3rd Millennial Lecture Series"On Orientalism"

Notre Dame University – LouaizeFaculty of Humanities & Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences

Friends Hall – Main Campus Zouk Mosbeh

OrientalismusGerman and Austrian Orientalism: A Comparison

Eugene Sensenig-Dabbous 29 / 01 / 04 NDU

Sensenig-Dabbous, E. (2006). Orientalismus – German and Austrian Orientalism, 3rd Millennial Lecture Series "On Orientalism," Faculty of Humanities, NDU: 29 Jan. 2004, in: Salameh, D. Science and Religion, Zouk Mosbeh, Lebanon: NDU Press, pp. 43-58.

I. Introduction

As a scholar working in the field in German literature, my initial interest in Edward Said's work on the Western gaze on the Middle East was based on the following question. Is "Orientalism," as defined by Said, a tool suitable for the critical study of the German and Austrian experience vis-à-vis the Arab and Muslim world?

In an article prepared for the special "German Orientalism" issue of Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, to be published later this year, I stated the following. "Edward Said’s lengthy, self- reproaching explanation for excluding German Orientalism from his 1978 study highlights the fact that his approach assumes a 'protracted, sustained national interest in the Orient.' The absence of a German equivalent 'to the Anglo-French presence in India, the Levant, North Africa,' and the fact that German Orientalism was almost exclusively scholarly – interested largely in the classical period – seems to exonerate both the scholars and artists of the German speaking world from direct involvement in the Orientalist project. But does this argument hold true for Austria? Could the Turkish Siege of Vienna in the early 16th century, the protracted existence of an Oriental frontier between the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires during the following four centuries, and the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina (1878) at approximately the same time that the British were taking over Egypt (1882) from the Ottomans have led to the 'national interest in the Orient' considered necessary by Said in order to portray Austria’s scholars and artists as Orientalist accomplices" (Sensenig-Dabbous 163)?

But let's turn back the clock almost an entire millennium. Many claim that Orientalism is as old as Austria itself. And indeed, there appears to be an almost 800 year continuity. In April 1997 the Austrian right wing political leader, Jörg Haider, coined the term Wehrhaftes Christentum, or "Rearguard Christianity," with the theological support of the controversial Austrian Bishop Kurt Krenn (FP-Programmdebatte). Haider, who describes himself as a devout Christian, was alluding to the longstanding Austrian history of conflict with the Muslim world. It should be pointed out here, however, that the overwhelming majority of those active within the Austrian Roman Catholic

Church, as well as almost all Lutherans and other Protestants in the country, reject Haider's unique interpretation of Christianity, an approach which seems to be aimed more at improving his ratings in the polls than at explaining the true nature of his country's thorny historical relations to the Arabic, Persian and Turkish inhabitants of the Middle East (heilige Antisemit; Wiener akademische).

According to Haider, Austria was predestined to defend the European Occident (Abendland) against Muslim fundamentalism, which had "reached proportions that are now threatening the state" (Unheilige Paarungen). In a post-September 11th world, one could think that he just might have been right. Insecurity is indeed widespread in Central Europe, considering the growing presence of Muslim communities in the region. In any case, for the purposes of this study, it should be pointed out that the Austrian gaze is uniquely Catholic and not Protestant. This it shares with other historically predominant European powers with a long standing "Oriental frontier," with the so called Muslim world, e.g. Spain, Sicily, France, Hungary and the city state of Venice. It is important to remember here that Germany was predominantly Protestant as of the Reformation, beginning in the early 16th century. It did not exist as a nation state until 1871.

But let's now finally turn back the clock almost a thousand years to the period of the Crusades in which Europe was on the offensive. In July 1191, the red-white-red (Rot-Weiss-Rot) coat of Leopold, Archduke of Babenberg, is said to have marked the end of the Crusader siege of Acre. The story of Leopold's "valiant act" was taught in Austrian schools until the 1970s, when the socialist and Jew, Chancellor Bruno Kreisky, successfully downplayed this national myth. During this period, there was a concerted attempt to position Austria as a bridge between Central Europe and the Arab/Muslim Middle East. Kreisky worked together with his fellow Social Democratic leaders, the German chancellor, Willy Brandt, and the Swedish prime minister, Olaf Palme, on this leftist, European project. However, Kreisky seems to have been wrong in his politically correct zeal to placate Middle Eastern sensitivities.

