The Institutionalisation of Geography and its Academic Leaders in the Multiethnic Context of the Habsburg Empire (1849–1918)

Hilbert, Bálint (2025) The Institutionalisation of Geography and its Academic Leaders in the Multiethnic Context of the Habsburg Empire (1849–1918). MITTEILUNGEN DER OSTERREICHISCHEN GEOGRAPHISCHEN GESELLSCHAFT, 167 (1). pp. 9-50. ISSN 0029-9138

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Abstract

The history of the institutionalisation of geography as a discipline within the Habsburg Empire is a well-researched topic in the literature. However, this body of literature remains highly fragmented, as the development of geography within the Empire’s multiethnic context has almost exclusively been examined through nationalistic lenses. As a result, the institutions and leading figures of Austrian, Hungarian, Czech, Polish(-Ukrainian), and Croatian geography are discussed in separate pieces of literature, written predomi-nantly by scholars from the respective nations and often in different languages. This phenomenon is not surprising, given that geography initially played a crucial role in shaping national identities. Even today, scholars’ perspectives remain influenced by this legacy. Nonetheless, there is an alternative and still largely unexplored approach: a non-nationalistic perspective grounded in the constitutional and administrative realities of the time. From this standpoint, it is reasonable to argue that, within the framework of a single state, subject to the same (or at least partially shared) legal and educational policies, the development of geographical institutions should be studied as part of a unified process. While it is well established that leading figures, their theories, and methodologies of German geography had a significant impact on the development of geography across the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, there is still no comprehensive comparative analysis of the various national traditions or the interactions between them. This paper aims to adopt this non-nationalistic, state-centred perspective to examine the institutionalisation of geography across the unified space of the Habsburg Empire. It focuses on the work of leading academics at the heads of fourteen geography departments from the establishment of the first institutions up to the collapse of the Monarchy in 1918. However, this study is not merely a synthesis of existing literature on Austrian, Hungarian, Czech, Polish(-Ukrainian), and Croatian geography in this period. Rather, it offers a com-parative biographical analysis of all department heads within the Empire, with particular attention to the methodological and thematic development of both physical and human geography, in relation to the broader theoretical trends in German geography.

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