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Stohasmoi: What do we
Know about IR?
A blog dedicated to the exploration of issues in international relations and politics,
sometimes following the scientific method, and sometimes not. Maintained by
Konstantinos Travlos, PhD and other contributors.
Furious writing or writing furiously?

Pages Friday, January 27, 2017 Welcome to this Blog!

Home This blog was created

Contributors
Book Reaction "The Habsburg Empire: A New by me, Konstantinos
History" Travlos, PhD. It
contains posts mainly
Labels by me, and sporadic
Finished Pieter M.Judson’s “The Habsburg Empire: A New History” ones by other
Gennady contributors, with a
Rudkevich-Opinion focus on the study of
Gennady international relations
Rudkevich-Science past, present and
Konstantinos future, with occasional
Travlos-Opinion forays into other fields
Konstantinos of political science. It
Travlos- also contains political
Propaganda propaganda (some
Konstantinos call it activism) by me
Travlos-Science on issues I consider
important.
Steps to War
Application
 Analyses
Student Risk of Contributions fall into
War Analysis three categories.
Science , (Educated)
Opinion. Political
Blog Archive Propaganda

▼ 2017 (13) Posts with the

► June (1) Science label look at
► April (3) a topic of international
relations though the
► March (2) prism of analyses
► February (4) using the social
scientific method.
▼ January (3) They can range from
Book Reaction application of findings
"The to current events to
Habsburg literature reviews, or
Empire: A
New even novel findings.
History"...
Posts with the
Contributor (Educated)Opinion
Publication:
label are more free-
K.Travlos
"From This is a great and meaty book, which I devoured, all 543 pages, including 100 pages wheeling and cover
Universal... the views of
of notes. It is more similar to Christopher Clack’s “Iron Kingdom” (another great book),
contributors on
2017. A New rather than a chronological annal of the history of the Habsburg Empire. It’s central current affairs or
Year that theme was the relationship between the imperial authorities and its peoples, and the
demands of international relations
us an ways those peoples tried to articulate stakes on the empire and from the empire. It is a without always the
affirmation... story of the rise of nationalism, but of its rise as a top-down political ideology who support of science.
struggled to co-opt the imperial state to impose a specific nationalist-statist ideology on They are in another
► 2016 (19) peoples who primary identity was localist. It is a great book of politics, showing the way our way to raise
empire trying to react to the changes brought by the industrial revolution and the mass issues not studied or
► 2015 (11) vent frustrations.
politics that continue. It is finally a book that dispenses with the myth propagated by
nationalist-statists about the inevitability of their favored systems of nationalism- Political Propaganda
statism, the unitary nation state. The Empire was not doomed to die. Its death was the contains my
result of conscious political choices by both imperialists and nationalist-statists, and by unsolicited opinion on
a war of choice. current events. Some
might even call them
A couple of points rants. The thing to
A) The books lays forth the deep authoritarianism and mendacity of nationalist- remember, is that they
are not made ex-
statists. Among the first things they use imperial authority for is to force parents to send
cathedra. My opinion
their children to schools that the nationalist-statists believe appropriate for their when not referring to
children. So much for the “champions of human freedom”. Nationalism-statism is a vile my area of academic
ideology that takes advantage of the very human an real attachment to locality expertise is worth
(entopiotita in greek) to impose a specific utopian and exclusionary view of locality, in nothing more than any
the process exterminating thousands of localities, many millennia old, and thousands to other opinion out
there. Whether you
millions of people. And this is somehow presented to us as “natural” while the mutli-
find it useful is a
indentiterian localist empires that preceded them as unnatural.
totally different matter.
I do not claim any
B) But even given the rise of extra-localist identity via nationalism, there is no special insight when
inevitable road to national-statist statehood. The nationalists themselves in their writing not ex-
majority up to 1914 saw the framework of the empire as the appropriate one for cathedra
realizing their political goals. The decision to create independent nation-states was
made by the Entente powers, and followed the betrayal of the Rechstaat by the You can always reach
each type of post by
imperial authorities themselves in the Austrian part of the Empire in the 1914-1916
clicking on the labels.
period of Military Dictatorship.
Each label is the
name of a contributor
C) Reading this book one completely understand why workers rejected the classical and Science or
liberal political order. It is disgusting to see all those liberals who came to power in Opinion, or
1860-1880 then refuse to countenance worker representation. It is even more Propaganda. You can
disgusting to see them act in very iliberla ways. No wonder the workers and peasants thus quickly reach the
were mobilized to mass socialist parties (Whether Social Catholic, or Social Democrat). type of contribution
you prefer.

