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Why Did The Habsburg Empire Suddenly Collapse? | Pieter Judson · The Smart Cookies podcast

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Pieter Judson is a senior fellow at the European
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University Institute in Florence and its former
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chair in 19th and 20th century history. He's
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the author of many seminal books on the Habsburg
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Empire, such as Guardians of the Nation, the
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Habsburg Empire, A New History, and The Great
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War and the Transformation of Habsburg Central
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Europe. Professor Judson, welcome to the pod.
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Thank you. We're absolutely going to talk about
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the Habsburg Empire here a lot. But I got to
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ask you something much more trivial before that,
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because I just can't help myself. What's the
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story of the infamous Habsburg jaw? Where did
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it come from? Why did it seem to manifest so
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often? I wish that you had warned me in advance
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you were going to ask this question. The Habsburg
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jaw is, in fact, the result of a particular genetic
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combination. That is pretty commonly known. People
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believe that it's the result of the great degree
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of intermarriage that took place among the early
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modern Habsburgs. Okay, so this is before Maria
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Theresa. In other words, it's visible in many
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famous paintings of Spanish kings. But then I
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also have to add that we should be careful because
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many of those paintings like to exaggerate features
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to show how important this person is socially
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and culturally. There is a Habsburg jaw, no question.
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It is a particular genetic feature. And I apologize,
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I can't give you the technical name because I
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wasn't prepared for this question. This is a
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curveball even for myself. It just came out kind
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of. Yeah, please go ahead. But we should be careful
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to remember that this intermarriage issue ended.
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in with the end of the Spanish line, so that
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when we get to Maria Teresa in the 18th century
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and her descendants, who are the last Habsburg
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rulers, they are no longer a product of this
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intermarriage. So they don't share this feature
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the way their ancestors do. I see. Okay, that
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makes sense. That was actually my next question,
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because just before the interview, I was checking
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out Charles II of Spain. who was apparently severely
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debilitated and had an extremely pronounced Habsburg
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jaw and obviously couldn't have children, which
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created a succession crisis. So I'm just wondering,
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how come someone didn't say, hey, guys, this
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seems to happen to us quite a lot. Maybe let's
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not marry our nieces to their uncles anymore.
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Because it was politically extremely important
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to maintain the family and the family alliance
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and the territories of the family. And I don't
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believe that in the 17th century, which is when
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they should have been thinking about this, or
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they could have thought about it already in the
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16th century, if you think of Charles V's jaw.
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But in terms of science, this wasn't what they
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were thinking about. It was much more important
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for them to keep the dynasty together. to keep
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the Spanish side and the Austrian side in a close
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alliance. So somehow the conclusion that you're
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suggesting isn't something that they thought.
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Right, right. Yeah, when I was a boy, my mom,
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who adores Vienna and listens to this podcast,
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by the way, so I should be careful. She used
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to take my sister and me there all the time.
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It's only a couple of hours. drive from Ljubljana
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when I'm from Slovenia. And we always visited
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the Stefan's Dom Cathedral, you know, the Schönbrunn
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Palace, Belvedere, the whole works. The visits
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are still quite vivid in my mind. It was lovely.
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But I saw a lot of portraits of the Habsburgs
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there. And I remember the way they looked kind
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of scared me a little bit. I'm not going to lie.
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I thought a Habsburg is going to be hiding under
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my bed if I'm not behaving. And still, whenever
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I see a person with a bit more pronounced jaw,
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I think to myself, look at this Habsburg. aristocrat
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right here so i had to ask but now we're finished
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i promise okay um anyway now that we've got the
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really important stuff out of the way let's talk
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history the habsburg empire lasted for a whopping
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636 years uh i wrote it down from 1282 to of
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course 1918 which is a massive and i'm sure complicated
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chunk of your european history and in this conversation
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i want us to focus on its end times a bit more
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though but nevertheless i think it's important
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to briefly establish how we get there so i'm
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going to ask you to do the impossible could you
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in sort of brush strokes sketch out how does
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the house of habsburg so which is just one of
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many european aristocratic clans at the time
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become the most powerful dynasty on the continent
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and established an empire that lasts until the
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end of the First World War. Not a tiny ask, I
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know. Okay. Certainly, it's interesting that
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a very pretty insignificant Swiss family based
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in what is today Switzerland becomes such an
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important dynasty by European standards. Some
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of it actually has to do with the marriages.
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that produced the Jaws we were talking about
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earlier. Essentially, the Habsburgs were sort
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of a mid -range family located in Switzerland
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who happened to have an early representative
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who was elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
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That's the first Rudolf. And Rudolf was actually
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elected... because his peers wanted to avoid
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electing somebody else who would have been more
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powerful. So he was elected, and then gradually
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the Habsburg family holdings, they lose the holding
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in Switzerland, but they gain the holdings in
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what is today Austria from the Babenburg family.
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So they become located in Vienna, Innsbruck,
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while also Carniola, which is where you're located,
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at a relatively early phase. But it isn't until
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the next Habsburg, who's elected emperor, which
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is a couple hundred years later, and that's Friedrich.
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has the ability or the great fortune to marry
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his son Maximilian to the wealthiest heiress
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in Europe. And that's really when the Habsburgs
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take off in the late 15th century, early 16th
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century. Maximilian marries Mary of Burgundy.
