The Different Researcher Types. Austro-Hungarian Albanology between Politics and Military

Kurt Gostentschnigg

 

The Different Researcher Types.

Austro-Hungarian Albanology between Politics and Military

In: Ramadani, Fehari; Kosumi, Bajram (ed.): International scientific conference “Relations between Albanians and Austria–Hungary (Austria) by mid XIX. century to our days”. Skopje, Prishtina: Logos-A 2017, p. 73–86.

The primary aim of my current research project^[1] is to give a clear answer to the following question: Did Austro-Hungarian albanologists let themselves be instrumentalized by Austro-Hungarian politics and military or was it a mutual exertion of influence between the academic, political and military field with a multitude of players involved? In addition, there are some detailed questions to be answered such as the formation and history of the field of Albanian Studies or albanology, its relationship with the “field of power”[2], a term introduced by Pierre Bourdieu, which stretches horizontally through all the fields and controls the exchange rate of economic, cultural, social or symbolic capital between the fields, or the problem of several famous albanologists belonging to various fields.

To answer the mentioned research questions, a combination of Johan Galtung’s concept of cultural imperialism and Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory in relation to individual and institutional social actors has been chosen. Whereas Galtung’s concept constitutes an instrument for the analysis of the asymmetric relations between Austria-Hungary and the emerging Albania, Bourdieu’s field theory offers a significant potential for the analysis of the relationship between the Austro-Hungarian academic field on the one hand and the fields of foreign policy and military on the other hand.

Research on the social actors is conducted in the Viennese Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv and Kriegsarchiv as well as in the State Archive in Tirana. The evaluation of the relevant material is guided by Bourdieu’s field theory, just as the analysis of the internal structures of the fields of Albanian Studies, politics and military, the reconstruction of the historical genesis of the field of albanology, the determination of the intersections between the field of albanology as well as the political and military field, and the exposure of the field of albanology to the field of power.

The contribution of the Austro-Hungarian science to the exploration of Albania is an essential one. The greatest part of the research work was done in the fields of linguistics, history, ethnography, geography, geology and archaeology. It was about an elitist circle of albanologists, who almost all knew each other, partly competing or cooperating or being friends with each other. The Academy of Sciences in Vienna with its Balkan Committee and Albania Committee and the Academy of Sciences in Budapest with its Balkan Committee and Orient Committee were the driving force in the matter of expeditions in the Balkans before and during the First World War. There were two striking differences between them, one with regard to time and one with regard to content: the Balkan Committee in Vienna was founded already in 1897, whereas its counterpart in Budapest only several years later in 1914; the Viennese Academy even established in 1914 an own Albania Committee to underline its priorities in the Balkan Studies, whereas the Budapest Academy put more emphasis on Serbia and aimed also at the exploration of the “orient”. The leading research establishments for the linguistic, historical, ethnographical and archaeological exploration of South-East Europe were the respective institutes of the Austro-Hungarian universities, especially in Vienna, Prague, Budapest and Graz. The late founded not university related Balkan Institute in Sarajevo, which over the years became central in the Austro-Hungarian Balkan Studies, hat a privileged status.

From today’s point of view it is difficult to reconstruct the field of Austro-Hungarian albanology, because oral history interviews cannot be done due to the temporal distance and because the research is dependent on written documents like files, memoirs, diaries and publications. Therefore the reconstruction of a field that dates back such a long time, has to be always fragmentary and incomplete. The other difficulty is the reconstruction of the historical genesis of the field of Austro-Hungarian albanology. Franz Miklosich was according to his generation on the same level with Johann Georg von Hahn. Hence we can call both the founders of Albanian Studies. In the seventies of the 19^th century Miklosich and Hugo Schuchardt were both on their own. They were then joined in the eighties by Gustav Meyer. He was according to his generation the connecting link between Hahn and Miklosich and the generation of albanologists that emerged at the turn of the century. Around 1900, on the ground of the Dual Monarchy, the first true generation of albanologists was arising, which consisted of linguists, historians, ethnographers and archaeologists. Therefore it is only for the time between 1890 until 1918 that we can speak of a real field of Austro-Hungarian albanology. But this relatively small virtual field was embedded in two bigger fields – both interacting with each other – namely the field of general or international albanology and the field of Austro-Hungarian Balkan Studies or balkanology. The field of Austro-Hungarian albanology was more or less one of their subfields, so that its functioning can be rightly understood only in this complex mutual relation. If we consequently follow this theoretical train of thought, it becomes even much more complicated: each branch of the Austro-Hungarian albanology – whether linguistics in relation to Albanian language or history and ethnography in relation to Albania and Albanians – was in a certain sense a subfield of the superordinate fields of linguistics, history and ethnography and therefore can only be explained within this complex context. To avoid losing ourselves and our subject in a contextualism that leads to endless digressions, we need to keep our analysis within the bounds of the small field of Austro-Hungarian albanology.

