Though not among the most famous of the Baroque’s architects and builders, the Bregenzerwald Baroque Master Builders, who were heavily involved in the creation of a sacred landscape of churches and monasteries in the wider Lake Constance area, have attracted scholarly attention since the nineteenth century. This article attempts to recontextualize these builders by taking them out of the usual framework proposed by art historians who, not least due to a chance discovery of an important source in the mid-twentieth century, tended to interpret the remote alpine valley of the Bregenzerwald as some kind of “rustic Florence.” Instead, this article rereads these builders in the context of the more mundane social and political realities of the Bregenzerwald. It suggests that in order to better understand this fascinating group of builders and craftsmen, it may be helpful to avoid reconstructing their sociopolitical history from their artistic achievement (How were they able to accomplish this?), and instead to reverse this approach to uncover the sociopolitical structures in which they lived (Who were they before they accomplished this?).

In the years between the turn of the century and the outbreak of World War I, business directories listed four commercial piano storefronts in Kraków and an even more impressive nine in Lwów, though the actual number was even higher. Additionally, each of the cities boasted multiple local piano factories. The presence of these factories and storefronts indicates an established market for the buying and selling of pianos in the two major urban centers of Austrian Galicia in the years prior to the war. While piano advertising continued both during and after the war, this was not necessarily an indicator of a lack of change. The instability and increasing inflation of the period served as a catalyst, forcing some owners to sell their pianos, while other citizens may have had the opportunity to capitalize on the economic situation, buying these status symbols for their households. The persistence of private piano classified advertisements for those hoping to buy and sell pianos throughout the war years was a symptom of social and cultural change within the middle class in urban Galicia. This article situates the dynamics of the region’s persistent piano marketplace alongside contemporary socio-political and economic trends to highlight an important indicator of social mobility amidst the widespread impact of World War I.

A recurring issue of debate for scholars of Central Europe has been the extent to which analyses of European colonialism apply to Austria-Hungary and its successor states. This article considers this issue in relation to the theologian, archeologist, and scholar of Arabic culture, Alois Musil (1868–1940). Long celebrated in Austria and Czechoslovakia, he has seldom been subject to critical analysis. A loyal Habsburg subject—and confessor to the Empress Zita until 1918—then an enthusiastic promoter of Czechoslovakia and co-founder of the Institute of Oriental Studies in Prague, Musil was a striking example of how individuals in Central Europe adapted to changing political realities. The article focuses in particular on his attitudes to European colonialism. On the one hand, he was critical of British and Italian colonialism, but he worked to further Habsburg imperial interests in the Middle East. When discussing Japanese ambitions in the 1930s, he emphasized the superiority of European colonial rule. He illustrates the complex stance of many Czechs (and other Central Europeans) toward colonialism. They imagined they were innocent of its taint but were in fact enmeshed in it, often endorsing it or acting as agents of the schemes of the European powers.

This article investigates the lexicon of dispute settlement in early modern Inner Austria, exploring the broadest legal, social, and emotional dimensions of the concept of “enmity” to better understand the nature of dispute settlement and social relations in coeval Central Europe. In particular, the article examines how litigants and courts understood and used “enmity” and its cognates, and how changes in criminal law impacted its usage. The article focuses on interpersonal conflicts and violence among nonnobles, who constituted the vast majority of Inner Austria’s population. It demonstrates that well into the 1700s among local urbanites and peasants, “enmity” and its key synonyms expressing ill-will, discord, or hatred—as opposites of love, concord, and friendship—signified a social state of mutual hostility closely related to violent retribution rather than unrestrained feeling.