That there is as yet no good history of the Serbs in Austria-Hungary is not surprising. Such a work would have to treat not one but several separate Serbian communities. A number of Serbs had lived on imperial lands from the time they colonized the Balkans, but most of them settled in Austria-Hungary after the Ottoman invasion of the Balkan Peninsula in the fourteenth century.2 Some Serbian communities in Austria-Hungary were more oppressed than others and had less opportunity for social advancement. Certain of them were blessed with rich lands that yielded abundant crops, while others were settled on starved lands from which they could barely earn a living. A few made their homes astride important trade routes and near major centers of civilization and others in relatively isolated communities. A small minority became successful merchants and artisans and some of them amassed fair-sized fortunes. There were among the Serbs well-to-do landowners (including the Serbian Church) and a handful of Serbs who had titles. Eventually a number of Serbs became distinguished as high ranking officers in the emperor's army and as scholars and professional men.3 But most Serbs in Austria-Hungary were peasants and remained so.

The development of nineteenth century Europe was marked by the evolution of the principle of nationalism, the democratization of political and social life, an economic boom, the progress of technology, and a spirit of realism and materialism in both science and culture. The diffusion of new national, social, and political ideas inevitably seriously disturbed the established order. Whereas in countries with a relatively homogeneous population from the point of view of nationality the resulting conflicts assumed the form of internal social and political crises, in multinational states such as the Habsburg and Ottoman empires national movements became disintegrating forces. Under the pressure of self-conscious nationalities, the old nationally heterogeneous monarchies entered their final period of crisis and gave way before those national forces which represented the dominant movements and ideas of a new era. The old integrating forces—the socially dominant feudal nobility and the army and bureaucracy, which were the most cohesive political elements and which were permeated with absolutism and legitimism—were destroyed by new and disintegrative nationalist and democratic movements that championed ideas of national, social, and political freedom. All the great national liberation movements of nineteenth century Europe from the time of the unification of the Italian and German nations and the liberation of the peoples of the Balkans until the collapse of the Habsburg and Ottoman empires took place at the expense of these two empires. The national crisis caused by the disintegrative aspirations of the various peoples within its boundaries made it difficult for the Habsburg monarchy to adjust to the new currents of democracy and social reform. As a result, the nationality question became more and more closely linked with the growing internal social and economic crisis. At the beginning of the twentieth century these three forces merged into a violent centrifugal force.

The fundamental fact in the nationality issue in Croatia in the nineteenth century is that by 1914 the majority of the most influential political leaders of the Croats assumed that the indefinite survival of an independent united Croatia, based on the national principle alone, was a political and international impossibility. Once having accepted this premise, which was based on careful consideration of the conditions of their historical past and their position in Europe, the Croatian leaders were compelled to seek a solution to their political future which was in conflict with the major trend of the nineteenth century, namely, the political unification of ethnically homogeneous people into a sovereign state. Although there was a strong nationalist movement in Croatia, which aimed at the creation of an independent state, it could not deal with the realities of the Croatian position. Practical considerations thus left the Croatians with two alternatives: they could either remain within the framework of the Habsburg empire, in union with Vienna or Budapest or both; or they could join with the Serbs and Slovenes in a federal South Slav state. The story of nineteenth-century nationalism in Croatia centers on the vacillation between these two possibilities. The aim at all times was to find the combination which would best protect the Croatian national individuality, since Croatia alone did not have the necessary prerequisites for a completely independent national existence.2

During the early part of the nineteenth century the Croatians were one of the most loyal of all the peoples in the Habsburg monarchy, and during the revolutionary movement of 1848–1849 they were one of the main pillars of strength of the dynasty. Yet, before the end of World War I the South Slav question in general and the Croatian question in particular had become one of the most dangerous problems of the whole Austro-Hungarian monarchy. To discuss how such a radical metamorphosis in Croatian national sentiment occurred within the course of less than seventy years is the aim of this paper.

An important fact to keep in mind in studying the Slovenian nationality problem in the nineteenth-century Habsburg monarchy is the lack of coincidence between ethnic and administrative boundaries. Instead of living together in a single province, the Slovenes formed a significant percentage of the population of each of more than a half dozen different administrative subdivisions of the Austrian empire. Approximately half of them lived in provinces with a non-Slovenian majority. According to the official survey made by Carl Joseph von Czoernig, which was based on the 1846 census for the Austrian lands and that of 1850 for the kingdom of Hungary, there were 428,000 Slovenes and Serbo-Croatians (92 percent of the total population) in Carniola. There were 363,000 Slovenes (36 percent of all the inhabitants) in Styria; 96,000 (30 percent), in Carinthia;1 128,000 (67 percent), in Gorica (Görz); 25,000 (31.5 percent), in Trieste; and 32,000 (14 percent), in Istria. In addition, 45,000 Slovenes lived in the border areas that were added to the Transleithanian half of the dual monarchy after 1867 and 27,000 in the province of Venetia, which belonged to the Habsburg empire until 1866.