The specific illusio[3] of the general albanological field, i.e. the common interests and doctrines of the albanologists, consisted in casting light on the unknown aspects of the Albanian history, culture and language. The specific doxa[4] of the subfield Austro-Hungarian albanology, set by the political field in Austria as well as in Hungary, i.e. the common belief of the Austro-Hungarian albanologists that the Dual Monarchy had to pioneer in the above mentioned matter, influenced the selection of research topics. After clarifying the issue of the position of Albanian within the Indo-European languages, the linguistics turned to the exciting question of the Illyrian, Thracian or Illyrian-Thracian character of the Albanian language before it was transformed by the Vulgar Latin influence. Furthermore, attempts were made to explore the relationship of Albanian with Dalmatic and Rumanian, the depth of the Latin influence on preliminary Albanian and the separation of the hereditary vocabulary from the loan and borrowed words. At the same time, the scientific consolidation of the Illyrian thesis reinforced the position of the Albanians in the Balkans, allied with the Monarchy, with regard to their Slavic neighbours with Anti-Habsburg attitude. Thus, it was also of political significance, when the influence of Latin on preliminary Albanian and that of Romanian on Albanian did not go too far and when the part of the hereditary vocabulary was greater than the part of the loan and borrowed words. Therefore it was probably no coincidence that the Austro-Hungarian albanologists like Hahn, Miklosich, Meyer, Meyer–Lübke, Jireček, Šufflay and – with some restrictions – Patsch and Nopcsa argued without exception for the Illyrian origin of the Albanians and of the Albanian language. Regarding the issues of the ethnogenesis of the Albanians and the origin of the Albanian language Jokl took a mediating position, which was published however only after the end of the Monarchy. It was also no coincidence that in the science of history the main emphasis of the work of the Austro-Hungarian historians was put geographically on Northern Albania and periodically on the medieval history of the Albanian people. The Cultus Protectorate of the Monarchy was concentrated on the Catholic districts in the North Albanian territories, and the nation building project of the Albanians searched for legitimacy in the glorious late medieval times of Skenderbeg. The examples mentioned here shall be confined to the geographic and ethnic definition of the medieval Albania, made by Šufflay, the collection of source material about the Albanian history  „Acta et diplomata res Albanicae mediae aetatis illustrantia“ and the collectively written „Illyrisch–albanischen Forschungen“. The ethnographic research was also almost exclusively concentrated in North Albania. The very late beginning archaeological research of Albania dedicated itself to the ancient culture and neglected strongly the Pre-Illyrian, Illyrian and early medieval period. This resulted from the fact that on the one hand the general interest of the archaeology at that time was directed at the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans and that on the other hand the Austro-Hungarian albanologists, being well-disposed towards the Albanians, believed that the Illyrian-Albanian continuity could be proved exclusively with linguistic arguments.

The fact that there are three different types of actors, is important for the analysis: the pure scientific type, represented by Jireček, Šufflay, Patsch, Meyer, Schober, Miklosich, Schuchardt, Meyer–Lübke, Jokl and Lambertz; the mixed political-scientific type with proximity to or even involvement in the political field, represented by Hahn, Thallóczy, Ippen and Nopcsa; the mixed military-scientific type with proximity to or even involvement in the military field, represented by Veith, Praschniker, Seiner, Haberlandt, Nopcsa, Jokl and Lambertz. The double naming of Nopcsa, Jokl and Lambertz has to do with the fact that in certain periods they were also close to the political or military field. It is conspicuous that the representatives of the mixed military-scientific type had a relatively low average age, when the Dual Monarchy collapsed in 1918. Haberlandt, the youngest, was only 29, Seiner, the oldest, was with 44 just in the middle of his scientific career. Regarding the both mixed types, we can further distinguish who primarily was a scientist and who a politician, diplomat, civil servant or officer. But this cannot be decided easily for each case. While Hahn and Ippen were primarily diplomats, Veith officer and Nopcsa albanologist, the functions of politician, civil servant and researcher were developed to the same extent in the case of the double career of Thallóczy. The assertion of Oliver Schmitt that the Austrian scholars did not have a double function like their Hungarian colleagues,[5] is not valid, if, for example, we think of Ippen. If a classification of types would be made for the time after the First World War, some modifications would occur in favour of the pure scientific type. Just the representatives of both mixed types led in the time of the Dual Monarchy, especially in politically and militarily explosive phases, to a diffuse overlap and linking of the scientific field with the political and military field. In the case of Schuchardt and Meyer–Lübke we have to ask first and foremost if their participation in the virtual field of the Austrian-Hungarian albanology can be postulated at all in view of their low albanological publication activity extending only over a short period of time. I have decided for a generous interpretation and have taken them into account, although being conscious that they are exposed to heavy criticism.[6]

