Horst Jarka, University of Montana

Armut in Kakanien. Seltene Seitenblicke amerikanischer und englischer Reisender

In the increasing amount of travel literature and related research, and we don’t mean guidebooks, Austria hardly exists. Our paper offers for discussion a first attempt to correct this neglect with an anthology of excerpts from the travel accounts of 45 English and American travelers during the century in which Austria became a travel/tourist country in the modern sense.

We are aware of the complexity of travel and travel literature, and are only indicating an approach along specific lines: the varied background of the travelers (we want to include not only renowned writers like Mark Twain or D.H. Lawrence, but also some whose only claim to fame was their travel account); the growing influx of Americans and women travelers; the usual travelers’ limitations of language and class; the degree to which they would/could become interested in the life of ordinary “natives”; the ideological prejudices the foreigners brought with them; their confirmation, modification or rejection of traditional images of Austria; the main duality of interests, that is the travelers’ concern with the aesthetic (appreciation of the beauty of nature and art treasures) or with socio-political aspects of Austria.

For example: before the revolution of 1848, visitors to Vienna were especially interested in the politics of the Metternich regime, while at the same time others explored the provinces along the routes laid out by the first travel guides. After the Revolution, the discovery of the Eastern Alps and the Dolomites attracted most of the British visitors, whereas, in Vienna, especially Americans became aware of the Monarchy’s precarious situation after Sadowa (1866) and during the renewal of the Ausgleich in 1897. Depending on the duration of their stay, foreigners made divergent, often quite critical assessments of educational, cultural, social, and religious institutions.

The number of travelers we found interesting is not large enough to allow for grand generalizations about the “image of Austria in the UK and USA,” but our anthology may provide source material for such a study.