D) Indeed arrogance as downfall is a recurring theme in the book. The arrogance of

All posts and opinions
imperial authorities, and German liberals, who believed that German, as the language expressed on this
of science and culture, would be welcomed as imperial tongue by those who also blogs are copyright of
spoke other. The arrogance of Hungarian liberal leaders after 1860 who even as late as the contributors and
1916 refused to countence reforms to give all people in the Hungarian crown do not represent the
representation. The arrogance of nationalist-statists who ignored local traditions and views or positions of
conditions in the march of their own “imperial” project. The arrogance of officers like any institutions
affiliated with those
Conrad von Hotzendorf who hated representation and sought to use a catastrophic
contributors. These
war as a way to impose their authoritarian centralism on the peoples of the empire.
are our words and
none else.
E) Speaking of Conrand von Hotzendorf, he deserves to be considered as much an
evil personality as Dragutin Dimirtidevits (Apis of the Black Hand). These two and the Comments are
cliques around them took Europe to war in 1914. Millions died because of them. Apis moderated.
paid the price when Pasich had him shot. Von Hotzedorf escaped. A pity, a damn pity. Moderation principles
are subjective and
those of the
F) The Empire died because of World War 1. Its elites chose to go to war. Its elites
administrator. Since
chose to kill it. Nationalists-statists activists and ideologues, like my undergraduate
this blog is a private
Professor Panayotis Ifestos, claim that the inability of Austria-Hungary to survive war is enterprise freedom of
proof of the obsolescence of its social model. But did the tiny authoritarian (more or speech is a privilege
less) nation-states that followed it do any better? No. Austria was devoured by extended by the
Germany, Czechoslovakia was devoured by Germany, Slovakia was a Germany contributors to
protectorate, and Hungary was devoured by the USSR. Their border where changed at commentators and not
will by Adolf Hitler and then Joseph Stalin. They survived because the Great Powers a right. If abused it will
decided they would survive. If the Great Powers had wanted it the Austro-Hungarian be rescinded with no
expectation of
Empire would also had survived. Strange criteria on which to base the myth of the
explanation.
“superiority” of the unitary nation-state. None of the nation states that claimed to be
superior to the KuK did any better than the KuK when tested by war. Comments should be
eponymous, in
G) And what did those nation states procure for their peoples? Death and Exile. For English, respectful to
centuries they had all lived a common existence in the empire. It was one of strife, and the contributors and
fighting (I am not a romantic, or some foolish myth-maker to present some idyllic other commentators.
imperial past), but also cooperation and co-existence. Yes there was violence (the Yelling (in net
language ALL CAPS)
1848-1849 fighting, especially the clash with the Nationalist-Statist Hungarian
will not be tolerated.
Republic), and sometimes brutal (the massacre of the Nationalist-Statist Polish nobility
Bullying will not be
but the Ruthene speaking people of Galicia in 1848 is an example), but when you tolerated.
compare it to the experience of the peoples forced to live in the unitary nation-states Unsubstantiated
created in 1919, it pales. Millions lost their homes, hundreds of thousands died in the claims will not be
1919-1946 period as the nationalist-statists, now in the guise of national-socialism of tolerated. If you have
either German or Russian extraction, expelled, massacred, and killed thousands. legitimate reasons to
want to post
anonymously you may
It is sobering story this book tells. A story of highs and lows. Of great endeavors and
contact the
base cruelty, of politics and utopianism clashing, of lost chances, of creativity. Of an
moderators and they
Empire that was and was not an empire. Of a lost alternative to the unitary nationalist- will post on your
statism that in my opinion bedevils the world. And a cautionary story of what the cost behalf.
of cosmopolitan arrogance (my sin) and nationalist particularism (the sin of my
enemies) can be.

Gott Erhalte Franz den Kaiser.

 Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser

Posted by Konstantinos Travlos at 2:23 PM

Labels: Konstantinos Travlos-Propaganda

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