These actors competed on the basis of their economic capital (i.e. financial assets and material possession), cultural capital (i.e. education and professional position), social capital (i.e. relations and networks) and symbolic capital (i.e. prestige and social reputation) against each other for maintaining or changing the power relations within the field of Austro-Hungarian albanology. Of course, the answer to the question of the prestige of a person is strongly related to or dependent on the context, because, to give a common example, the so-called hopeless “bad apple” of the family could be regarded in the circle of friends and acquaintances as a reliable and great person. If we are dealing with actors, who came from Austria-Hungary and whose scientific, political or military activity was directed at or developed in the Albanian area of settlement, we always have to take into consideration, if they acquired their capital within the Dual Monarchy or among the Albanians. In the time of the Monarchy it was still easier for a South-East Europe researcher to accumulate symbolic capital, because in the Balkans and especially in Albania there was still almost everything to discover. In our analysis we always have to consider that the capital of the actors developed and changed over time. The big success did not only result in general admiration but also in jealousy among competitors. By the way, this was and is valid for all fields. The individual actors were in general in a special relationship of dependence with the collective actors, consisting of the academic and ministerial institutions, which they worked for or which financed their explorations. To cut a long story short, we could summarize this permanently tense relationship with the slogan “desk actor versus on-location actor”. Mutual trust in difficult situations or in case of unforeseen problems on the spot, when the explorer had to rely on the sympathy and support from Vienna, was often a crucial factor for whether a field research could be carried out successfully or ended in a disaster, thus resulting in the growth or decrease of the symbolic capital. As a general rule, the mastery of the native language, i.e. the Albanian, combined with the knowledge of the local mentality, was the biggest capital for the explorers to open the door to the natives already from the beginning, of course often with the unpleasant consequence that they noticed all negative vibrations too. Let us look in this regard more closely at three typical representatives of each category, the pure scientific type, the mixed political-scientific type and the mixed military-scientific type.

Josef Konstantin Jireček was a member of a highly educated intellectual family from Prague. His father was literary historian, his maternal grandfather Pavel Jozef Šafárik is considered to be the co-founder of Slavonic studies. As a twenty-two year old young man he presented a history of Bulgaria, with which he became famous throughout Europe. As a consequence, as Minister of Education he was responsible for the establishment of the education system in the autonomous principality of Bulgaria. However, disillusioned with the intrigues and power struggles, he turned away from politics and returned to the University of Prague. Jireček made an exemplary university career in Vienna and Prague as historian for the Middle Ages of the western Balkans. He was a full member of the Academy of Sciences in Vienna and Prague and a corresponding member of all other important academies of sciences. He is considered today as the founder of the history of the Bulgarian and Serbian Middle Ages. In spite of his declared belief in the Czech folklore, he was in his later years part of the intellectual ruling classes of Cisleithania, which, although making use of the German language, were thinking mainly in supranational categories.[7] His social capital had the basis in the family bonds, on which he could build his varied academic connections. His cultural capital he gained through his academic career and his comprehensive knowledge about languages, and his symbolic capital primarily by his outstanding scientific achievements, in terms of Albania through his contributions to „Acta et diplomata res Albanicae mediae aetatis illustrantia“ and „Illyrisch–albanische Forschungen“. While until the end of his time in Bulgaria we had to rate Jireček still as a member of the mixed political-scientific type, concerning his life after Bulgaria he always belonged to the pure scientific type.

