Journal of Austrian Studies

Abstract:

Taking William Johnston's statement "Musil knew little about Hungary" as a point of departure, this article addresses the neglect of the Hungarian factor in assessing the culture(s) of Austria-Hungary. That a French observer of the World Exhibition in 1900 connected the two parts under the heading of "Danubian modernity" indicates the interplay between the international intentions of Viennese Secessionism and the folkloric dynamic of a nationally conscious Hungary. With the strong orientation toward "Vienna 1900," the mostly non-Hungarian scholarship has neglected the blossoming of the more radical visual and intellectual avant-garde in Budapest between 1905 and 1919 that culminated in the revolutionary commitment of artists and intellectuals to a political art that reverberated broadly in Weimar culture. With this perspective the traditional perceptions of Vienna and Budapest in the early twentieth century are strongly challenged, to which the insight into the exclusion of the Slavic contributions adds further provocation.