Narrated Empires: Perceptions of Late Habsburg and Ottoman Multinationalism

In the nineteenth century, the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires both struggled against a rising tide of nationalism to legitimize their own diversity of ethnicities, languages and religions. This book scrutinizes the various narratives of identity that they developed, supported, encouraged or unwittingly created and left behind for posterity as they tried to keep up with the changing political realities of modernity. Beyond simplified notions of enforced harmony or dynamic dissonance it aims at a more polyphonic analysis of the various voices of Habsburg and Ottoman multinationalism: from the imperial centers and in the closest proximity of the sovereigns, to provinces and minorities, among intellectuals and state servants, through novels and newspapers. It further studies the lasting legacy of the empires in post-imperial narratives of loss, nostalgia, hope and redemption, showing why the two dynasties keep haunting our own world with fears and promises of conflict, coexistence, and reborn greatness.