This study describes the way the poet and playwright Hugo Von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929) conceived the "austrian" identity in both senses of the word, as the identity of the political entity descrbed by the west part of the habsburg monarchy...
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This study describes the way the poet and playwright Hugo Von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929) conceived the "austrian" identity in both senses of the word, as the identity of the political entity descrbed by the west part of the habsburg monarchy (cisleithan austria) and as the identity assigned to the group of the german-austrians. In opposition to a retrospective vision, which makes him a paragon of "austriacity", it shows that he has not conceived the group of german-austrians as limited and sovereign, in conformity with the late and modern concept of nation, but that he initially thought of them as members of the wider community bounded by the habsburg state and that he has remained after all committed to a traditional conception of political and social order. This case study is therefore a contribution to the historiographical problem of nationbuilding by the german-austrians. The first part retraces the early conceptions of identity from 1890 to 1901 : it shows the categories of collective identity present in his aesthetic considerations. The second part is devoted to the period from 1902 to the eve of the first world war : it shows the gradual politicization of Hofmannsthal that leads him to defend and elaborate a representation of austria, but il also describes the strength of the german cultural paradigm, wihich determines his cultural critic. The last part is devoted to the period of the first world war, during which the problem of the collective identity of german-austrians reaches its climax