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say, one of the most desirable heiresses in all
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Europe. Burgundy is certainly one of the wealthiest
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parts of Europe. And through that, they gain
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the resources to become a real power and also
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to hold on to the position of Holy Roman Emperor
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and make it almost were inheritable. Technically,
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it's not. Technically, it's a position that must
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be elected by the most important nobles in what's
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today Germany. But still, the Habsburgs use their
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resources, their money, their connections to
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bribe all the electors every time a new one has
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to be elected, and they hold on to it until the
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end of the empire, with one small exception that
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we'll discuss later. Then the next big moment
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for the Habsburgs is when Maximilian is able
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to marry his son, Philip the Handsome, to Juana
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of Spain. And she's the heiress of Ferdinand
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and Isabella, who themselves had combined in
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their marriage to create what we think of as
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modern Spain. Isabella of Castile, Ferdinand
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of Aragon, and Aragon brought with it several
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other territories in Europe as well. So this
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just to say that they married and created a big
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state, and then their daughter married the Habsburg
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heir. And that brought the Spanish territories
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to the Habsburg family. And that includes the
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new world in what's today the Americas that Spain
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was colonizing at the time as well. And it's
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really the grandson, Charles V, who inherits
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everything. Now, there's one more brilliant set
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of marriages that completes the picture. And
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that is in the Austrian territories, the king
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of Hungary and Bohemia and his sister are both
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married to Habsburgs. And when he dies in a battle
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against the Ottoman Empire in 1526, the famous
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Battle of Mohacs, suddenly it's the Habsburgs
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that inherit the crown of Hungary and the crown
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of Bohemia. establishes them in Central and Eastern
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Europe. So after 1526, Charles V decides to divide
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his empire between a Spanish branch and what
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we would call the Austrian branch, the Eastern
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branch. And the Eastern... Habsburgs remain Holy
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Roman Emperors and the ones in Spain are the
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Kings of Spain and also the New World and all
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the territories that Aragon had, like in Southern
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Italy, for example. I hope I'm not confusing
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this too much. No, not at all. And they keep
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marrying each other, right? That's right. So
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in order to keep the family united, and to keep
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a sort of global you have to remember this is
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really the first one the first european global
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empire to keep the family together they intermarry
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constantly this does not necessarily mean that
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they're always in agreement with each other and
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there are all kinds of problems and they're always
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fighting wars for example against the ottoman
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empire in the east because even though the hapsburgs
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have gained the crown of hungary Most of Hungary
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at the time is occupied by the Ottoman Empire,
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so that it's nice to have the title King of Hungary,
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but it doesn't mean that they actually control
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Hungary. And they're constantly at war with the
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Ottoman Empire until the end of the 17th century,
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really. So another aspect to consider is that
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this is a... We can call it loosely an empire,
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but it's really a collection of territories.
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And when the Habsburgs pick up new territories,
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they don't integrate them into one state. These
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territories are all ruled according to their
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own laws, traditions, customs, allied nobilities,
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so that we can see a Habsburg holdings on the
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map of Europe. But we shouldn't think, as we
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might in a modern way, that this is an integrated
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state. And I should say many European states
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at the time share this quality, that they are
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collections of territories that are ruled loosely
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by a sovereign, but they have their own traditions,
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laws, administrations, that kind of thing. And
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I suppose the next big moment is when, as you
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mentioned earlier, the Spanish line dies out
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at the beginning of the 18th century. And the
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heir then becomes the Western, sorry, Eastern
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Habsburg, Austrian Habsburg, who is the Holy
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Roman Emperor Charles VI. But the war of the
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Spanish succession is fought. uh in which the
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french bourbon rulers claim the throne of spain
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uh because the nearest you could say the nearest
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uh legitimate successor through the female line
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is actually the king of france so they fight
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a terrible war it goes on and on and at the end
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Spain goes to the Bourbon family and it's no
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longer Habsburg. The king of France is prevented
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from becoming also the king of Spain. It has
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to be a different Bourbon, but the Habsburgs
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lose Spain. So that's when they focus then completely
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on the East in the 18th century. And Charles
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VI, who had actually been raised largely in Spain,
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he's the father of Maria Teresa. Then his court
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is in Vienna and he brings a lot of Spanish traditions
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to Vienna. Right. We're going to pick it up from
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there. But so you're telling me it was basically
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not so much territory acquisition. But with war,
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but more with brilliant matchmaking. Well, this
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is the classic stereotype of the Habsburgs, right?
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And they themselves promoted this idea. There's
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that famous saying, let others wage war, you
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happy Austria marry. So because most of their
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impressive territorial gains were made through
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marriage, you could make that argument. But it
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doesn't mean they weren't often at war. as well
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hmm so okay now i understand even more why you
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you would risk a more pronounced jaw if you gained
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like an entire new colony in the new world or
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something but it was it's fact i mean you know
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in slovenia we had a sort of like a little rival
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dynasty at least for a time there were germans
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of course but on our territory in the 14th century
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they were kind of slugging it out with the habsburgs
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in a sort of game of thrones way and and lost
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because they died out and those were like the
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counts of telly or tilly i don't know how you
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pronounce it in in english fascinating while
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the the habsburgs survived and thrived. Just
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a side note of how contingent it all is. Okay.
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In your book, The Habsburg Empire, A New History,
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which covers the latter part of its history,
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so from the 18th century onwards, you argued
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that this multi -ethnic monarchy consisting of
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many different... what we would now say nationalities,
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Germans, Hungarians, Poles, Croats, Slovenes,
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Czechs, etc., wasn't a prison of peoples, as
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it's often alleged, but in fact an almost progressive,
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modernizing state that was by no means destined
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to fail like it did. Can you lay out this, I
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don't know, is it a controversial argument for
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us? I would say that nowadays... This is no longer
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a controversial argument for professional historians,
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but I think for most people, and I think in the
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region, including Slovenia, and Slovenia is quite
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central, actually, to the Habsburg monarchy,
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but if you think of the history textbooks in
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many parts of central Europe, you will find still
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an account of the prison of the peoples, or...
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a nostalgia also for a sort of golden imperial
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past, but they still have to explain why it fell
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apart at the end. And the usual explanation was
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that it was made up of many different nations
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and these nations wanted their own independence.
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Now, I completely disagree with this argument.
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It wasn't a prison of peoples. In fact, I make
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the argument that the states that replaced the
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Habsburg Empire were real prisons of peoples.
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And I can explain that a bit later. But what
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I want to say first is when we speak of nations.
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nowadays we think of large groups millions of
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people who share common language common culture
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and imagine that they also share the common history
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but this was not the case in the 18th century
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and even for most of the 19th century most people
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when they thought of their place in the world
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thought of their home region or their hometown,
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but not that they belonged to a big nation. And
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certainly not that a common language gave them
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something in common with people who spoke the
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same language and lived in another region. That's
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not something people in the 19th century would
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have shared. They wouldn't have an identity this
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way. That's fascinating because nowadays language
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is so central. even if sometimes we have nothing
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in common. And another thing to remember, for
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example, is, for example, if we look at Slovenia,
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the argument, and this is also true for other
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parts of Central Europe, the argument was often
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made. that one nation was the sort of rulers
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the overlords and the other nation was the peasants
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the overlords were ruling the peasants on a national
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basis and this also is completely not true uh
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the overlords might have spoken german for example
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but there were also plenty of german -speaking
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peasants who did not feel that they belonged
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to an overlord class uh and i would say that
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the distinction between the lords and the peasants
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was not a national distinction at all now i'm
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going to complicate this completely by saying
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something else if we look at the 18th century
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the word nation does exist but what does it mean
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in the 18th century and really for part of the
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19th century too it means usually the nobles
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who have a say in the running of the region.