By the turn of the twentieth century the disintegrative role of the nationalities in the Habsburg empire had gained a momentum that would probably have been impossible to arrest. But whether, in the larger scheme, it was the nationalities or military debility and other factors that sealed the fate of the empire is an issue which will doubtless continue to produce dissent.

The topic assigned for this section offers us an alternative: integration or disintegration. There is a certain lack of reality about such an alternative. One will retrace in vain the whole story of the confrontation of Czech and Habsburg in pursuit of a genuine Czech impulse to support Habsburg aims. There were periods of peace between the two protagonists, though perhaps tolerance would be a better term, but they were few and insubstantial. They were seldom used for anything but preparation for the next inevitable engagement. I take it that this tradition of enmity is almost axiomatic for Central European history. Little, then, will be said about the Czechs as a force leading toward the integration of Habsburg power. This leaves us a broad field of historical assessment and delineation: the story of the Czech odyssey from their first contact with the Habsburgs in the late thirteenth century until 1918, when they again became a sovereign people in their own land.

The Czechs have always been the Slavic nation living farthest to the west. With a population of 6,500,000 in 1910, they were the third strongest ethnic group in the monarchy, although they formed only 12.7 percent of its total population. At that time the Czechs, as well as the Magyars, Croats, and Slovenes, with a few minor exceptions, lived only within the Habsburg empire. In the largely agricultural countryside between the Czech and German populations there was a clearly demarcated line which changed only rarely. Strong nationalists on both sides of this boundary, however, paid much attention to even the slightest changes in it. The dividing line between the Czechs and the Slovaks, which was the same as the frontier between the Czech lands and Hungary, was also stable. It cannot be said that this line actually amounted to a language barrier, since dialects which were nearly the same were spoken on both sides of the Morava River. The gradual transition between Czech and Polish dialects in Silesia, together with the strong westward Polish migration, however, made the nationality frontier between the Czechs and Poles relatively unstable.

For nearly a century and a half the peoples of a large part of the old Polish state shared the destinies of the Habsburg empire. Annexed when the monarchy was entering the phase of Enlightened Despotism, Galicia commenced its history as a mere province of the Habsburg empire. When in 1918 this province broke away from Austria-Hungary, which by then had advanced far in the direction of constitutionalism and capitalism, Galicia had become almost a junior partner in the monarchy.

The question of whether the Poles were an integrating or a disintegrating factor within the Habsburg monarchy has yet to be fully studied by Polish historians. Up to now they have concerned themselves mainly with the part played by the Austrian empire in the history of the Polish nation after the eighteenth century partitions and have overlooked the role of the Poles in the Austrian empire. They have concentrated their attention on the fate of the territories of the historic Polish state which fell under Habsburg rule and have studied the social, cultural, and political transformations which affected Galicia during the century and a half of Austrian domination. Polish historians have even studied the contributions made by former Habsburg subjects to the reconstruction of the Polish state after the dissolution of the monarchy, but they have rarely discussed the part which the Poles took in the political life of the multinational empire.

In commenting on the papers presented in this session on the Czechs and the Poles, I would like to discuss Professor S. Harrison Thomson's approach to the interpretation of Czech history and Professor Piotr Wandycz's concept of divide et impera. In addition, although the main emphasis of this conference is on the nations within the monarchy, I believe that some remarks about the relationship of the individual to the empire might also prove useful.

I feel greatly honored to have been selected by the committee that has planned this conference to discuss the papers of two such distinguished scholars as Professors Wandycz and Wereszycki. Most of you have already had an opportunity to read their essays, and I am certain you will agree with me that both deserve only the highest praise. In their comprehensive treatment of the subject and in their judicious interpretation of the facts, the papers reflect the superior scholarship of their authors. While praising these two excellent accounts makes my assignment to discuss them a very pleasant one, the task is, at the same time, rather difficult. Since the authors have said so much so well, what else is there to say? Fortunately, the subject is vast and complex, and a commentator can always find many facets of the subject which have not been covered in any limited treatment of the topic.

May I congratulate the four authors straightaway on their very stimulating papers. They are complementary, and there is much in them that is valuable and much that I have learned from them. But I have come to discuss the papers, not to praise them.

