070617 KU Nobilities in West.&Centr.Europe/1750-1950 (fspr.) (2006W)

In the medieval and early modern periods, nobles constituted the European political, social, economic, and cultural elite. The political and industrial revolutions that began at the end of the eighteenth century have traditionally been said to have ended their hegemony. Indeed, the nineteenth century is often called the bourgeois century. The aim of this course is take a fresh look, through the prism of noble experience, at the broader processes of European transformation in the late modern era. How did nobles adapt to new challenges such as industrialization, agrarian capitalism, political modernization, cultural and political nationalism, and the consolidation of the bureaucratic state? What do their strategies, their successes and their failures tell us about late modernity more generally? The perspective of the course is broadly European and comparative, with particular attention to developments in Great Britain, France, Germany, and the Austrian Empire. The diversity of noble experience - including that of noblewomen - and the contingency of European change will inform the lectures and readings for the course. The history of the nobility will furthermore be placed within the broader social context.
Topics to be covered in the lectures and discussions:
What is nobility? (definitions, princely ennoblement, noble corporations and exclusivity, marginal nobles, noble self-understanding) Why is nobility important?
Nobility in the Eighteenth Century and on the Eve of the Revolutionary Era (nobility in the society of orders)
Nobles during the Revolutionary Era (1789-1815) (political, social, legal, and economic consequences of revolution in France and Germany; lack of revolution in Great Britain and Austria)
Noblewomen between Ancien Régime and Late Modernity (the deterioration of the social and legal position of noblewomen in the transformation to late modernity)
Noble Responses to Revolution in the Realm of Ideas (Burke, Chateaubriand, Tocqueville, etc.)
Economic Fundaments of Noble Life (landed and entailed wealth, urban property, mining, industry, and capital)
Nobility and Government in the Nineteenth Century (from Estatist diets to assembles of notables to modern parliaments; the institutions of the central-state such as diplomatic services, bureaucracies and the military; institutions of power at the local level)
Nobility and the Monarchical Court down to 1914 (the persistence of informal means to influence and power)
Nobility and Modern Politics (the rise of political parties, the emergence of mass-politics, the age of ideology)
Nobility, Cosmopolitanism, and the Emergence of Cultural and Political Nationalism (noble nationalization, the persistence of local and regional loyalties, the return to the Church)
Nobility and High Culture (when did the nobility lose its traditional role as cultural innovator? A tour of the Liechtenstein Museum and a tour of the city of Vienna with respect to the noble-historical context are planned for this topic.)
Nobility and the Interwar Years (1919-39) (revolution, the challenge of Fascism and Nazism)