In his now famous "The Crusades through Arab Eyes," Amin Maalouf described in great detail the brutal sacking of Acre (210) in Palestine by the English King Richard the Lionhearted. Maalouf neglected to mention, however, the role played by Richard's Austrian competitor and adversary, Leopold, the founder of the Eastern German Empire, or Österreich. According to the eminent Austrian alternative Orientalist, Andre Gingrich, Leopold and Richard competed to see who could slaughter the largest number of Arab/Muslim defenders, or so the story goes. Climbing Acre's ramparts, Leopold removed the white tunic covering his coat of armour, which by the time of his final victory was completely stained red with Arab blood, except in the middle, where it had been covered by the broad leather belt around his waste. As legend would have it, he waved his Rot-Weiss-Rot tunic in the air in celebration of the Crusaders' supposedly lasting achievement. Thus, the introduction of the red-white-red banner of the Babenberg, and latter Habsburg, dynasties was established.

This story was recently substantiated by Austrian historians (Gingrich 2003). Some of you might be now getting the same idea that occurs to me when I see this flag; it does look suspiciously similar to the flag of the Republic of Lebanon.

Let's now return to the core question of today's lecture. Can the Austrian – as well as the German – portrayal of the Orient be considered Orientalist? Edward Said seems to say no. I will read the

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following to illustrate Said's criteria. "Any work that seeks to provide an understanding of academic Orientalism and pays little attention to scholars like Steinthal, Müller, Becker, Goldziher, Brockelmann, Nöldeke – to mention only a handful – needs to be reproached, and I freely reproach myself. I particularly regret not taking more account of the great scientific prestige that accrued to German scholarship by the middle of the nineteenth century (…).

By about 1830 (…), German scholarship had fully attained its European pre-eminence. Yet at no time in German scholarship during the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century could a close partnership have developed between Orientalists and a protracted, sustained national interest in the Orient. There was nothing in Germany to correspond to the Anglo-French presence in India, the Levant, North Africa. Moreover, the German Orient was almost exclusively scholarly, or at least a classical, Orient: it was made the subject of lyrics, fantasies, even novels, but it was never actual, the way Egypt and Syria were actual for Chateaubriand, Lane, Lamartine, Burton, Disraeli, or Nerval. There is some significance in the fact that the two most renowned German works on the Orient, Goethe's Westöstlicher Diwan and Friedrich Schlegel's Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier, were based respectively on a Rhine journey and on hours spent in Paris libraries. What German Oriental scholarship did was to refine and elaborate techniques whose application was to texts, myths, ideas, and languages almost literally gathered from the Orient by imperial Britain and France. Yet what German Orientalism had in common with Anglo-French and later American Orientalism was a kind of intellectual authority over the Orient within Western culture" (Said 18-19).

Edward Said was indeed criticised and often attacked immediately after his book was first published, but often for the wrong reasons. For example, one of Said's earliest and most prolific critics, Malcolm Kerr, wrote in 1980 that: "Said's selection of European authors leaves out a veritable army of luminaries familiar to every graduate student in Islamics: Goldziher, Snouck Hurgronje, Becker, Nöldeke, Wellhausen, Gabrieli, Levi Della Vida, Schacht, Rosenthal, and Goitein, all of whom failed to be native citizens of the most successful imperial powers" (Edward Said). In an interview, Albert Hourani stated: "Edward totally ignores the German tradition and philosophy of history which was the central tradition of the Orientalists" (Said's Splash). The claim that Edward Said ignored German – and by implication Austrian – Orientalism is obviously incorrect. But, should Said's exclusionary assertion – with respect to the non-imperialist nature of Central European Orientalism – be left standing as is?

I reiterate here for purposes of clarity and focus, that Edward Said has maintained the following. "Yet at no time in German scholarship during the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century could a close partnership have developed between Orientalists and a protracted, sustained national interest in the Orient" (Said 1978, 19).