The example of the Slovaks, next to the Ruthenians the weakest and least privileged people of the Danubian monarchy, is eminently fitted to the examination of Austria's ability to deal with the main problem of its modern political life, namely, that of the coexistence and possible reconciliation of its nationalities. One of the first to point out this fundamental issue for the continued existence of Austria with unusual clarity was František Palacký in his 1848 letter to the Vorparlament of the Frankfurt National Assembly. Far from being an expression of unreserved faith in the future of the monarchy, his memorable words on the necessity of the Habsburg state1 were dictated by political realism and foresight. Emphasizing the dangers of German nationalism and Russian imperialism, which he perhaps intentionally exaggerated,2 the Czech leader was fully aware of the political weakness of the small Slav nations who were only gradually establishing their national identity. It was for their sake that he gave a final expression to the policy of Austro-Slavism, seeking the salvation of the Austrian Slavs in the preservation of the monarchy. He endeavored, however, to give it a new raison d'être based on the creation of a common defensive system for its individual nationalities in which all were to be given “complete equality of rights and respect.” While sincere, Palacký's support of Austria was neither unconditional nor devoid of a strong element of doubt. The nationalist policies of the Austrian Germans and the rebellious Magyars, whose chauvinism was only thinly covered by a veneer of liberalism, caused him to moderate his opinion in regard to the ability of the Austrian rulers to change the empire into a federal and democratic state. Thus, at the end of his Frankfurt message Palacký expressed only the hope that the Habsburg monarchy would not miss the opportunity to change into a state based on principles of justice, which alone could save it from disintegration.

Because of the various factors in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy which retarded the development of Slovak culture and science, Slovak historians have, on the whole, only during the past few decades begun to examine historical problems from a broad perspective. Consequently, it is by no mere accident that the problem to which part of the attention of this conference is being devoted—the Slovak political movement as a disintegrating force in the Habsburg monarchy—is relatively new to Slovak historiography. Until now it has not been examined from a broad perspective, if only because of the many different historical, political, social, and economic ingredients which were involved in turning nationalism into a significant disintegrating force. Slovak writers have, however, made various studies of the nationality problem—a problem which has ever since the eighteenth century been the most sensitive issue in Slovak history. Certain of these studies have thrown light on both the integrating and disintegrating: forces of the monarchy—two forces which are realy interdependent.

On the eve of World War I the Ukrainian inhabitants of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy numbered some four million. They were divided among the Austrian provinces of Galicia (3,380,000) and Bukovina (300,000) and the Kingdom of Hungary (470,000).2 In each of these three territories the Ukrainians lived under quite different conditions; hence, a historian should treat each of the three groups as a separate entity. Since the Galician Ukrainians were not only the most numerous but also historically by far the most important, this paper will deal only with them.

The endless and frequently meaningless disputes involving the contribution of one or another nationality group to the maintenance or dissolution of the Habsburg monarchy have obscured the essential question: was the multinational empire viable? Different answers have been provided, usually on the basis of the historian's individual national prejudices, whether Hungarian, Yugoslav, Polish, Ruthenian, Italian, or Rumanian. The ranks of the disputants have been swelled by “volunteers” of non-East European origin ever ready to champion, on sentimental or ideological rather than historical grounds, whatever causes may have been appealing at a given time.

The problem with which this survey is concerned is the role played by the Rumanians of Transylvania as an integrating and disintegrating force in the Habsburg monarchy in the nineteenth century. This problem is unusually complex, since it can be examined from various points of view and at different stages in its historical development. On the basis of changing economic, political, and social factors, we may discern at least five such stages: (1) the first half of the century, during which Transylvania maintained the autonomy it had enjoyed since the promulgation of the Leopoldine Diploma in 1691; (2) the revolution of 1848–1849; (3) the period of absolutism of the 1850's, during which the Rumanians, who had failed to obtain territorial autonomy within the empire, were parceled out among various administrative units and continued to suffer national and social oppression at the hands of the dominant Magyar classes; (4) the so-called “liberal era” between 1860 and 1867, during which the court beguiled the Rumanians with promises that their national rights would at last be recognized in the monarchy generally and in Transylvania in particular; and (5) the period of dualism and the forced incorporation of Transylvania into Hungary.

The nationalities grouped together for discussion at this session—whether they be called “non-historic” or less assertive or weak—played a less crucial role in deciding the fate of the empire than the Poles, Czechs, or Yugoslavs. That is the impression confirmed by the papers presented here on three of them: the Ukrainians, poor, politically backward, relatively unorganized, and divided between the Austrian and Hungarian halves of the monarchy; the Slovaks, very much on the defensive, struggling to maintain their existence as a nationality against assimilation; and the Rumanians, trying to assert themselves politically and socially but against heavy odds.

One of the dangers at any conference is that the commentator, rather than doing his assigned task, will deliver still another (and lengthy) paper. In inviting me, the organizers of the conference must have felt they had taken the ultimate precaution against this danger, for they invited a commentator who is no specialist in the history of the Austrian empire. There were, of course, to have been two papers at this session that, at least linguistically, would have provided me some more familiar ground, and I regret for reasons both personal and professional that Professors Valsecchi and Greenfield were unable to present their papers.1 I shall merely allude to the Italian case in putting forth some general propositions which were stimulated by the three papers I have seen—those of Professors Ľudovít Holotík, Stephen Fischer-Galati, and Ivan Rudnytsky.