Effects of Habsburg educational policies measured by census statistics

Abstract: This paper is dedicated to the multi-ethnic and multi-lingual Habsburg realm, in particular as regards school education, its effects and the census registration of linguistic qualities among its population. After almost a century of German language dominance, national revival of the Habsburg peoples forced school education to renounce the upbringing of a supra-national and linguistic uniform leadership. Secondary and higher education gradually chose to breed new nationally conscious elites in the variety of peoples, contributing to the decomposition of the realm. Nevertheless, promotion of the ‘national languages’ resulted in wide spread bilingualism, at least among the middle and higher classes. This bilingualism, however, was restricted to the nationalities and not implemented to Austro-Germans and Magyars, who, in their own secon-dary educational institutions, stuck to a virtually unilingual practice, a fact that, in the end, weakened their political influence. This inequality has to be taken into consideration when different school types are put in a contraposition. One of the most usual ways to investigate developments in the lingual capacity of the Habs-burg subjects is found in the decennial censuses, but these are presented with rigid and di-chotomous concepts, just describing ethno-lingual identities, however, aphoristically equated with political ‘nations’. This asks for clearer definitions, and this paper advocates a critical re-consideration of national and linguistic concepts and definitions, as habitually used in Habs-burg historiography. An exposé of different educational practices in both parts—Austria and Hungary—of the realm may serve as context to this appeal.