Michael Pfurtscheller and the Stubai Valley 1750 to 1850

The hundred years from 1750 to 1850 were characterised by great changes, often associated with even greater catchphrases. In 1972, German historian Reinhart Koselleck coined the term saddle period (Sattelzeit), trying to sum up the importance of those decades as a period of profound changes, calling those years nothing less than the beginning of the age of modernity (der Beginn der Neuzeit). In this study, these profound and radical changes are being looked at from a special point of view, from the perspective of a periphery that is usually not considered to be typical of the transformation processes of the so called saddle period. What happened in a rural alpine region while the Bürgertum arose in the continents metropolitan centres, preparing to make the 19th century theirs? That is just one of the major questions in this study. One single person stands in the centre of this study: Michael Pfurtscheller (1776 to 1854), a metalware merchant and innkeeper from the Tyrolean Stubai Valley, mostly known for his leading role during the Tyrolean revolt against the Bavarian administration in 1809. He had a socially, politically and above all economically outstanding position in the region and can be seen as a member of a certain rural elite. Following a microhistorical approach, the developments of the saddle period are being looked at on the basis of his biography. Simply put (and referring to the title of this study), he is suspected of being a bourgeois amongst peasants. Multiple sources make it obvious that, on the one hand, Pfurtscheller and his surroundings were widely and inevitably affected by big history (ranging from enlightenment-inspired reforms of the 18th century educational system to the Napoleonic Wars and the socioeconomic effects of the beginning industrialisation); but that they still were, on the other hand, presented with scopes of action which they dealt with in different ways. The microhistorical approach offers insights into coherences, developments and the lived-in worlds of the contemporaries, which could not have been obtained if the topic had been looked at from a greater distance. By staying close to the available sources, this study suggests some corrections or at least further differentiation of well known traditional narratives and images regarding the history of rural regions on the doorstep of the age of modernity.