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So in Poland, for example, the Polish nation
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is the Polish gentry nobility. In Hungary, very
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much so. The Hungarian nation is the people who
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are represented in the Hungarian diet, and that's
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the Hungarian gentry. So it's not a nation as
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we think of it. as a big universal group of people
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who all speak the same language or share the
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similar culture. It's a social group. So when
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we think of today, the nation, it's not what
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people in the 18th century meant by that term.
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So the question you're asking me. is related
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to the question of how we go from seeing nation
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as being a social construct of nobles to being
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something universal and big and all -inclusive
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and defined by language. And ironically, that's
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something that the Habsburg Empire itself helps
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to create. So I don't know how much detail I
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should go into. But in the 18th century, and
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certainly in the early 19th century, there is
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a great, let's say there's an increase in education.
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There is a concern for popular education. Maria
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Theresa herself in the 18th century already forms
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legislation that there should be schools in every
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parish and all the peasants should learn. Now,
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what should they learn and why should they learn?
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They should learn because Maria Theresa and her
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sons and her successors all wanted to create
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an integrated empire rather than a group of territories
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that were simply linked by the fact that they
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had the same king or queen. So to do that, they
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had to take power away from the nobles. They
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had to exert their own political power locally.
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So up until now, it's the nobles who control
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the judiciary. They're the ones who decide everything.
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The noble diet decides when the ruler can have
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troops or and every time there's taxes, the ruler
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has to go to the diet. Now the ruler is saying,
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I'm not. going to recognize the power local power
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of the nobility i'm going to exert my power all
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the way to the bottom of society directly so
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empowering the peasant class by educating them
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is sort of like a cunning plan to kind of hack
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away at the power of the nobles and the peasants
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that's very devious in a masterful sort of way.
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I don't want to emphasize the deviousness of
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it because to us... I'm sorry. No, no, no. I
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understand completely what you're saying. I gave
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Maria Tereza a compliment. You did. I'm sorry
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if it came out different. But where she would
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have been clear about this is she wanted... Also,
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we should know that... The peasants, this is
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in time of the so -called feudal system, where
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the peasants were often tied to the land and
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they owed the noble landowner a certain amount
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of their labor every week, every month, and they
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also had to give the noble landowner a certain
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percentage of their own crops. what they produced.
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So Maria Theresa and her sons wanted to end this
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system because they thought if we have a prosperous
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peasantry and we tax them, we can make much more
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money than if we go to the nobles all the time
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and ask for taxes and the nobles will decide
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how much we get. So we have to remove the power
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of the nobles and we have to end the feudal system
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so that the peasants can become individual producers,
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own their own land, and be much more productive.
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And Maria Theresa, who was a very religious woman,
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also thought she wanted to make the peasants
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more moral. And only through a kind of moral
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education and moral independence could they really
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become moral citizens. Her sons did not share
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this particular attribute with her. If you think
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of the famous Joseph II or Leopold II, who come
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after her and who continue in a more radical
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way her ideas. But this is what the Habsburgs
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are trying to do. And the local peasants are
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smart. They see this. They understand. They may
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not know the details, but they understand that
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somehow the king, Maria Theresa, and by the way,
24:07
she was. the king of Hungary, not the queen,
24:10
that Maria Theresa is on their side somehow.
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And so this is when you get the development of
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a kind of loyalty of the peasantry to the faraway
24:23
ruler. And it's not because the peasants are
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stupid or ignorant or they think the emperor
24:30
is God or something like that. They have a very
24:33
basic understanding that in many ways, the emperor
24:37
is on their side against the local nobility.
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This is really strongly the case in Galicia,
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for example, which is today the Polish and Ukrainian
24:46
part of the empire. But it's also the case in
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many parts of the empire. Yeah, you went straight
24:54
for the juggler of what I was about to say. Yeah,
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I said the argument is slightly controversial
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and probably more so depending on the vantage
25:02
point, like you said, right? In Slovenia, where
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I'm from, the memory... of the empire is decidedly
25:07
more mixed and that's because today the thing
25:10
that most people remember is that the guy who
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collected taxes and asked you to fight for him
25:15
the emperor was obviously a german so accordingly
25:17
there was a bit of a hierarchy of nations or
25:20
of ethnicity or ethnicities but it's obviously
25:23
didn't go in our favor yes but it's only a german
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for the nationalists in other words the hapsburgs
25:30
did not believe that they had a nation national
25:34
identity in the modern sense. Yes, they saw themselves
25:37
as German princes, but German in a sense that
25:41
was quite universal, that referred more to the
25:44
territory than to a specific language and a specific...
25:50
culture. And when, for example, Joseph II decides
25:54
that German should be the state language in Hungary,
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he doesn't decide this because he's a nationalist.
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He decides it because he believes the empire
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to be more efficient needs a single language.
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And the problem with Hungarian is, well... There's
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two problems. One is nobody knows Hungarian.
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The language that's used in Hungary is Latin
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in the diet because there's so many representatives
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from so many different language groups, even
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among the nobility. And Latin is not a language
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that can accommodate modern concepts, modern
26:31
science, modern technology. So he tells the Hungarians,
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we're going to use German. They use that. as
26:39
an excuse to push back, especially the nobility,
26:42
against the power of the emperor. And they formulate
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their opposition in terms that sound more like
26:53
a modern nationalism. So we want to use our language.
26:57
And I can speak about a lot of Slovenian examples
27:01
of this, but they come much later. No, you have
27:05
me on the ropes, me and my Slovenian arguments
27:08
here. But I came prepared. I got to try one last
27:11
thing. Because by contrast to the Austro -Hungarian
27:15
Empire, the Napoleonic period, which is a bit
27:18
earlier than what we're discussing. now is remembered
27:22
much more fondly because the french who wrestled
27:25
these territories from the austrians for a while
27:26
brought the achievements of the french revolution
27:29
of the french revolution excuse me with them
27:32
which led to a sort of what we now say back home
27:35
a cultural flourishing so for the first time
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we got our own university slovenian creation
27:40
finally became official languages and a lot of
27:42
the feudal arrangements that you were talking
27:44
about of the past got rolled back now to be fair
27:48
i have read that at the time, especially because
27:52
the peasants didn't like military conscription,
27:54
they didn't really like the regime, but the esteem
27:59
grew over the decades, especially with the educated
28:01
middle classes. By the way, I believe Slovenia
28:04
is the only country outside of France that actually
28:06
has a statue of Napoleon, which is kind of wild
28:09
since in the Anglo -Saxon world, he's basically
28:11
seen as some sort of a proto -Hitler many times.