The first contentious issue I will deal with is Said's use of the word "national interest" when dealing with Central Europe, which can only be understood if one sees the world from within the American context, perhaps equating the term 'national' with 'the interests of a country's political and economic elites.' Here, I am forced to ignore the protracted German debate over the Kleindeutsche and Grossdeutsche solutions during the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century, i.e. whether a smallish, purely German state should be formed without Austria, or whether a huge German superpower should be hammered together, including the large non-German majority within the Habsburg Empire. In following, I will finally return to the core question of this evening's presentation, i.e. is there such a thing as German and Austrian Orientalism, and if so, are they different or more or less the same?

II. The Second German "Reich" and the Austro-Hungarian Empire

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Both Roman Loimeier and Carl Niekerk have attempted to locate a Saidian Orientalist tradition for Germany during its brief three decades in the colonial sun between 1884 and 1918, e.g. German East Africa (Rwanda and Burundi, the continental portion of Tanzania, and a small section of Mozambique), Togo and Cameron. Loimeier mentions the Austro-Hungarian officer, Rudolf Slatin Pascha, who while serving the British as governor of Darfur province of Sudan, was captured by the Mahdi. Slatin Pascha's two volumes, written after the defeat of the Mahdiya in Sudan by the British in 1898, served as a key source for the German adventure author, Karl May, who never left Europe, incidentally. Thus, the link between imperial power and albeit popular, or even trivial, cultural production is more than evident with respect to late 19th century Wilhelminian Germany. May's Austrian hero, Kara ben Nemsi, and his dimwit Arab/Muslim sidekick, Hadschi Halef Omar ben Hadschi Abul Abbas ibn Hadschi Dawud al-Gossarah, have helped form the imagery of the Orient in the minds of generations, in much of Central Europe, to this very day (Lieblang).

Niekerk points out that postcolonial discourse in Germany has tended to assume the following position: "(I)t has always been part of the rhetoric of German colonialism to claim that Germans would be better colonialists than others." In reality, he maintained, "(t)he marginal role of Germany in the West's colonial past was tied to a desire to catch up with other colonial powers, which without a doubt led to a discarding of humanitarian principles in countries like Namibia" (62). It should be pointed out here, that Namibia was not a predominantly Muslim colony, as were the other German possessions in Africa.

As opposed to Prussia and the other German states, the Germans of Austria enjoyed a long history of "national" belonging under the rule of the unifying Habsburg dynasty. Andre Gingrich's work on Austria is amongst the most significant in detailing this development. I have also done work in this field in preparation for the re-issuing of László Ede Almásy's writings on the Libyan Desert. Almásy became accessible to consumers globally because of the success of the novel and film, "The English Patient." In the mid 1990s, the Austrian Haymon Verlag, in Innsbruck, asked me to do a background search on the real Almásy, the results of which were published in 1997 in a comprehensive collection of his writings, titled Schwimmer in der Wüste, Auf der Suche nach der Oase Zarzura (Swimmer in the Desert, in search of the Zarzura Oasis).

The history of 'real' László Ede Almásy accentuates the differences between German and Austrian Orientalism. According to Gingrich, Austria does have a Orientalist past when viewed from a Saidian perspective. It began with the Crusades in the Middle Ages; continued throughout the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, with the successful double defeat of Islam by the Spanish and Austrian forces, fighting against the Moorish and Ottoman invaders in Andalusia as well as at the very gates of Vienna. It culminated in an Abwehr (to use Haider's term) mentality, which was revived in the 19th century, in order to legitimise the Habsburg siege and occupation of the Turkish colonies in the Balkans. Finally, the historical red-white-red has been re-instrumentalised by the radical right of today, to justify its rearguard, supposedly Christian, occidental defence policy against the 'Third Siege of Vienna', namely the 'inundation' of the Austrian capital by Turkish guest workers.

I will deal with Gingrich's concept of Frontier Orientalism later. In following, I will offer a comparison of the highlights of the "German (and by implication, Austrian) scholarship during the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century," deemed so necessary in order to establish an Orientalist tradition, according to Said (19).

III. Benchmarking European Orientalism

Said's 'benchmark' assumes the European gaze is only then Orientalist, when "a close partnership (developed) between Orientalists and a protracted, sustained national interest in the Orient," between c. 1800 and 1870 (19). It must be emphasised here that Germany did not exist as a nation

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state until its forced unification by Otto von Bismarck following a successful war against France in 1871.