Carl Patsch, also a representative of the pure scientific type, could show as his cultural capital the final certificate from three fields of studies, namely history, geography and classics, the doctorate in the latter as well as the teaching qualification for geography, history and German. To these there were to be added his occupation as assistant in the Vienna Archaeological-Epigraphical Department as well as his job as high-school teacher in Sarajevo. He was a historian and an archaeologist who made a career: in 1898 he became curator in the State Museum of Bosnia-Herzegovina and in 1904 director of the Institute for Balkan Research in Sarajevo, which was officially acknowledged in 1908. The direction of the so called Balkan Institute, which he extended by a rich library as well as collections of manuscripts, archived material, photographs and valuable maps  into a centre of scientific research, fulfilled him that much that he refused in 1910 and in 1917 the offering of a chair from the University of Prague.[8] He made up for these further career steps in the interwar years. His symbolic capital was enormous: he was considered as the founder of the archaeological and ancient history research of Bosnia, who saved in the course of a high excavation activity numerous important monuments like the Bindus shrine at the source of Privilica at Bihać (1895) or the Mithräum of Konjica (1897), but above all the ruins of Mogorjelo (1899–1914), the conservation of which by Patsch was exemplary at that time.[9] 1900 he took part in the world exhibition in Paris as the official representative of Bosnia. 1902 he was a member of the archaeological expedition, directed by Otto Benndorf within the context of the project of series of publications of inscriptions „Tituli Asiae Minoris“.[10] Since 1902 he was a member of the German and since 1905 of the Austrian Archaeological Institute. Patsch as a versatile organizer of networked science, in which – attested by Patsch’ rich correspondence – the Balkan Institute served as a hub for the collection and exchange of knowledge, possessed an enormous social capital.

Gustav Meyer belonged also to the pure scientific type. As a student of classics at the University of Breslau he was mostly influenced and promoted by Martin Julius Hertz. Thus, his career and accumulation of cultural capital developed in rapid succession: in 1876 he became private lecturer for comparative grammar of Greek and Latin at the University of Prague; in 1977 he was appointed as an associate professor for Sanskrit and comparative linguistics at the University of Graz; in 1881 he became a full professor, in 1890/91 Dean of the faculty, and in 1891 a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences in Vienna. Although Meyer fell seriously ill at a relatively young age, his symbolic capital had already grown massively. This he owed to his two research priorities, Greek and Albanian. His “Griechische Grammatik” was the standard work of his time. His still considerable importance for the Indo-European linguistics is the result of his study of Albanian, which he determined as an autonomous Indo-European language and set up with his „Etymologisches Wörterbuch“, which represents a hitherto unequalled monumental piece of work. Of course, this could change if somebody would be able to find Jokl’s allegedly missing manuscript. However, Meyer’s opinion, also shared by colleagues, that Albanian would be a daughter language of the old Illyrian, remained controversial. As a third pillar of his research work, which, due to his versatility, certainly earned him additional symbolic capital, we could mention his occupation with literature, folklore and fairytales.

Ludwig von Thallóczy was a magyarized German of Hungary and belonged to a family of civil servants and teachers. 1877, due to career reasons, he changed his name from Ludwig Strommer to Lajos (= Ludwig) Thallóczy, according to a Hungarian Croatian aristocratic family. Since he made a parallel career in political administration and science, he clearly belongs to the mixed political-scientific type. We want to limit the discussion of his capital to his academic career. Thallóczy drew his cultural capital from his completed history and law studies at the University of Budapest, his presidency of the Hungarian Historical Society and his membership of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His social capital was expressed amongst scholars especially by the fact that he mobilized successfully a number of Hungarian historians for his project of an edition on Bosnian history and that he cooperated intensively in research with slavists at the University of Vienna and with institutions related to Slavonic studies.[11] His symbolic capital consisted in the fact that he was considered as the founder of Hungarian Balkan studies – his contemporaries called him the “mobile Balkan Institute”[12] – as well as the founder of medieval Bosnian and Albanian history. Thus he increased the source material about Bosnian history into a geographically and thematically big edition series, which dealt with the relationship of Hungary with the Southern neighbour regions in the Middle Ages. Since 1895 Thallóczy followed also the Albanian history. He published together with Jireček and Šufflay in 1913 and in 1918 „Acta et diplomata res Albaniae mediae aetatis illustrantia“, regesta about medieval history of Albania, and he edited in 1916 the „Illyrisch–Albanischen Forschungen“. Although his research work was motivated by foreign policy and power politics, it nevertheless represented the basis for the late Middle Ages history of the northern Balkans, distinguished by objectivity and critical methodology.

Theodor Anton Ippen made a double career as a diplomat and Balkan researcher, and for that reason we have to put him into the category of the mixed political-scientific type. With regard to the discussion of his capital we also want to limit ourselves to his academic career. Following Hahn’s example, Ippen conducted explorations to Northern Albanian and Old Serbian territories during his consular activity in Shkodra. His cultural capital as Balkan researcher consisted in his knowledge of the oriental languages and of the economics; remarkably, he did not study any albanological subject. His social capital resulted from his personal links to the employees of the national museum and Balkan Institute in Sarajevo and of the Geographic Society in Vienna, resulting from his publishing activity, as well as from his relations with the Albanian people, established during his explorations. His symbolic capital stemmed from the fact that he was considered as the explorer of the Old Serbian territories and of the old churches in Albania as well as the specialist for the history of the Cultus Protectorate, of Shkodra and the highlands of Shkodra and for the inner history of Albania in the 19^th century.

Franz Nopcsa took part – at least temporarily – already before the First World War and especially during the first two war years, as commander of an Albanian volunteer corps, both in the political field and in the military field. Therefore he has to be classified both as mixed political-scientific type and mixed military-scientific type. Based on the fact that he retired from Albanian politics in springtime 1913, we can speak for the years 1915–1916 only of the mixed military-scientific type. Nopcsa, because of the parental estate Szacsal at Hátszeg in Siebenbürgen, was for certain in material and financial terms one of the most secured albanologists at the time of Dual Monarchy. Besides the economic capital, he earned as graduate of the geology and paleontology studies at the University of Vienna and as expert of almost all Balkan languages as well as by his successful career as paleontologist, geologist and explorer of “the exotic” Albania also considerable cultural capital. Likewise, his social capital was to be estimated equally high, both in Austria-Hungary and in Albania. He was born in a family, which in 1852 received the title of baron and which played since centuries an important role in the history as well as in the political and social life of Siebenbürgen.[13] By means of his multiple family ties to the Hungarian nobility he could enjoy a gigantic network of contacts that opened him all the doors. Above all he was promoted by his uncle of the same name, the “Oberhofmeister” (supreme master of the court) of the Empress Elisabeth.[14] Through his memberships in numerous scientific societies and commissions he had also diverse work contacts in Europe, for example with Carl Patsch, the director of the Balkan Institute in Sarajevo. Because he stayed from 1903 to 1916 repeatedly for longer periods of time in Shkodra and the surrounding highlands, he established close contacts with all the important notables and tribal leaders, who considered him almost as their own kind. From all this and other factors resulted his enormous symbolic capital, again both in Austria-Hungary and in Albania. Nopcsa participated in the life of the Albanian highlanders, spoke perfectly their language and embraced their mentality, so that he was even allowed to take part as a voter in their tribal assemblies. His marksmanship and bravery increased his prestige giving him the status of a hero. Also his reputation in the monarchy was something to be proud of, by the very genealogical fact that he came from an ancient Hungarian noble family. Nopcsa did not rest on his laurels, but increased his good reputation by pure performance. His lecture as a twenty-two year old man in the class assembly of the Academy of Sciences in Vienna with the title „Dinosaurierreste aus Siebenbürgen“ created a great sensation in the academic circles and was published still in the same year in the periodical of the academy.[15] Subsequently, he became the founder of two disciplines – paleophysiology and paleopathology – so that in the following years he was offered memberships in numerous scientific societies.[16] As if that was not enough, Nopcsa made an additional name for himself as geological, geographic and ethnographic explorer of Northern Albania. Nevertheless, in the Double Monarchy, although on the one hand he was respected, on the other hand he was treated with hostility and defamed, because he often pursued his own Albania policy and attacked in public that of the Ballhausplatz. His failed candidacy for the throne of Albania in 1913 may have made him look ridiculous in the European public and may have been actually responsible for his following retreat from the Albania policy, which he afterwards justified differently, and his prestige may have suffered from it: his opponents at the Ballhausplatz had to reluctantly acknowledge that Nopcsa was at that time the best expert of Northern Albania.

Georg Veith belonged both to the military field and the scientific field, which is why he was a classic representative of the mixed military-scientific type. In fact, his parents owned two estates in Carinthia, but they had to take care of twelve children, among whom the inheritance was divided. Unfortunately, I could not find any information about the origin of the parents and their assets, so we can only speculate on Veith’s economic and social capital. Considering the big number of his brothers and sisters and his position as a higher rank officer and successful hobby researcher, Veith could probably draw on a considerable network of relationships. Thus, he was for example close friends with Patsch and Praschniker. Under his cultural capital we can name in fact his officer training and career, but no education as ancient historian and herpetologist. He completed the Technical Military Academy in Vienna and was trained with good success at the War School in Vienna to become a general staff officer. In 1912 he passed the exam for becoming a major in the general staff, but he returned to the troop in order to be able to indulge still in his preferred hobbies of the study of battle fields and of herpetology. These were fields where he gained through his researches a great reputation, his symbolic capital, among experts. Thus, Veith published during his lifetime twenty-two ancient historical contributions, in which his most well-known „Der Feldzug von Dyrrhachium zwischen Caesar und Pompejus“ came out only two years after the end of the First World War. Already in 1904 the news spread that he was recommended because of his intelligence, education, manners and language skills out of the ranking sequence for a promotion. Veith’s military prestige increased in a considerable way during the First World War: he was promoted to a lieutenant colonel, was in the front line, amongst other things in Albania, and was highly decorated for bravery.

Also Franz Seiner was certainly a classic representative of the mixed military-scientific type, since he was from 1892 until 1913, although without being in the officer ranks, a member of the infantry. He conducted geographical and historical research in South-West Africa for the German colonial authorities, before he, with the beginning of the First World War, as officer aspirant in the cyclist battalion “Graz” in 1915 and serving the front in Bosnia in 1916, shifted his studies to South-East Europe, including Albania. If we look at his enormous symbolic capital at the end of his life – Africa explorer, journalist, colonial writer geographer, cartographer and politician –, we always have to bear in mind the fact that based on the sparse information of the literature, an academic degree of Seiner was out of the question. Hence he was an autodidact, who got prestige and fame in academic circles through his talent and diligence, without having the possibility to fall back on a cultural capital, gained through completed studies and professional career. We want to limit ourselves to his capital gained until 1918, when he was forty-four years old. His participation as war correspondent and volunteer on the side of the Boers in the Boer War, for which he was acclaimed and honoured on his return in Graz, contributed to his early reputation.[17] Afterwards he distinguished himself by his geographical, historical and cartographical activities for the German colonial authorities in German South-West Africa as well as by the numerous publications and lectures about them. After that followed a series of well received publications and lectures with regard to his researches in South-East Europe as well as his donations to museums, because he had gathered considerable collections on the biological, zoological, paleontological and ethnographical fields. That three expert reports from the Balkan Committee of the Academy of Sciences in Vienna were necessary for the approval of his cartographical expedition in 1914, was probably due to the fact, that Seiner did not have any academic degree relating to this. However, with Eugen Oberhummer, a true leading authority in science, he had a powerful mentor, who supported intensively his albanological research activities from 1914 until 1924.[18] Thus, two positive expert reports were delivered, one by Eduard Brückner from the Geographic Institute at the University of Vienna and from the Geographic Society in Vienna and one by Robert Sieger from the Geographic Society in Vienna, both Oberhummer’s colleagues.  Yet the expedition was from the beginning up to the end ill-fated. Already during the disembarkation in the port of Durrës started an irksome luggage affair – two suitcases, one with the subsidy money, vanished in the water –, by which Seiner felt hurt in his honour, because, from his point of view, the responsible persons in the Balkan Committee mistrusted him. This mutual mistrust, reflected in the subsequent correspondence, lasted until the early breaking off of the expedition, which was characterized by various difficulties and obstacles. The bureaucratic unrealistic desk actor of the academy did not get on with the flexible practically minded fieldworker on site and vice versa. Seiner’s laboriously gained reputation was damaged. Nevertheless in autumn 1914 Seiner went as representative of the supreme command of the army (Armeeoberkommando, AOK) to Albania, in order to participate in a planned band action. In this function he reported on 29^th October 1914 from Vlora about the battles of the central Albanian rebels and Bulgarian bands against the Epirotic and Serb troops, the loss of influence of Esat Pascha Toptani, the aspirations of Greece and Italy as well as about the irredentist and Pan-Slavic attitude of Lloyd-agents with Italian and Slovenian origin.[19] While his prestige in the scientific field went down, that in the military field went up. Yet the tide should turn soon in favour of his scientific endeavours. In March 1917 Seiner was appointed as consultant for provincial statistics and registration at the 19^th corps command in Albania and in the end of 1917 he was nominated as the director of the statistics office. How was that possible? He didn’t have any education or training. Two plausible reasons may be given for explanation: his good local knowledge, acquired during his journeys, and the meanwhile established connections to the military leadership.[20] Maybe also his protector Oberhummer in Vienna had a hand in it. Anyhow, the extremely successful carrying out of the census in the whole administrative region under his direction, the rescue of the collected material against orders by higher authorities and its adventurous transport by roundabout routes to Vienna contributed to an enormous growth of his prestige, which was to the benefit of his symbolic capital for the time after the collapse of the Dual Monarchy.

