Empire

This chapter discusses the political contexts of Arnold Schoenberg’s life in the final decades of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (c.1889–1922). The rulers of that empire, members of the Habsburg Dynasty, faced a number of crucial challenges that they ultimately were unable to overcome. These included numerous military defeats of course, but also internal dynastic problems relating to overstretched resources, Italian Unification and shifting attitudes toward religion and the Papacy, and a dynastic shift in its male members’ policies toward women. Schoenberg experienced the end of more than 600 years of Habsburg rule in Austria. This epochal shift would have consequences for his thought and music.

Ancient history · Empire · Political science · Australian History and Society · Colonial History and Postcolonial Studies · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · History