Latine an Theodisce? Der Sprachwechsel in Dissertationen an der Alma Mater Rudolphina Vindobonensis

The paper presents a sample of doctoral theses in the field of classical philology, composed and handed in 1926-1938 at the University of Vienna (including one dissertation, submitted at the University of Graz in 1920, by a scholar who decades later became an influential professor at the University of Vienna). The major part is written in Latin; only a few candidates decided to use German to express their theories and results. One focus will lie on the question of language choice and its impact on the content, another aims at a particular case study, showing the benefit of Latin in a time, when it was too dangerous and risky to express critical remarks, inner thoughts and resistance in a language understood by everybody.