Maximilian Lambertz, until November 1916 belonging to the pure scientific type and from December 1916 until October 1918 to the mixed military-scientific type, was only 36 years old, when the Double Monarchy collapsed. He gained his early cultural capital by his studies of classics and Indo-European in Vienna and his promotion with the award-winning dissertation „Die griechischen Sklavennamen“. To his first symbolic capital contributed his collaborative work on Thesaurus linguae latinae in Munich. His early reputation amongst the Albanians had its roots in an experience crucial to the then student: during a scholarship travel to Greece Lambertz discovered his love for the Albanian language. There are two versions of the beginning of this love: Eqrem Çabej told that Lambertz heard Albanian shepherds speaking in the surrounding area of Thebes and was so enchanted by it that he made the study of Albanian his life’s work.[21] In contrast Gerda Uhlisch claimed that Lambertz was encouraged by young Albanian speaking fishers near Thiva (Attica) to engage with the Albanian language.[22] However, the heart and not head directed study of Albanian and its resultant brilliant proficiency in it are a capital, which still today opens an intellectual foreigner all the doors in Albania and spreads like wildfire. In the monarchy times, as the first foreign explorers came to Albania, this phenomenon was still much more pronounced than today. Lambertz used this cultural and symbolic capital for publishing together with Gjergj Pekmezi a text- and reading book of Albanian before the outbreak of the First World War and for going to Southern Italy, in order to study the dialects of the Albanian colonists resident there, especially the less known northern dialects of the Arbëresh in Abruzzo and Molise.[23] With that he had made a name for himself among the albanologists, so that the Balkan committee of the Viennese Academy of Sciences charged him in 1916 to travel around Central Albania in order to collect linguistic and folkloristic material. From Shkodra he reached in exhausting marches remote mountain regions, where he recorded dialects in numerous conversations with the inhabitants, who sang songs for him and told him fairytales. In this time his prestige must have strengthened among the Albanian highlanders. His reputation among the Albanian intellectuals was formed at the latest in the time as a one year volunteer sergeant major[24], a middle-rank non-commissioned officer, in the Albanian territories occupied by the imperial and royal troops. He distinguished himself as inspector for the school system, as editor of the magazine „Posta e Shcypniës“ and as member of the Albanian Literary Commission. He played a substantial role in the standardization of the Albanian written language and in the implementation of a unified orthography.[25] As a private researcher he pursued linguistic and folklorist studies. During his journeys until Central Albania he collected 250 fairytales, merry tales, fables, legends and myths from printed sources and oral tradition. Being close friends with the leading Shkodra writer Gjergj Fishta he also engaged with the contemporary Albanian literary scene. All this, of course, increased his symbolic capital in the Monarchy too.

Some outstanding issues, which cannot be resolved during the three years of the project, have to be clarified by further individual studies with the use of the unpublished works and correspondence of the actors in the archives of Vienna, Budapest and elsewhere. The visible and invisible networks of the individual and collective actors in the field of Austro-Hungarian albanology have to be reconstructed, while ensuring that the different ethnic background of the actors in this field – Austrians, Hungarians, Czechs, Croats and Slovenians – is always kept in mind. By means of the further study of biographies and memoirs we may learn more about the perspectives of the actors, about their habitus[26], i.e. a durable and transposable set of principles of perception, appreciation and action, and their socially constructed and constructing dispositions. Regarding the institutional means for Albanian studies, we can ask, in what way staff was recruited and the chairs were equipped, and, as a consequence, the scientific legitimacy of particular research topics was achieved.

 

Abstract

The primary aim of this current research project was to give a clear answer to the question whether Austrian-Hungarian Albanologists let themselves being instrumentalised by Austrian-Hungarian politics and military or was it a mutual exertion of influence between the academic, political and military field with a multitude of players? In addition, there were some detailed questions to be answered such as the formation and history of the field of Albanian studies, its relationship with the “field of power” or the problem of the belonging of several famous Albanologists to various fields.

For the resolution of the mentioned research questions a combination of Johan Galtung’s concept of cultural imperialism and Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory in relation to individual and institutional social actors has been chosen. Whereas Galtung’s concept constitutes an instrument for the analysis of the asymmetric relations between Austria-Hungary and the emerging Albania, Bourdieu’s field theory offers a significant potential for the analysis of the relationship between the Austrian-Hungarian academic field on the one hand and the fields of foreign policy and military on the other hand.

