The Habsburg Empire

[bailey_187]

has to be the most boring thing in history

oh wow dualism with the magyars :glare:

[Comrade Wolfie's Very Nearly Banned Adventures]

has to be the most boring thing in history

oh wow dualism with the magyars :glare:

Agreed.

This thread is now about Ghengis Khan fucking shit up with his epic facial hair

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/YuanEmperorAlbumGenghisPortrait.jpg/170px-YuanEmperorAlbumGenghisPortrait.jpg

TAKE THAT JINN DYNASTY

[ComradeOm]

Habsburg Austria is interesting, albeit in an unobtrusive and quietly depressing sort of way. They often serve as an example of how not to go about organising a 19th C state but its worth remembering that the supra-national monarchy was once held up as a model of a possible post-capitalist order. In addition, it also served as a microcosm for many of the predominant European issues of the day (nationalism, parliamentarism, industrialism and trade-dependency loops, etc) that often cropped up within the Empire's borders

This is all post-Napoleon Austria of course. Earlier Habsburg history is both familiar (endlessly convoluted marriages and relationships) and very different (actually winning wars)

[Highfructosecornsyrup]

Heh I like it, someone suggested to me that its a good Empire to compare with the modern European Union, which I think does carry some weight.

[Queercommie Girl]

Marxists should never glorify any ancient empires.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

True all empires by definition are bad. Having said that some Marxists I know do not favor but have an interest in the Ottoman Empire as an example of a non-nation based, highly multi-ethnic state.Under the Ottomans cities like Bucharest, Cairo, Alexandria,Constantinople were vastly more diverse than they are now . Turks, Jews, Muslims, Germans, Greeks, and many other groups lived together more or less peacefully.In some ways this was a better arrangement than the ethnic based nation states which succeeded that empire.

Of course people in the Balkans do not have fond memories of Ottoman rule.

The Hapsburg Empire was called the "prison house of nations". Eric Hobsbawn said it was bad but not nearly as repressive as it was played up to be, and certainly better than some of the regimes which succeeded it.

The cult of SiSi, the last "Empress" of Austria who was killed by an anarchist in 1898, ending her rather useless life, is still going strong in Austria and Bavaria. There are cartoons and films made about her.I don't get it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_of_Bavaria

[cb9's_unity]

In reality, it was probably the previous success of the Hapsburg's that lead to their eventual downfall. Old feudal relics couldn't stand strong in the face of emerging bourgeois nationalism. The difference between the Hapsburg's and Hohenzollern's is that the Austrian empire had to try to control competing national bourgeois interests where Prussia could exploit those with sympathies towards German Nationalism to advance their own power.

[Comrade Wolfie's Very Nearly Banned Adventures]

Marxists should never glorify any ancient empires.

Oh the irony.

[bailey_187]

Marxists should never glorify any ancient empires.

lucky its not an ancient empire then

[Queercommie Girl]

lucky its not an ancient empire then

It's a feudal empire, that's what I meant.

[Queercommie Girl]

Oh the irony.

Irony in what way? I often mention ancient China but I never glorify Chinese feudalism. It was a highly oppressive system for the peasants and the poor.

[Dragovich]

I beg to differ. The Hapsburgs were not at all boring but you seem to be referring to the late Austro-Hungarian Empire as the Hapsburg Empire which is erroneous. There were 'multiple' Hapsburg Empires that simply evolved over time.

[bailey_187]

I started a different book on it, and its better

i think my problem was reading AJP Taylor. FUCK HIM