070098 PS BA-Proseminar - Right of Residence, Citizenship and Option in the Habsburg Monarchy (2022S)

The implementation of a uniform citizenship law is generally regarded as a central characteristic of the modern nation state that emerged in the late 18th and 19th centuries. However, the forms of citizenship developed by multinational empires such as the Habsburg Monarchy and their respective successor states have long been neglected in historical research. Inclusion and exclusion of nationals and foreigners in the Habsburg Monarchy and the First Republic are therefore the focus of this course.
The enactment of the General Civil Code (Allgemeines Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, ABGB) on 1 June 1811, when a systematic distinction was made between citizens and aliens for the first time in the Austrian Monarchy, is chosen as the point of entry. As will be shown in the SE, the homeland law and citizenship policy as well as the option regulations of the First Republic reflected the state-building and state disintegration of the Habsburg Monarchy as well as the migration paths and acculturation of a large number of people.
Special attention will be paid to the consequences of the dissolution of the monarchy (1918) and the Peace Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye (1919): Due to the option provisions enacted at that time, statelessness in particular acquired a previously unknown political significance. How homeland law, citizenship and option were socially practised and legally reinterpreted after 1918 will be exemplified by the discrimination of linguistic and religious minorities in the First Republic and the expatriation of political opponents in the Austrofascist "Ständestaat".