David Luft, University of California, San Diego

Austrian Literature and Bohemia

My paper will address the special place of Bohemia (and Moravia) in Austrian literature. I am writing an intellectual history of Austria since the eighteenth century: "The Austrian Tradition in German Culture: An Intellectual History." I argue that just as the standard narrative of German literature has tended to overlook or assimilate Austrian literature, Austrians writing about their own literature have often failed to be sufficiently explicit about the role of Bohemia in the Austrian tradition, especially for the period before 1918. I want to emphasize the close ties within Cisleithanian Austria, between the hereditary lands and Bohemia, particularly after 1749, but also earlier: after White Mountain, in the sixteenth century, and even in the Middle Ages. My paper addresses the significance of these historical relationships for German literature in Austria.