The Splendor and Misery of the Enlightenment in Vienna

The Enlightenment movement was a culture-changing process in the 18th century and, at the same time, a period of development in European history. It made possible the emergence of modern, open societies that were not shaped by a particular dominant religion. In this respect, it is even of global historical interest. Due to particular institutional and cultural conditions, this process has taken very different forms in different national and regional contexts. This has led to different modes of communication and literary expressions of `Enlightenment` within individual linguistic and cultural areas; so also the German one, which was diverse and structured on a small scale due to its confessional and political fragmenta- tion. On the basis of rich sources, the book shows that and how the Enlightenment in Habsburg Austria, and especially in its capital and imperial residence Vienna, was delayed and then accelerated during the reigns of Maria Theresa and especially Joseph II. The hurried `catch-up` movement, which was stalled again under Franz II, led to long-term peculiarities of Austrian culture. On the basis of a sociological reconstruction of the specific territorial and local conditions of literary production, the book develops explanatory approaches for the `phase shift` and presents numerous theses. To this end, the religious, economic, political, social, media and cultural frameworks are described, such as the censorship effec- tive in Austria, the culture-bearing Viennese institutions such as the university, Freemasonry and theater, but also the partly short-lived publication media such as magazines and almanacs, the expanding literary market and - related to this - the low reputation of writing. Based on this, examples of problem areas and the debates they sparked during this period are presented. In addition, relevant sources are contex- tualized in terms of discourse history. In this process, a "popular" public sphere characteristic of Austrian history and the present comes to light. The book concludes with a critical examination of three exemplary texts of the Viennese Enlightenment (Aloys Blumauer`s verse epic Virgils Aeneis, travestirt, 1782-1788; Johann Pezzl`s thesis novel Faustin oder das philosophische Jahrhundert, 1783/1788; Emanuel Schikaneder`s Singspiel Die Zauberflöte, 1791), which are among the most important and internationally influential literary productions of the period. Their contradictory tendencies are reflected in each of them in a characteristic way. Their anal- ysis from the point of view of their immediate context of origin and impact makes it possible to reveal hitherto underexposed aspects of a specific regional process of enlightenment as well as of the texts themselves.