Furthermore, Said lists a number of purportedly German academic Orientalists, who do no fit the above mentioned definition. He mentions "only a handful," referring specifically to Steinthal, Müller, Becker, Goldziher, Brockelmann and Nöldeke by name (18). It is not clear if he means the German academic August Müller (1848-1892), who is considered to be as important an Orientalist as his fellow Germans Nöldeke, as well as Wellhausen and Sachau, who don't make it onto Said's list. However, he could also be referring to the Austrian, David Heinrich Müller (1846-1912), a Galician Jew, considered by many to be one of the few great Viennese Orientalists to live after the death of the most prominent of all Austrian Orientalists, Josef Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall. I will deal in some detail with Hammer-Purgstall later on.

Let's now turn to the best overview of European Orientalism available today, which unfortunately has not been translated into English, Johann Fück's "The Arab Studies in Europe," (Die arabischen Studien in Europa bis in den Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts) published, in Leipzig, in communist East Germany, in 1955. We can divide up Said's list as follows, in an equal group of Germans and Austrians. Not untypically, the Austrians are also Jewish.

Major "German" Orientalists listed by Said

German Austria (Jews)Theodor Nöldeke (1836-1930) Ignaz Goldziher (1850-1921)

Stuhlweissenburg/SzekesfehervarAugust Müller (1848-1892) David Heinrich Müller (1846-1912)

Karl Brockelmann, who completed his doctoral thesis as a student of Nöldeke, in 1890, and Heyman Steinthal (1823-1894), were of secondary importance, according to Fück. Both Carl Heinrich Becker (1876-1933) and Brockelmann should not be on Said's list of German pre-imperialist Orientalists because their research was carried out after the 'Kleindeutsch' German unification in 1871, following which Germany did become a colonial power in the Muslim world.

Now, turning from the chronological to the political aspects of Said's benchmark for Orientalism, a review of his approach will help to focus our analysis. A brief recapitulation will again help to focus on Said's position. He asks on pages 18 and 19 of Orientalism whether "a close partnership" existed between German and Austrian "Orientalists and a protracted, sustained national interest in the Orient" in the years between c. 1800 and 1870, with the word national placed in italics in the original. In the case of Germany, the answer is clearly no. Thus Said was correct in excluding German Orientalism from his study - were one to accept his benchmark in the first place. In the case of Austria, however, Said's question must be clearly answered with yes. According to Niekerk and Gingrich, one could also argue the case for a Saidian Orientalist tradition in countries as disparate as Italy, Slovenia, Hungary and the Netherlands.

Allow me to illustrate the Saidian nature of Austrian Orientalism by using Austria's greatest Orientalist sons. Josef Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall is, according to Leopold Hellmuth, "considered to be the 19th century Austrian Orientalist (emphasis in the original). Born in 1774, Hammer-Purgstall was a product of the Habsburg's imperial Oriental Academy. Founded in 1754, during the rule of Empress Maria Theresia, the Vienna Orientalische Akademie was set up in order to research the legal and economic traditions, languages and religious practices prevalent in the lands of the Ottoman Empire.

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Hammer-Purgstall was sent to Constantinople in 1799, as a so called Sprachknabe, or 'language boy', in order to study the Ottoman empire from within. One year later he was sent on a prolonged excursion to Egypt. Despite Metternich's unrelenting opposition, Hammer-Purgstall was able to found the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 1847. Although Hammer-Purgstall carried out extensive scientific and literary studies in the field of Orientalism, he is best known internationally for his two volume "The State Administration of the Ottoman Empire" (1814) and his ten volume series, "History of the Ottoman Empire", published between 1827 and 1835.

To further develop my argument that Austria was indeed a typically Saidian Orientalist power throughout its imperial history, allow me to illustrate how Austrian Orientalism shifted in the formative years of classical 19th century European imperialism. Hellmuth points out that ironically, at the very moment that Orientalism was progressing from an academic exercise to a science in the service of colonial domination – as Said would have it – the Orientalische Akademie closed its doors, to be reopened as the K.u.K. Konsularakademie (The Royal and Imperial Diplomatic Academy) in 1898. The gradual collapse of the Ottoman Empire to the south and the rapid rise in importance of Austria’s highly industrialized, colonialist neighbours to the north-west made the empire’s emphasis on the Orient obsolete by the mid 19th century (Sensenig-Dabbous 2004, 166).

