Nachkriegszeit einordnet. Bachmann entwickelt die utopische Idee vom Haus Österreich, das sie zu einer gedanklichen Heimat ihrer ProtagonistInnen stilisiert und das nicht mit dem untergegangenen Reich gleichzusetzen ist. Sie distanziert sich von der Mythologisierung der Vergangenheit, welche Magris in seiner Studie analysiert, und fordert einen kritischen Umgang mit der Geschichte ihres Landes.
This article examines the references to the Habsburg myth in selected works by the author Ingeborg Bachmann. The article mainly analyzes the texts that involve the short stories from Simultan and the novel Malina. Probably one of the best-known studies on the subject of the Habsburg myth is Claudio Magris’ analysis Der habsburgische Mythos in der österreichischen Literatur [The Habsburg Myth in the Austrian Literature]. Magris used the Habsburg myth to imply the glorification of values and the idealization of the fallen empire, focusing on the literature of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. The characteristics of the phenomenon he identified will serve at this point as a guide for the analysis of Bachmann’s works, which despite having been written later, analyzed the consequences of such an attitude. In addition to the characteristics Magris suggested, this article seeks other elements of the Habsburg myth that are specific to the treatment of this phenomenon post-World War II. The paper will also examined the extent to which Bachmann had followed the path of her predecessors, whether she had distanced herself from them, and how she had positioned herself differently. In the novel Malina, the utopian dream world of the ’Ungarngassenland’, in which the protagonist has a love affair with the Hungarian Ivan, reminds the reader of the historical connection between Austria and Hungary. In Drei Wege zum See [Three Paths to the Lake], the internationally successful photographer Elisabeth returns home and longs for a sense of belonging and for a multi-ethnic state as had existed in the Habsburg Empire, something she can still partially recognize in the border triangle near her hometown. As the analysis will prove, however, both texts speak of utopian wishful thinking and not of glorified, backward-looking attempts at restoration. The author can be noted to have departed quite a bit from the aforementioned main features of the Habsburg myth, dealing with the history of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in a dissecting and critical rather than nostalgic way. For example, she exposed Vienna as a city that had become completely irrelevant after the collapse of the Habsburg Empire, one that neither gave its citizens a reason to be proud of the earlier times nor served Austrians as a place with which to identify. That her writings contain nostalgic elements is true, and these apply above all to the characteristic of supranationality. The younger generation of Austrians cannot identify with their homeland and partly longs for a sense of belonging to a large empire, one that is the home of many languages and cultures. However, this longing is wishful thinking and does not apply to the actual historical connection between Austria and Hungary. Bachmann created the utopian idea of a House of Austria, which served as a mental homeland for her protagonists and is not to be equated with the actual empire that had perished. The author thus distanced herself from the perpetuation of the Habsburg myth by calling for a confrontation with one’s own past instead of an idealization of the past that had often been done in the novels of the authors whom Magris had presented in his study