28:15
Not over here, though. So again, a difference
28:17
of perspective. But I just wanted to hear your
28:22
perspective on the comparison between these two
28:25
systems of rule. Let me tell you a few things
28:28
about that. First of all... I absolutely agree
28:31
with you. The French moment in the history of,
28:36
you might call it the Adriatic region, but the
28:39
moment when the French come in and rule is, how
28:46
should I say this? It happens in the middle of
28:49
a very, very long war, right? This war is going
28:53
on for like 20 years and things are not good
28:57
in a time of war. The French come, I would have
29:02
said the French are more pro -Italian language,
29:05
but you are correct that there's this flourishing
29:08
of local languages. You called it Slovenian.
29:12
I'm not sure that you could say that by the early
29:16
19th century, the beginning of the 19th century,
29:19
there is a single... slovenian language yeah
29:22
that's what we would say now for like retro in
29:24
retrospect you are right but the problem there
29:27
are two problems one is the war didn't end so
29:30
of course the peasants after a few minutes don't
29:34
like the french either And there are some opportunistic
29:38
elites who see this as a way of getting local
29:42
power again, who support the French. But the
29:46
French, in fact, want to impose a system that
29:48
is much more centralized and much more strict
29:51
than anything the Habsburgs ever tried. So I
29:56
wouldn't see this as a period of relative liberalism.
30:04
even though I know that's how people see it.
30:06
And I want to add one more thing. The French
30:09
Empire imposed the French language. The Habsburg
30:14
Empire is the only European state, the Austrian
30:17
half that I can think of, that actually put in
30:21
the Constitution the right of people to a primary
30:25
education in their own language and the right
30:27
of people to communicate with the state services
30:30
in their own language. That's something you wouldn't
30:34
ever see with the French. So if they had stayed
30:37
another 20 or 30 years, I'm not sure people would
30:40
have been so happy. But that's just my opinion.
30:43
And I may I say right now, I don't want to be
30:48
accused of sugarcoating the Habsburg Empire or
30:53
being an apologist or more worse than nostalgic
30:56
for it. That's not my intent. But to say it's
31:00
a prison of the peoples just goes against the
31:04
legal and institutional and administrative history
31:07
of this empire. There are a lot of unfair things
31:13
that happened, right? The constitutional laws
31:16
were not always followed at the local level.
31:20
And in Slovenia, we can see, if we look at what
31:24
becomes later the nationalist... conflict, how
31:28
some of these problems worked out. But as far
31:33
as the law went and the institutions, I would
31:35
say it's quite remarkable for Europe. Yeah, yeah.
31:40
I was reading that after the... Sorry? We jumped
31:44
ahead a bit when I brought up those things because
31:47
we still haven't talked about the revolution
31:49
in 1848, for example. or the problems for why
31:55
there was a revolution. Right, right. I was just
31:58
like, I'm going to use anything I can to score
32:00
some punches. But I've been thoroughly vanquished.
32:03
And also, I read that after the territory of
32:06
the Illyrian provinces went back to the Austrian
32:09
crown, they kind of reversed a lot of the French
32:14
reforms. And the local populace didn't revolt
32:17
at all. There was no, like, French revolution
32:19
in these lines. Yeah, I would... For example,
32:23
I would distinguish between the territories that
32:26
had used to belong to Venice before the French
32:28
came, like Dalmatia, and the territories like
32:31
modern -day Slovenia, which had been part of
32:34
the Habsburg monarchy. But yeah, there isn't
32:36
a revolution then. Everybody is just so exhausted
32:40
by 25 years of war. It's like, please, something
32:45
else. I get it. Okay, I'm going to have to disappoint
32:50
you and use the magical tool of a fast forward
32:53
because we only have limited time, so we won't
32:57
be able to talk about 1848. We're going to transport
33:00
ourselves to the beginning of the 20th century,
33:03
which is what I really want to talk about. Also,
33:05
a lot of my listeners are not Slovenians, so
33:08
I have to slowly steer this conversation away
33:12
from my homeland so we don't lose everybody.
33:15
I have a two -parter for you. So at the beginning
33:18
of the 20th century, what state is the Austro
33:21
-Hungarian Empire in then? And also, what was
33:26
life for an ordinary, quote unquote, average
33:29
person living at the time really like? It really
33:33
depends. OK, so I had a hunch you're going to
33:37
say that it depends probably where you were and
33:40
if you were like in the countryside or in Vienna.
33:42
Yeah. etc yeah it depends very much what region
33:45
you lived in but overall i would say that life
33:48
was transforming really rapidly and i want to
33:52
say that life in the empire was in that way quite
33:56
similar to any other state in Europe. If we look
34:00
at statistics, for example, we would see that
34:03
by 1910, the literacy rate in the Austrian half
34:07
of the empire is the same as the literacy rate
34:10
in France. So you can see like the education
34:13
system was amazing. I would say the Austrian
34:17
half of the empire had a spectacular education
34:19
system that benefited people enormously. On the
34:25
other hand, I would say there are certain regions
34:28
where the policies were not implemented enough
34:33
or seriously enough so that they lagged behind
34:37
in development, just as you would find in any
34:40
other European society. And in terms of various
34:44
statistics, I think you have to put Austria ahead
34:47
of, say, Italy or Spain or Portugal. And in terms
34:51
of industrial development, there are pockets
34:53
of... really advanced industry and pockets of
34:57
very backward agriculture. And that's what characterizes
35:02
this state. So you were saying it does make a
35:04
difference if you lived in Vienna or if you lived
35:07
in a farm in Bukovina in terms of what your life
35:12
would look like. I would say, so what I've argued
35:15
is that nationalism the idea that you belong
35:21
to a nation, became the main language of politics
35:25
in this state. So that when it came time for
35:29
an election, people would often vote or go to
35:34
a rally or a demonstration based on something
35:38
that mattered to them locally. And usually, if
35:41
they lived in an area where there was more than
35:44
one language, the language would determine which
35:46
side they were on. There were also Catholic parties
35:51
that became quite influential and that were not
35:56
so nationalist. And of course, there was a rising
35:59
socialist party that was, in fact, the largest
36:02
organized political party in the Austrian half
36:05
of the empire that also was divided into national
36:08
groups. But nevertheless, those groups tried
36:12
to work together in terms of technological development.
36:16
It was a rapidly changing society. There was
36:20
a lot of migration away from the poorer regions
36:22
to the wealthier regions. There was a lot of
36:25
migration to the United States. But interestingly,
36:28
it's not often said, many migrants to the United
36:32
States came back. So, and this is also true for
36:36
Slovenia. No way. Yeah, by 1910, I believe it
36:41
is, there were four to 500 ,000 people who had
36:45
come back. They were so disappointed by the American
36:48
cuisine. Sorry, but the American cuisine is made
36:52
up of these immigrant cuisines. It isn't just
36:55
people who failed in the United States. It's
36:58
often people who succeeded and then brought their
37:01
money back to the old empire to buy a big house
37:07
and have a car and live well. So it's a very...