Loimeier's 2001 study of German speaking Orientalists completely ignores Hammer-Purgstall. Loimeier does deal in detail, however, in his study with the prominent scholar and imperialist Carl Heinrich Becker (1876-1933). According to Loimeier, Becker taught the "History and Cultures of the Orient" at the newly founded Deutsches Kolonial-Institut in Hamburg. As a response to the Maji-Maji Rebellion in German East Africa in 1904/1905 and the Mahdiya rebellions in northern Cameron, Becker was sent to study the Islam of East Africa in 1908/1909. He based his recommendations for reforms in the German Oriental colonies on the experience of the French and British imperial competition. Becker suggested putting a stop to the aggressive Christian missionary activity in the Muslim colonies, recognising the autonomy of the Muslim authorities in area of family status law, but significantly also the establishment of a strictly secular public school system. However, Loimeier's inclusion of Becker in his study of Saidian Orientalism would seem to be partially invalid because the Deutsches Kolonial-Institut was only founded in 1908, long after the key formative period of European Orientalism, which ended thirty years earlier.

IV. The End of Empire and the Oriental Frontier

Following their defeat in WW I, Germany lost its Oriental colonies in Africa and Austria-Hungary lost its Oriental colonies in Europe. This is not the outcome that both German speaking Empires had foreseen when they attacked the Entente in 1914. Interestingly enough, in their attempts to not only retain, but actually expand their Oriental empires during the Great War, both countries were able to rely on their own versions of Lawrence of Arabia, namely Colonel Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck (1870-1964) for the Second German Reich, and Alois Musil (1868-1944) for the Habsburg Empire. However, whereas both English imperialist, T.E. Lawrence, and the German Lawrence, von Lettow-Vorbeck, were by no means prominent Orientalist scholars, the Austrian Lawrence, Alois Musil, was.

Like T.E. Lawrence, von Lettow-Vorbeck proved to be a master of guerrilla warfare, achieving significant victories in Muslim East Africa during the Great War. With a force never greater than 14,000 in total - comprised of 3,000 German and 11,000 Muslim Askari (native African) troops - Lettow-Vorbeck ran rings around Allied forces (for the most part British and South African troops) that were ten times larger in number than his own (Who's Who).

Musil, the Austrian Lawrence, often referred to himself as Sheikh Musa al-Rweili. An eminent Orientalist in his own right, Alois Musil was the cousin of Robert Musil, author of Man ohne

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Eigenschaften (The Man without Qualities). According to Tomas Smetanka, Alois Musil had done field work in the Orient, beginning in 1896, after completing research as a graduate student at the École Biblique in Jerusalem. At the outset of the war, the Germans introduced the idea of sending a delegation to the Arabian Peninsula that would forge anti-British unity among the local tribes. Musil was chosen to head the group in the rank of Imperial Counselor. At the end of November 1914 he arrived in Damascus and held consultations with a number of his friends, all Bedouin sheikhs. The Turks did not trust Musil and relied on their own influence, which proved to be a grave mistake in the long run. But the Turks were right to be suspicious; Musil's intention was to unite the major Arab tribes, an enterprise that would have required Austrian support for the principle of Arab self-rule. In fact, Musil was competing for the "hearts and minds of the Arabs" against another European expert in the region, who was also using his academic skills for political goals, the archaeologist T. E. Lawrence. Indeed, Musil did not have the interests of the Turks or their German allies at heart; rather, he was secretly trying to pursue his own idea of an Arab Middle East positively inclined to the uniquely Orientalist Habsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire (Historical Photographs; Alois Musil).

In conclusion, allow me to repeat the question posed at the outset of this evenings lecture, that is, can one speak of a genuinely Central European approach to Orientalism, based on Edward Said's definition? Again, in the case of Germany, the answer is clearly no. The opposite is the case with respect to Austria and all of its constituent parts. Austrian Orientalists worked closely together with the Empire's power elite, in order to help consolidate and expand the Habsburgs' holdings, down the Balkan Peninsula and into the very heart of the Ottoman Middle East. Austrian Orientalists were also active in the formative years of imperialist European Orientalism, "during the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century" as Said put it (19). Finally, Austrian Orientalism was even more deep-seated than that of France or the Britain, because of the 500 year old Oriental frontier it shared with the Ottoman Empire.

