Postcarding nation, language and identities

The main subject addressed in this research project is the linguistic and visual portrayal of identities in Lower Styria, a region of the Habsburg Monarchy shaped by bilingualism. The current study distinguishes itself from others of its kind in that it relies on a source of historical information that has remained untapped for quite some time: picture postcards. In periods of intensified conflict between nationalities, language ceases to be simply a means of communication, but rather transforms into an emblem by which nationality is identified. The political agenda of the Germans and especially that of the Slovenes are built around demands regarding language policy. Nationalist agitation, mobilization, and intense polarization (with regard to a compulsion to decide upon and profess to a single national identity) worked their way into a region that remained largely indifferent to nationalist sentiments until the middle of the 19th century a region where bilingualism (although often asymmetrical) was the rule and not the exception. Moreover, conflicts between nationalities in the region grew increasingly intense within the established time frame. Therefore, Lower Styria has been selected as the geographical area to be examined in this project. Within the same timeframe, postcards established themselves as a popular means of communication. In 1885, private printing companies began printing picture postcards; and soon thereafter, in the course of the 1890s, they became a popular form of mass media. Topographic picture postcards which comprise the bulk of the research material of this project may appear to be ordinary or apolitical; nevertheless, they can symbolically occupy territory; or they can be used as a medium of representation or a tool for classification, appropriation and differentiation, thereby shaping and portraying the linguistic landscape of a region. Thus, research should not be limited to the illustrated side of the postcards but should instead analyze the entanglement of the illustrated side with printed texts, individualized handwritten texts, postmarks, etc. An interdisciplinary approach at the intersection of history, linguistics, and visual culture studies is to be employed consistently in this project in order to take advantage of the value of the multilayered nature of postcards as a medium close to everyday life. For Slovene studies, questions regarding the emerging standardized and canonized written Slovene language in confrontation and correlation with the dominant German language are of particular relevance. The study of history should benefit especially from the projects research into nationalism in the Habsburg Monarchy. With regard to visual culture studies, the project should make an important contribution to the growth of postcard studies. Other tangible goals of the project include the compilation of a collected volume on the research topic and the creation of a publication framing the exhibition of postcards in the region in 2018, just in time for the important anniversary year 2018, which should stimulate public reflection on the topic of the shared history of Germans and Slovenes.

The research project "Postcarding Lower Styria: Nation, Language, and Identities (1885-1920)" (located at the Department of Slavic Studies at the University of Graz) aimed to recall a region that has largely disappeared from the consciousness of today's Austrian population, i.e., Lower Styria and its Slovene- and German-speaking population still living together as one community, by means of topographical postcards of the period. The academic processing was carried out from an interdisciplinary point of view (from history and linguistics as well as visual culture studies) and moved the postcard from a medium previously regarded mainly as a means of illustration to a focus of research interest. As a source medium it has significantly more to offer: a look 'from below' into the everyday life of broad sections of the population in a bilingual region of the late Habsburg monarchy. In addition to numerous individual publications, the project presented its findings in three forms: first in the form of a large-scale exhibition entitled "Štajer-Mark: On the Trail of Common History: Postcards from Historic Lower Styria" and an accompanying bilingual publication (2018 and 2019), which was on display in Pavelhaus in Laafeld/Bad Radkersburg (2018) and in the Grazmuseum (2019), and at the same time in the form of two mobile exhibitions that circulated in Austria and Slovenia between 2018 and 2020; second, as a digital picture archive of Polos (https://gams.uni-graz.at/context:polos), in which over 2200 topographic postcards were inventoried and are now visible as scans and can now be searched for various parameters; third, the theoretical findings from the project were incorporated into an interdisciplinary anthology on issues of multilingualism in the Habsburg monarchy (Bildspuren - Sprachspuren, Publishing house transcript, 2020). The project was directed by Heinrich Pfandl and his team: Karin Almasy, Eva Tropper, and for part of the project Martin Sauerbrey, Jernej Kosi and Bianca Sieberer. Its numerous partners in Austria included a number of institutions: Pavelhaus/Pavlova hiša in Laafeld, the Admont Abbey Library, the Styrian Provincial Archives in Graz, ZIM - Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities in Austria, and in Slovenia: NUK - the National and University Library, Ljubljana, UKM - the University of Maribor library, OKC - the Central Library Celje, Ivan Potrč Library, Ptuj. The members of the project saw their work as transnational and bridge-building. As evidenced by the international media coverage, this ambition was largely achieved.