37:14
Like in any society, there's great divergences.
37:17
But the other thing that you do get, again, in
37:20
the Austrian Empire, the Austrian half, is early
37:24
social welfare legislation that's much more advanced
37:28
than in most other countries. You have the universal
37:31
manhood suffrage to vote for the parliament,
37:33
which England doesn't have, for example. So there's
37:38
quite a bit of progress. But then there also
37:43
are some negative factors as well. And one of
37:48
the long -term problems is not so much about
37:51
how people live their ordinary lives, but rather
37:55
at the top of the state, which is the question
37:58
of what is this country, Austria -Hungary? Because
38:01
after 1867, Hungary is really a separate state.
38:06
It has its own constitution. its own citizenship
38:09
laws. If you're a citizen of Austria, you're
38:12
not a citizen of Hungary and vice versa. The
38:15
only thing that puts the two countries together
38:18
is the common ruler, the common military, and
38:22
Hungary is always demanding its own military,
38:24
but it will never get it, and the common financial
38:26
arrangement. So that's going to maybe be a problem
38:32
in the future, how you hold these two together.
38:36
and what the legal arrangement is. Because sometimes
38:40
in terms of foreign policy, one half wants one
38:43
thing, and the other half wants something very
38:46
different. When Austria -Hungary enters the First
38:49
World War, for example, the Hungarian prime minister
38:52
is absolutely opposed to the war until he receives
38:56
certain promises from the military, so he also
39:02
then finally agrees. But I would say for the
39:04
future, It's going to be a problem. And there's
39:07
one other problem, which is in 1908, Austria
39:11
-Hungary annexes this territory from the Ottoman
39:14
Empire called Bosnia -Herzegovina. Bosnia -Herzegovina
39:19
is a really interesting story that we don't have
39:21
enough information about yet, but a lot of great
39:24
historians are now studying it, also in Bosnia.
39:28
The Habsburg Empire had administered this area
39:31
since 1878. They claimed they were building railroads
39:35
and schools and really raising the economic level
39:38
of the population. But they didn't really have
39:43
the resources to transform Bosnia in a really
39:47
impressive way. But the real problem was when
39:51
Bosnia was annexed in 1908, what was its constitutional
39:56
position? It wasn't Austria and it wasn't Hungary.
40:02
it created yet one more weird, exceptional, fragmented
40:06
moment that could make the empire look weak and
40:11
be a problem. So I hope I've sort of answered
40:15
your question. Yeah, no, totally. I just wanted
40:18
to ask, you said that the big shift came when
40:21
people started voting based on the language commonalities
40:25
or religious affiliation. What sort of power
40:30
did the parliament have in this monarchy? Quite
40:34
a bit, in two ways. Okay, so the votes mattered.
40:39
It wasn't just like optics. It wasn't just like
40:43
optics, but... In a strange way, just as we in
40:47
the United States have right now, and I would
40:50
say some other countries also have it, the parliament
40:53
became more and more about performance and less
40:57
and less about real legislation and compromise.
41:01
So in order to get more votes, politicians would
41:05
take more and more radical stands. This is why
41:08
nationalism became so important. At the high
41:12
levels of politics, I argue that nationalism
41:15
was not important in most people's daily lives,
41:18
but it was important in the parliament or in
41:21
the state regional diets or in the city councils.
41:25
In order to get votes, you had to take more and
41:30
more radical position because if you didn't.
41:34
Another politician or another party would come
41:36
along and take an even more radical position
41:39
and accuse you of being too willing to compromise
41:42
with the enemy. This is exactly what's happening
41:45
in the United States right now with our polarization.
41:48
No one wants to actually make a compromise and
41:51
pass a law that would help because then they'll
41:54
be seen as weak or as compromising with the enemy.
41:59
And so what would happen is. the parties would
42:03
refuse to compromise, and then the government
42:06
would have to impose a law. And the politicians
42:09
were generally quite happy to have that happen,
42:13
because it meant that they didn't have to take
42:15
responsibility for making the difficult decisions.
42:18
But if we look at the Constitution, the Parliament
42:21
actually did have significant power, whether
42:24
it chose to use it or not, or how it chose to
42:27
use it. is another question. When I asked you
42:31
about what life was like there, you said, of
42:35
course, it depended where you were. But let's
42:38
leave the farm in Bukovina aside for a moment.
42:41
As one aspect of the period I was always fascinated
42:44
by was the so -called golden age of the coffeehouse
42:48
culture in Vienna. Some of the most interesting
42:51
people that ever lived passing through the city
42:54
and chatting it up like it's... Like there's
42:57
no tomorrow. No Twitter inside. Basically, my
43:00
idea of a good time. Tell me more about that.
43:03
How did that come about? The coffee house is
43:05
a very important place for the exchange of information,
43:08
too. And I just want to say the coffee house
43:12
is important, not just in Vienna, but in all
43:15
the cities and towns. If we think of Trieste,
43:17
if we think of Ljubljana, Prague, Lviv, Czernowitz
43:24
in Bukovina, all over. the monarchy. And when
43:29
I said it's an important place of exchange of
43:31
information, this, for example, is how the very
43:35
famous company, the Austrian Lloyd. was founded
43:39
in the 1830s in trieste because businessmen would
43:42
come together at a coffee house and try to exchange
43:46
or find out information about what ship is coming
43:49
and what product is available all these questions
43:52
that we take for granted because we have newspapers
43:56
and news services and the internet often they
44:00
were located in the coffee house and then of
44:03
course as you say the coffee house becomes part
44:06
of a daily life ritual and a daily life tradition
44:09
later in the century we have lots of newspapers
44:13
so you go to the coffee house to read the newspaper
44:16
you don't necessarily read it at home when you're
44:20
there you're often part of another group of men
44:24
and there also are women and their coffee houses
44:27
even early on for women who discuss things so
44:32
this is where literary circles meet philosophical
44:34
circles scientific circles often informally in
44:39
the coffee house and this is why there is a kind
44:42
of nostalgia great nostalgia today for the culture
44:46
of the coffee house i mean i'm living in vienna
44:49
right now so there's no greater pleasure than
44:52
to spend as much time as possible in a coffee
44:54
house and sort of try to relive that culture
44:59
without looking at your phone. And if you go,
45:02
for example, to Krakow or, I mean, just thinking
45:05
like, or Trieste or any of these other cities,
45:07
you often find cafes that are given names that
45:10
invoke Habsburg nostalgia with a picture of Emperor
45:14
Franz Josef or Empress Elizabeth. All of that
45:18
is sort of packed together into this nostalgic
45:21
understanding today. But back then, it was a
45:24
really critical part of social, cultural, and
45:27
scientific life. Absolutely. Joseph Stalin, Adolf
45:32
Hitler, Leon Trotsky, and our very own Josip
45:34
Broz Tito were all living in Vienna in 1913.