I will come to a close with a quote from another Jewish Austrian, one of my favourite Austrian authors of the last century. The most renowned German language travel author of the interwar period was no doubt the Prague writer and Social Democrat, Richard Bermann, alias Arnold Höllriegel. Bermann even plays a supporting role in Anthony Minghella's 1996 Miramax film, The English Patient, which received 8 Oscars. Indeed, although the portrayal of the character Bermann in The English Patient is relatively accurate, the film's hero, the fictitious cinematic Hungarian Count Almásy, and the real László Ede Almásy's, an Austrian adventurer, who died in Salzburg in the early 1950s, were quite different characters indeed (Sensenig-Dabbous).

Whereas the film's success has led to renewed international interest in the real Almásy, his close friend Bermann has remained largely ignored, despite the reissuing of some of his writings in German, using the "Swimmer in the Desert" format that proved so successful in the marketing of Almásy. This Prague German author was as much an Orientalist Austrian 'child of his times' as was the English Patient. Bermann wrote the following as a war reporter, imbedded with the Austrian forces in the Balkans in 1916. It reveals just how benignly imperialist even Austrian Social Democrats could be.

"I had never been to Bosnia before and found the country intoxicatingly beautiful. Its exceptional Austrian administration had turned Sarajevo into a modern city, that means it had a hotel that was free of lice, a few soberly modern buildings, schools in which Austria had educated the young Bosnian revolutionaries who were responsible for the assassination of 28 June 1914, and there was a garrison that was intended to keep them under control. The city had stores in which one could purchase Viennese products; coffee houses whose selection of newspapers included the Neue Freie Presse.

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But just take one step off the main boulevard and the most colourful of Orients began. Fountains could be heard splashing in the courtyards of the city's mosques. Sitting in the narrow alleyways of the Bazaar, clothed in picturesque costumes, the Eastern Jews were selling nobly crafted copper and brass vessels as well as their marvellously soft Bosnian carpets, a product of Sarajevo. I spoke with these Jews in their mother tongue, the antiquated Spanish of Cervantes. Everyone else in the Bazaar wore similarly colourful costumes. Those in the know could distinguish the Roman Catholic Croats from the Serbian Orthodox based on their fez, Turkish trousers and vests; and again distinguish them from the Serbian speaking Moslems, who here were referred to as Turks, although they had stopped being so long ago. The "Turkish" women were deeply veiled when in public, a scene I had observed in Cairo and Delhi.

I had already visited many Islamic countries, but none had appeared as genuine to me as Bosnia still was in the middle of World War I. Here you did not find the Negroid-Arabian Islam of Egypt or Morocco, but rather that of the traditional Turks, enjoying their status as overlords in the midst of their subjugated Christian peoples; with tolerant arrogance, warlike traditions, and despite their casual grace, conservative to their very souls. They had got along well with my fellow Austrians and had proven to be extremely loyal to our aging Emperor, who had formed an alliance with the Turkish Sultan. In their eyes this entire war, which had begun with the shots fired on a bridge in Sarajevo, was nothing more than an attempted rebellion, instigated by their traditional subjects, the Bosnian Christians (Bermann 1998, 212-213).

Gingrich refers to this positive, though tongue in check, portrayal of Austria's Bosniaken (Bosnian Muslims) as a typical 'good Muslim' stereotype. "The good and the bad Muslim constitute key metaphors in a dual register, inherent to one and the same narrative. At the beginning of modernity, the bad Muslim was a serious rival and threat to 'our' existence. Crushing that rival is portrayed as the decisive precondition for the subsequent rise of Habsburg colonial expansion. At the end of the colonial period, and as a result of the roll-back strategy against the Ottomans on the Balkans, Vienna's rule over Bosnia serves as the ideological raw material to construct the good Muslim, 'our' unwavering ally in difficult times" (Immigration).