Research on the social actors was conducted in the Viennese Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv and Kriegsarchiv as well as in the State Archive in Tirana. The evaluation of the relevant material was guided by Bourdieu’s field theory, just as the analysis of the internal structures of the fields of Albanian studies, politics and military, the reconstruction of the historical genesis of the field of Albanian studies, the determination of the intersections between the field of Albanian studies as well as the political and military field, and the exposure of the field of Albanian studies to the field of power.

The present conclusion: there were several types of researchers, depending on the influence of politics and military.

 

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[1] Austrian Science Fund (FWF), projectnr. P26437–G15.

[2] Bourdieu, Pierre (1992/1999): Die Regeln der Kunst. Genese und Struktur des literarischen Feldes. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, p. 342.

[3] Bourdieu, Pierre (1984/1992): Homo academicus. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp., p. 11, 110, 125.

[4] Ibid., p. 235-239.

[5] Schmitt, Oliver Jens (2015): Balkanforschung an der Universität Wien. In: Grandner, Margarete Maria; König, Thomas (Hg.): Reichweiten und Außensichten. Die Universität Wien als Schnittstelle wissenschaftlicher Entwicklungen und gesellschaftlicher Umbrüche. Göttingen: V&R unipress, p. 77.

[6] Hurch, Bernhard (2009): Von der Peripherie ins Zentrum: Hugo Schuchardt und die Neuerungen der Sprachwissenschaft. In: Acham, Karl (Hg.): Kunst und Wissenschaft aus Graz. Bd. 2.1., Kunst und Geisteswissenschaft aus Graz. Wien: Böhlau, p. 1–20, does not mention at all Schuchardt’s albanological contribution in his detailed paper about Schuchardt’s work.

[7] Neue Deutsche Biographie (1953–87). Historische Kommission bei der bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Hg.). Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, Bd. 10, p. 431 f..

[8] Ibid., Bd. 20, p. 101.

[9] Ibid., Bd. 20, p. 101.

[10] Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon 1815–1950 (1957–1983). Graz, Wien, Köln: Böhlau. Ab 1975: Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Bd. 7, p. 343.

[11] Ibid., Bd. 14, p. 282 f..

[12] Hajdú, Zoltán (2001): Political geographical research of the Balkans in Hungary. In: Geographica Slovenica 34, I, p. 116.

[13] Hála, József (1993): Franz Baron von Nopcsa. Anmerkungen zu seiner Familie und seine Beziehungen zu Albanien. Eine Bibliographie. Wien u. a.: Geologische Bundesanstalt u. a., p. V.

[14] Robel, Gert (1966): Franz Baron Nopcsa und Albanien. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, p. 13.

[15] Hála (1993), p. VI.

[16] Ibid..

[17] Kostka, Helga (Hg.) (2007): SeinerZeit. Redakteur Franz Seiner (1874 bis 1929) und seine Zeit. Mit Beiträgen von Siegfried Gruber, Robert Kostka und Johann Praßl. Graz: Academic Publishers, p. 110.

[18] Ibid., p. 175.

[19] Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv Wien, PA I, Karton 936, Liasse Krieg 17–18, 1914–1915: Vertreter des Ministeriums des Äußeren beim Armeeoberkommando an Minister des Äußeren Berchtold, Situation in Albanien, Teschen, 16.11.1914.

[20] Kostka (2007), p. 240.

[21] Çabej, Eqrem (1964): Maximilian Lambertz (1882–1963). In: Orbis. Bulletin international de Documentation linguistique. Tome XIII, Nr. 1, p. 326.

[22] Uhlisch, Gerda (1965): Maximilian Lambertz (1882–1963). In: Bedeutende Gelehrte in Leipzig 1, p. 261.

[23] Homepage Robert Elsie: Frühe Fotografie in Albanien. Maximilian Lambertz.

[24] HHStA Wien, Konsulatsarchiv Skutari, K 21–4 Forschungsreisen: Präs. Nr. 187, 2.3.1918, Bericht von Hofrat C. Patsch vom 16.12.1917 betreffs seiner Forschungsreise nach Albanien im Herbst 1917.

[25] Fjalori enciklopedik shqiptar (1985). Akademia e Shkencave e RPSSH (Ed.). Tirana., p. 595; Uhlisch (1965), p. 262.

[26] Bourdieu, Pierre (1997/2000): Pascalian Meditations. Cambridge: Polity Press, p. 131-146, 208-237.