Fra continuità e cambiamento. L'impero degli Asburgo nel secolo delle grandi trasformazioni (1814-1914)

The essay on Habsburg Monarchy in the ‘long’ XIXth Century from Wiener Congress till the outbreak of World War I focuses on the relationship between the so called Erbländer, the hereditary lands of Habsburg dominion, with associated kingdoms of Bohemia, Galicia and Hungary. The latter revealed itself a key factor in the making of the Habsburg Monarchy from enlightened to liberal absolutism and through constitutional experiments to the dualist settlement. The contribute underlines Habsburg’s effort to forge and preserve a unified empire facing the radically changing conditions within the imperial boundaries and all over in Europe, applying a centralized set of institutions to the broad range of territories with diverse cultural, religious and social identities. That effort was critical to build up a great power state being capable of inspiring emotional attachment among its peoples through the cooperation of many social groups already identified with the empire. The author agrees to no longer see the Habsburg Monarchy as anachronism among national States in nineteenth century’s Europe. Legal equality and constitutional reform mobilized local societies to participate directly in imperial institutions, moreover the existence of ethnic, regional and linguistic differences and the spreading of modern nationalism were not necessarily disintegrating factors in the course of imperial history. World War is to be correctly considered the real cause of the final dissolution, when national activists took advantage from military defeat and quotidian concern overwhelming local loyalties.