Nothing similar exists in the Orientalisms of France, Britain, the Netherlands, the United States, Spain or even Israel. The concept of Uncle Tom, i.e. the obedient, supportive and long suffering house slave in the ante bellum American south, does exist in the Orientalist colonial literature of most former imperial powers. Many of you are familiar with the French, British, American and Belgian films, novels and comic books in which the good Muslim is praised and the bad Muslim is demonized; the best example of this being the now universally recognisable colonialist comic adventurer, Tin Tin (Dabbous 1998). And one needs only look at the role designated by the US and Israel to the Palestinian Authority and by the West to the governing Iraqi and Afghan regimes, to see modern day political parallels. However, in no other country does the tradition of the Oriental frontier run so deep, sinking roots into the collective psyche of a nation for half a millennium, as it does in Austria. And this makes Austrian Orientalism so unique.

Bibliography

Alois Musil, Prague, http://www.dreyblatt.de/whoswho/EXPEDITIONSANDEXPLORAT.HTML#Musil,%20Alois; (download: 27/Jan/04).

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AUB Marks Twentieth Anniversary of Malcolm Kerr's Death; American University of Beirut, http://www.aub.edu.lb/news/dynamic/33838.html, (download: 02/Feb/04).

Richard A. Bermann alias Arnold Höllriegel, Die Fahrt auf dem Katarakt: Eine Autobiographie ohne einen Helden (Vienna: Picus Verlag, 1998).

Veronika Bernhard, Österreicher im Orient: Eine Bestandsaufnahme österreichischer Reiseliteratur im 19. Jahrhundert (Vienna: Holzhausen, 1996).

Dima Dabbous, No Laughing Matter, The Portrayal of Arabs and Muslims in Western Comic Books, Occasional Papers series 13, (Salzburg: GenderLink Diversity Centre, March 1998).

Edward Said, Orientalism, reviewed by Malcolm Kerr; International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 12 (December 1980), pp. 544-547. http://www.geocities.com/orientalismorg/Kerr.htm (download: 27/Jan/04).

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FP-Programmdebatte: Zwischen Mäder und Florisdorf und im "13ten", "Fundamente Europas" gesucht; von Carlo Ruggiero© JUNGE FREIHEIT Verlag GmbH & Co. www.jungefreiheit.de, 24/97/05. Juni 1997 http://www.jf-archiv.de/archiv/24aa41.htm (download: 27/Jan/04)

Andre Gingrich, IMMIGRATION POLITICS, AUSTRIAN MILLENIAL FESTIVALS, AND THE ROLE OF ANTHROPOLOGY; Andre Gingrich , Institute for Social Anthropology, University of Vienna, Universitässtrasse 7; A - 1010 Vienna / Austria, Email: andre.gingrich@univie.ac.at; Paper presented at the Session "Anthropology and the Politics of Culture in Contemporary Germany, Switzerland, and Austria": Twentieth Annual Conference of the German Studies Association, Seattle Wa., 10th - 13th october 1996. http://www.univie.ac.at/voelkerkunde/theoretical-anthropology/andre.html; (download: 27/01/04).

Andre Gingrich. GRENZMYTHEN DES ORIENTALISMUS: DIE ISLAMISCHE WELT IN ÖFFENTLICHKEIT UND VOLKSKULTUR MITTELEUROPAS; übersetzter, gekürzter und aktualisierter Beitrag, der ursprünglich 1998 auf Englisch erschien. http://www.wittgenstein2000.at/home/artikel_orientalisch.doc; (download: 27/01/04); (Andre Gingrich, 1998: "Frontier Myths of Orientalism: The Muslim World in Public and Popular Cultures of Central Europe." In: Baskar, Bojan and Borut Brumen (eds.): “Mediterranean Ethnological Summer School, Piran/Pirano Slovenia 1996” MESS vol. II., Ljubljana: 99-127. German translation/Deutsche Übersetzung, updated/überarbeitet: „Grenzmythen des Orientalismus- Die islamische Welt in Öffentlichkeit und Volkskultur Mitteleuropas.“ In: Mayr- Oehring, Erika und Elke Doppler (Hg.): „Orientalische Reise: Malerei und Exotik im späten 19. Jh“ : 110- 129. Wien: Wien Museum 2003.)

