?Inner Colonialism? and ?Internal Colonisation?? ? Jewries and their function in peripheral regions of the Habsburg Monarchy
Sprache des Vortragstitels:
Englisch
Original Tagungtitel:
International Conference ?Jews, Colonialism and Postcolonialism?
Sprache des Tagungstitel:
Englisch
Original Kurzfassung:
Galicia was annexed to the Habsburg monarchy in 1772 as consequence of the partition of Poland, 1775 the former Turkish ruled region Bukovina was added. First it was even unknown how big the new ?Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria? was. The crown land of Galicia was then home to the largest number of Jews in the Habsburg monarchy, Bukovina was much smaller, but the Jewries there formed an own influential corpus in the regional society. Both provinces were located in the ?far east? of Habsburg Austria, for both provinces a specific setting was charac
teristic: economic backwardness, close connections of Jewish communities to the house of Habsburg and a form of alliance with the regional aristocracy. Jewish and non-Jewish population differed not only concerning religion, differences were indicated by language, position in the economy, mentality and culture. The Habsburg monarchy was not a colonial power in the classical sense, but the concept of ?inner colonialism? can be partly applied. ?Internal colonisation? and ?inner colonialism? was used as well to describe the development of one more peripheral region: ?Deutsch-Westungarn?, later named ?Burgenland?, the most western province of the Kingdom of Hungary. Shortly after the Jewish population was banished from Vienna and Lower Austria in 1670, the expellees were invited by the regional aristocracy to come to their domains. After World War I the former west of Hungary turned to be the most eastern and economically most backward region of the new republic of Austria. In all three regions Jews were important allies to the Crown and the aristocracy. The address discusses the question of ?inner colonialism? and the role of Jewish communities in the three regions. The effects and aftereffects of this historic process could be observed till the end of the interwar period.
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