45:38
That's correct. And they were constant coffeehouse
45:41
patrons. And I believe Sigmund Freud as well.
45:44
Sigmund Freud would not have been hanging out
45:47
with them. And Hitler also would not be able
45:51
to afford a coffee house. But allegedly, yes,
45:55
Trotsky, Stalin, and they met at the Café Central,
45:59
I believe, those two guys. And you're right.
46:02
It's hard for us to imagine now that all these
46:04
guys who are later so important in the later
46:07
part of the 20th century are socializing in the
46:12
same place. Now, famously, Hitler was not a fan
46:17
of the multi -ethnic Austro -Hungarian Empire.
46:19
In fact, so much so that when the First World
46:22
War started, he rather enlisted to fight for
46:24
Germany, even though he was Austrian, right?
46:26
Yeah, yeah. And if you look at his later writing,
46:29
if you're allowed to read Mein Kampf, the description
46:33
of Vienna and the various nationalities, groups
46:39
that are in Vienna, especially Jews. who are
46:42
so visible from Galicia and Bukovina, play a
46:46
big role in his complaints about Austrian society.
46:51
Okay, what's this issue between Austria -Hungary
46:54
and Serbia? What's the beef all about? Well,
46:58
the beef is in the imaginations of some very
47:03
important military elites and aristocratic elites.
47:08
When Austria -Hungary goes to war with Serbia
47:11
in 1914, it's the decision of a very small group
47:15
of very elite men. The parliaments don't get
47:19
to vote on this. The idea is Serb nationalists
47:26
in Serbia have a vision of a greater Serb nation
47:31
that would include many of the territories that
47:35
are part of Austria -Hungary. especially Bosnia.
47:38
Before the annexation of Bosnia in 1908, many
47:42
greater Serb nationalists have this vision that
47:44
they can somehow get control of Bosnia in the
47:47
future, and then also they'll have a port on
47:50
the Adriatic. Austria -Hungary is not going to
47:54
let that happen for several reasons. One is that
47:57
Serbia's diplomatic mentor is Russia. If Serbia
48:02
gets a port on the Adriatic, it will be a port
48:05
for Russia. Both Italy and Austria -Hungary are
48:08
absolutely opposed to that. So it's one of the
48:11
reasons why other states support Austria -Hungary
48:14
when it annexes Bosnia -Herzegovina. I won't
48:18
go into the details that actually even the Russians
48:20
agreed to it, but anyway. So that's one issue.
48:25
There's this concept of a greater Serbia that
48:28
many people in the Habsburg monarchy imagine
48:31
is a danger to the monarchy. A lot of these high
48:35
up guys believe that this nationalist politics
48:39
is endangering Austria -Hungary's greatness,
48:43
that politics as a whole is a bad thing for the
48:46
empire, that it would be better not to have political
48:50
parties and everybody be unified. So they imagine
48:55
that a war, they imagine one thing, a war against
48:59
Serbia before Russia gets too involved would
49:02
finally crush. this danger it would raise austria
49:07
-hungary's prestige internationally which they
49:10
believe has been falling it's again a lot is
49:13
in their imaginations what's really falling is
49:17
the power and prestige of the aristocracy and
49:20
the military elites and to resurrect their own
49:24
social position war seems like a good solution
49:27
so in 1912 a Balkan war breaks out in which the
49:32
Serbs and their allies fight against the Ottoman
49:36
Empire to take all the remaining Ottoman territory
49:39
that's in the Balkan region. And they do. And
49:42
that makes Serbia bigger. And Serbia again tries
49:48
to get a port on the Adriatic, this time by taking
49:51
what is today Albania. And the Italians and the
49:54
Austro -Hungarians step in and say no. We're
49:56
going to create a new state called Albania here.
49:59
So no coastline for you, Serbia. Austria -Hungary
50:03
almost goes to war with Serbia during this period.
50:06
When the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife
50:08
are assassinated by a Bosnian Serb in Sarajevo,
50:14
it becomes an excuse to try to destroy Serbia
50:20
for good before it gets too powerful. And as
50:25
you probably know, there's an ultimatum and there's
50:28
this accusation that the Serb government created,
50:30
you know, funded the assassination. It is true
50:33
that elements in Serbia did support the young
50:36
Bosnians behind the assassination. The Black
50:39
Hand. Exactly. But the Black Hand is also a secret
50:43
organization in Serbia and not something that
50:46
the Serbian government necessarily has control
50:49
over. So anyway, they go to war. But what I want
50:53
to emphasize about the war is the war becomes
50:56
an excuse for the military to impose its vision
51:01
of how things ought to be in Austria -Hungary
51:04
on society. Just to interject really quickly,
51:08
because you said their logic was that they thought
51:11
of the war with Serbia as this great unifying
51:15
moment. But by this time, as you told me, there
51:19
were... People were aware or like cultivating
51:24
a perspective of different ethnicities, languages
51:27
and nationalities. So how did they think that
51:29
these different nationalities within the empire
51:31
see the fact that they have to go fight sometimes
51:34
against a neighboring or same ethnicity? So like
51:38
Slavs against other Slavs, for example. Well,
51:41
I do want to make sure that I point out that
51:44
there was incredible unity among all these groups.
51:48
the country did go to war, that what you might
51:52
expect if it were a prison of the peoples didn't
51:55
happen. That the patriotism, not nationalism,
52:00
but patriotism among all these groups was quite
52:03
powerful. For the Austro -Hungarian Empire. Absolutely.