Leopold Hellmuth, “Traditions and Major Aspects of Oriental Studies in Austria in the 19th Century,” trans. Erika Obermayer and Susanne Watzek, in Orient: Österreichische Malerei zwischen 1848 und 1914, ed. Erika Mayer-Oehring (Salzburg: Residenzgalerie, 1997), 329-345.

Der heilige Antisemit: Ein österreichischer Theologieprofessor fordert jüdische Reue; Copyright © 1997 - Süddeutsche Zeitung. SZonNet 3.1; http://www.hagalil.com/austria/0198.htm (download: 27/Jan/04).

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Historical Photographs of the Land of Jordan and its People; by Alois Musil alias Sheikh Musa al-Rweili (1868-1944): Czech-Austrian Traveler and Scholar author: Tomas Smetanka; http://membres.lycos.fr/amusil/ (download: 27/Jan/04).

Ein wahrer Kara Ben Nemsi. Zu dem Buch von Erich Feigl über den Orientreisenden Alois Musil; Musil von Arabien. Vorkämpfer der islamischen Welt. von Erich Feigl, Amalthea Vlg., München (1985). Taschenbuch http://karlmay.leo.org/kmg/seklit/biblio/237.htm, (download: 25/01/05).

HELMUT LIEBLANG, Im Schatten des Großherrn; Karl May, Charles Didier, von der Berswordt; (download: 27/Jan/04), http://karlmay.leo.org/kmg/seklit/JbKMG/1999/270.htm.

Roman Loimeier, "Edward Said und der Deutschsprachige Orientalismus: Eine Kritischee Würdigung," Stichproben: Wiener Zeitschrift für kritische Afrikastudien, 1, 2 (2001).

Amin Maalouf, The Crusades through Arab Eyes (New York: Schocken Books, 1984).

Carl Niekerk, "Rethinking a Problematic Constellation: Postcolonialism and its Germanic Contexts (Pramoedya Ananta Toer/Multatuli)," Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 23, 1&2 (2003).

Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Vantage, 1979).

Said's Splash; From Ivory Towers on Sand; Edward Said browbeat Middle Eastern studies into submission. by Martin Kramer; http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/SaidSplash.htm (download:27/Jan/04). "Said's Splash" is chapter two of Martin Kramer's Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America (Washington: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2001), pp. 27-43.

Eugene Sensenig-Dabbous, "Will the Real Almasy Please Stand Up! Transporting Central European Orientalism via The English Patient," Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 24, 2 (2004).

Raoul Schrott and Michael Farin, “Vorwort, Schwimmer in der Wüste“, in: Ladislaus E. Almásy, Schwimmer in der Wüste: Auf der Suche nach der Oase Zarzura (Innsbruck: Haymon, 1997)

Selected Books Die Kurden, Erich Feigl; Zwischen Rebellion und Revolution Eine kurze Geschichte anatolischer Aufstände und ihrer Folgen; http://www.mfa.gov.tr/grupe/eg/eg03/08.htm (download: 27/Jan/04).

Selections from: IN THE ARABIAN DESERT; by Alois Musil; http://www.iras.ucalgary.ca/~volk/sylvia/Musil.htm (download: 27/Jan/04); (Originally published in 1930).

8. April 1997; Unheilige Paarungen; http://ezines.onb.ac.at:8080/quint/pub/97-04-11/PolitBuro/970409_2.html; (27/Jan/04); Momentaufnahmen eines wehrhaften Paarungsrituals: ”Die Bewahrung der geistigen Grundlagen des Abendlandes erfordert ein wehrhaftes Christentum.“ (27/Jan/04)

Wiener akademische Burschenschaft OLYMPIA; http://olympia.burschenschaft.at/Olympen/LindingerWKR2002.html; OLYMPENREDE; zum 143. Stiftungsfest im Rahmen des WKR-Kommerses vom 30. November 2002von Bbr., Bundesrat a. D., Dr. Dipl. Ing. Bernd LINDINGER. (27/Jan/04)

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Who's Who: Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck; Updated - Monday, 19 November, 2001; http://www.firstworldwar.com/bio/lettowvorbeck.htm (download: 27/Jan/04).

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