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Orsolya Vincze, Judit Tóth, János László

Representations of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in the history books of the two nations

History textbooks are canonical forms of transmitted knowledge of history. In addition to their role of mediating facts about the history of a nation, they also define ways of thinking about events through the way they represent these events. In our research we have analysed the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in three Hungarian and three Austrian history textbooks, frequently used in secondary schools, with the aim of uncovering how the Monarchy is represented in different national history books. Our results show that Austrian and Hungarian history books present the common history in different ways, thus formulating a different attitude towards history. While in Hungarian texts it is more likely to be a person who acts, in Austrian texts it is rath­er the institutions that are attributed as agents. The evaluation of events cor­re­sponds to democratic development in Austrian texts while Hungarian texts do not emphasize such democratic development. Other ethnic groups, besides the Hungar­ians or Austrians, are more likely to be mentioned in Austrian texts than in Hun­garian texts. They are represented more as agents with goals and characteristics. In Hungarian texts, other ethnic groups appear rarely and usually without attributed agency.

Empirical Text and Culture Research, RAM-Verlag

Volume: 3, 08/2007
Pages: 62-71

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