Ludwig von Ficker: Critical Online Edition of the Correspondence and Monograph

The proposed project Ludwig von Ficker: Critical Online Edition of the Correspondence and Monograph aims at two distinct objectives: On the one hand, its purpose is to extend the digital online edition of Ludwig von Fickers correspondence as already outlined by its predecessor project and to finalize it as a scholarly critical source edition of Ludwig von Fickers complete correspondence. The planned edition will rely exclusively on open source applications and will make 17,000 letters from the Ficker literary estate at FIBA publicly available in various ways (incl. full text and index search, extensive annotations and indexes, links to the Integrated Authority File) for use both by the scientific community and the interested public. All letters will be accessible in HTML view as well as in XML, as PDF and facsimiles. On the other hand, a substantial monograph on Ludwig von Fickers life and influence in the area of cultural politics will be submitted. This publication will rely in particular on the documents now made available for the first time through the digital edition, as well as on additional archive material, the ongoing work on the commentary and the findings so far obtained through essays and papers presented to scholars. In the absence of a comparable study a major contribution to Austrian cultural historiography will thus be made, filling a research gap that has existed for several decades. Particularly the analysis of the cultural mediator as seen by others versus through self-portrayal will enable a more accurate delineation of the ambivalent image of Ficker as a projection figure that continues to be influential today.

The research project "Ludwig von Ficker: Critical Online Edition of the Correspondence and Monograph" pursued two research goals as a follow-up to the FWF project "Ludwig von Ficker as Cultural Mediator" (P 24283-G23): On the one hand, the digital online edition of Ludwig von Ficker's correspondence as already outlined by its predecessor project was extended and finalized as a scholarly critical source edition of Ludwig von Ficker's complete correspondence. The edition relies on open source applications and makes over 17,500 letters from the Ficker literary estate at FIBA publicly available in various ways (incl. full text and index search, extensive annotations and indexes, links to the Integrated Authority File) for use both by the scientific community and the interested public. All letters will be accessible in HTML view as well as in XML and PDF. In addition to the quantitative aspect, the edition's value lies in particular in the enrichment of the documents with metadata and the indexing of the entire collection by means of annotations and comments. The second goal is a substantial monograph on Ludwig von Ficker's life and influence in the area of cultural politics. This publication relies in particular on the documents now made available for the first time through the digital edition, as well as on additional archive material. As no comparable study exists to date, the book will be a major contribution to Austrian cultural historiography, filling a research gap that has existed for several decades.