52:08
No matter if you were Czech or Croatian or Slovenian
52:11
or German. That's right. Partly because many
52:15
of these nationalist groups thought... that if
52:17
they win the war, they can maybe change their
52:19
own status within the empire and get more autonomy
52:23
and more power for themselves. But that's not
52:26
what your question was. There was a belief among
52:29
the military leaders that, yes, probably the
52:33
Serbs within Austria -Hungary would betray. the
52:37
country that the ukrainian nationalists in the
52:40
east would betray the country to russia for example
52:43
that italian nationalists in the italian -speaking
52:47
regions would also be on the side of italy when
52:50
it entered the war so there is that absolute
52:53
belief and a very terrible oppression and persecution
52:59
of those groups in the first months of the war
53:02
and this is one of the huge disastrous mistakes
53:05
of the regime and the reason i believe that the
53:09
monarchy collapsed in 1918 because it lost the
53:14
very thing that held it together the legitimacy
53:17
among people was this idea that there was ultimately
53:21
a fairness a kind of fair process, a legal, in
53:27
German we would say the Rechtsstaat, the state
53:29
of law, that governed everyone and everyone was
53:33
equal before the law. And the military instituted
53:37
a dictatorship in the First World War that actively
53:40
undermined that belief again and again. And by
53:44
the way, I'll just say, in what is today Slovenia,
53:48
some of the worst persecutions in the eastern
53:52
region of Slovenia occurred. Believing like the
53:55
Slovenes were actually secretly supporting the
53:57
Serbs and a lot of people were persecuted and
54:00
just put in jail because their neighbors said,
54:02
oh, they're sympathetic to Serbia. You know,
54:07
I was thinking of, again, I name dropped him
54:10
already, Josip Broz Tito, who famously was sent
54:13
to the Russian front and then captured there
54:16
by the Russians. And then he turned and became
54:19
a revolutionary. I thought, you know. this is
54:23
kind of like an obvious sort of danger. No, but
54:26
in any time period, you are imagining that the
54:29
military is actually reasonable and is thinking
54:32
beyond the next hour. I mean, the Austro -Hungarian
54:36
military didn't even expect that the Russians...
54:40
obviously, would enter the war on the side of
54:43
Serbia. And when it became apparent that the
54:45
Russians were mobilizing, suddenly they had to
54:48
turn all their plans around. They'd been sending
54:51
all the troops south to Serbia. Now they had
54:54
to send them north to Galicia. And of course,
54:56
you can't simply turn the trains around. It took
54:59
forever. And as a result, the Russians entered
55:03
Galicia before they were expected. won several
55:07
victories and the military's stupid strategy
55:10
lost several defeats. But who did the military
55:13
blame? They blamed it on the alleged subversion
55:17
of some of these nationalities rather than on
55:21
themselves, who were actually responsible. And
55:24
what you're saying about Tito, this experience
55:27
was shared by hundreds of thousands of POWs that
55:31
were captured by the Russians. The number of...
55:34
Austro -Hungarian and Russian POWs is unbelievably
55:37
high during the First World War. And a lot were
55:41
exposed to Bolshevism. I would say most did not
55:44
become Bolsheviks, but they were exposed to it.
55:47
And what happened in Tito's case is not at all
55:50
surprising. great -grandfather was also on the
55:57
Russian front and was also captured by the Russians
55:59
and witnessed the revolution there. So it's a
56:02
part of the family lore. So I'm extra intrigued
56:05
by this period. It probably saved your family
56:09
that he was taken prisoner and not simply killed
56:13
there. Yeah, totally. Thanks, great -great -grandpa.
56:19
Great -grandpa. You mentioned, though, that...
56:24
After the war starts, shockingly, even though
56:26
the Serbian army is much smaller, poorer and
56:29
completely ill -equipped, it manages to beat
56:32
back the big Austro -Hungarian armies. And when
56:37
I was in school, we were thought that this is
56:40
somehow an indicator of the rot that was already
56:44
setting in the Austro -Hungarian empire. But
56:49
you're telling me that's not true. No, it was
56:51
the... I'm sorry, but if we compare this same
56:54
campaign, and you're absolutely right, for one
56:57
year, the Serbs managed to hold off the Austro
57:00
-Hungarians until finally they did conquer Serbia.
57:04
But it took a year, really. But think of the
57:08
brilliant planning and execution of the French
57:12
and the British. in the Western Front and how
57:16
many terrible blunders they made. But do we say
57:20
that that's a sign of rot? Yes, of course, it's
57:22
a sign of rot everywhere because it shows that
57:25
these guys who ran the military were completely
57:28
out of touch with reality. But it's not special
57:31
to the Habsburg monarchy. And one thing I need
57:35
to add, and a recent book by Tamara Sher has,
57:39
and by the way, she's a great person to interview,
57:41
has shown this. She wrote a book about the multilingual
57:45
character of the Habsburg army. Did the fact
57:50
that everybody spoke a different language somehow
57:52
weaken the army or that everyone was nationalist
57:56
in a different way? And the argument is, in fact,
57:59
no, that's not what the problem with the army
58:01
was. So what was the problem? The problem was
58:04
the commanders and the leaders who were fighting
58:07
a war that might have been fought 50 years earlier.
58:12
and who had little understanding of the technology,
58:14
and who relied on their hopes more than on their
58:20
rationality for their strategy. I mean, really,
58:25
you don't want to get into this. It's so horrible.
58:29
How many people die because of the stupidity
58:32
of leadership? Like you already said, and you
58:34
also write in the book that... As cataclysmic
58:36
as the First World War was, it still wasn't a
58:39
deal breaker on its own, right? The state could
58:42
have survived, and I think you say even thrived,
58:44
if not for other factors. What were they? Okay,
58:48
there are two main factors, and you'll know this
58:51
probably from your own family's experience. Number
58:54
one factor is food. Tragically for the Habsburg
58:58
monarchy, and because there had been no planning
59:00
for a long war, there was no food for people.
59:05
When the Russians invaded, they took away the
59:09
only region in Austria that really produced food.
59:12
That was Galicia. The Hungarians who produced
59:14
a lot of food were the ones who were supposed
59:17
to produce for the military. So all the cities
59:20
starved and starved badly. And there was nothing
59:25
the government could do. There was a British
59:28
blockade so that it was impossible to import
59:30
anything. And people suffered. And of course,
59:33
with bad nutrition comes disease and rumor. Because
59:38
of the government censorship of the newspapers,
59:41
which is typical in any war, the only thing that
59:44
then thrives is rumors. So what people think
59:47
is if there's not enough food, then there must
59:49
be a reason. And often the reason is that people
59:53
are hoarding food. The peasants aren't. giving
59:55
the food to the market. There's a classic idea
59:59
that Jews are somehow responsible for holding
1:00:03
back the food. There are food riots constantly.
1:00:06
And often the police and the local officials
1:00:10
are quite sympathetic. But there's nothing anyone
1:00:13
can really do in the end. The government keeps
1:00:16
passing laws against the black market, against
1:00:19
hoarding. But that's not what the real problem
1:00:22
is. There's no way to solve it. So the food problem
1:00:25
takes away the legitimacy of the state because
1:00:28
the state is asking people to sacrifice at home
1:00:32
and people to sacrifice at the front. But it's
1:00:35
not giving anything back. Food. It does give
1:00:39
back a remarkable and amazing welfare development.
1:00:43
So the state develops this enormous, well -funded
1:00:48
welfare ministry towards the end of the war.
1:00:51
But if nobody has anything to eat, there's not
1:00:54
much that public welfare can do. So that's the
1:00:58
first factor. The really unnecessary factor is
1:01:02
the military dictatorship that is instituted
1:01:06
at the beginning of the war. the belief that
1:01:08
the military should be in charge of everything,
1:01:11
that then persecutes many of the language groups,
1:01:15
treats them very badly. And when I say persecutes,
1:01:19
I mean people are subjected to military law so
1:01:22
that if you're some Ukrainian speaker in Eastern
1:01:26
Galicia and the military arrests you because
1:01:28
they think that you're giving secrets to the
1:01:30
Russians and they have a trial that lasts for
1:01:33
five minutes and they decide that you're going
1:01:35
to be put to death. You have no appeal. That's
1:01:38
that. And so many people are killed in this way.
1:01:44
And then the other thing is other populations
1:01:46
are moved to other parts of the empire and put
1:01:50
into camps. Austria -Hungary, you might be interested
1:01:54
to learn, invented the refugee camp in Europe.
1:01:58
There was no such thing before the Austro -Hungarians
1:02:02
built them. The first refugee camps were really
1:02:05
horrible, filled with disease. They were built,
1:02:08
you know, in a matter of days, very quickly.
1:02:12
They had no sanitation or anything. But by later
1:02:16
in the war, they built these huge camps that
1:02:18
had hospitals and kitchens and schools and all
1:02:23
kinds of things. For who? For refugees and for
1:02:27
populations that were displaced. So, for example,
1:02:30
when Italy entered the war. There were people
1:02:33
from the regions on the border who were moved
1:02:36
to these camps to remove them from the battlefront.
1:02:41
There were hundreds of thousands of people who
1:02:44
fled from Galicia at the very beginning of the
1:02:46
war when the Russians came. And what was supposed
1:02:50
to happen to them? They were the first ones to
1:02:53
occupy these camps. By the end of the war, there
1:02:56
were also POW camps. with large numbers of people.
1:03:01
There were even camps built especially for Roma
1:03:04
with the idea that in these camps, Roma would
1:03:07
somehow be disciplined to give up their way of
1:03:11
life and adopt a different way of life. So camps
1:03:14
become an opportunity to shape populations and
1:03:18
Austria -Hungary is at the forefront of this
1:03:21
development. At the same time, no one who's in
1:03:24
a camp wants to be in a camp. And it's a demoralizing
1:03:28
experience. So the end of the story is no one
1:03:33
believes in the legitimacy of the state by the
1:03:37
end of the war. The new emperor who replaces
1:03:40
Franz Josef when Franz Josef dies in 1916, Emperor
1:03:43
Charles, tries to get Austria -Hungary out of
1:03:46
the war and to change things. And he brings back
1:03:49
the parliament and he gets rid of aspects of
1:03:52
the military dictatorship. But it's too late.
1:03:55
People have already suffered so much that when,
1:03:58
for example, he brings back the parliament, all
1:04:00
the parliament does is criticize him and yell
1:04:02
about all the people who've been persecuted,
1:04:05
which you would expect, which they should do.
1:04:08
So by the end, no one wants the dynasty anymore.
1:04:14
And it isn't that people don't want Austria -Hungary.
1:04:17
It's just that Austria -Hungary can't feed them.
1:04:20
So the regions sort of fall apart. and start
1:04:24
governing themselves. And that's what happens
1:04:28
at the end of the war. Not so much that there
1:04:31
are nationalists who want national regimes, but
1:04:34
rather that the regions fall apart. And then
1:04:39
people sort of start self -organizing, but they're
1:04:43
organizing, like you said, along ethnics or like
1:04:46
same language lines. Yep. And then you get these
1:04:49
new nation states that replace. the empire. But
1:04:55
those nation states often continue many of the
1:04:58
practices of the empire. I don't know how far
1:05:03
you want to go, but also people are not necessarily
1:05:06
happy with them later either. We are running
1:05:08
out of time, but I just wanted to ask as my final
1:05:12
question, did people say what did it feel like
1:05:17
to live through the last days of this empire
1:05:21
that lasted? for almost seven centuries? You
1:05:24
know, for us, the end of this empire is an enormous
1:05:28
historical development. And we see it on the
1:05:32
scale of something big. But for people at the
1:05:35
time, when you read their diaries and you read
1:05:37
accounts of life, they were, I would say, they
1:05:41
became even more and more focused on local life,
1:05:46
on day -to -day survival. And for them, That's
1:05:50
what they remember. Not that some big empire
1:05:53
was an end. Oh, sure, there were demonstrations
1:05:56
in cities and they tore down the imperial eagles,
1:06:00
but they tore them down because they were so
1:06:01
angry they had no food. I mean, this was the
1:06:05
symbol of the state that had deserted them. So
1:06:08
I would say that people at the time did not see
1:06:12
this as a big historical turn. They were just
1:06:15
trying to survive. And don't forget that no one
1:06:18
knew what was coming. So people imagined all
1:06:21
kinds of futures. There are peasants in Bohemia
1:06:23
who thought, yes, we're going to have an independent
1:06:25
Bohemia with a Habsburg king, because that's
1:06:28
what they knew. No one knew what was coming.
1:06:34
And no one thought, I mean, people in towns and
1:06:38
villages were not thinking in a big imperial
1:06:40
way. I hope that begins to answer your question.
1:06:45
The truth is always a little bit more prosaic
1:06:47
than I would have liked. Yeah, not suited for
1:06:51
like a Netflix TV show always. Anyway, Professor,
1:06:54
thank you so much for this wonderful and charming
1:06:57
conversation. I really, really enjoyed it. I
1:07:00
know we were a little bit all over the place
1:07:02
because of me, but that's the nature of this
1:07:05
medium, I'm afraid. But I do hope we get to do
1:07:08
this again. It was a great pleasure. Thank you.
1:07:11
Do you have any social media where people can
1:07:13
follow your work? Yeah, sure. Or you're too busy
1:07:15
drinking coffee in those wonderful coffee houses
1:07:18
in Vienna. It's true. You can either do your
1:07:20
work or you can advertise it. And the drinking
1:07:22
coffee in the coffee houses is part of my research,
1:07:25
of course. But I do have a website. I do have
1:07:30
some presence. Yeah. We're going to share it
1:07:33
in the description box below. Thanks again, Professor.
1:07:36
This was absolutely lovely. Thank you. Hey peeps,
1:07:39
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