it from “master craftsman”, originally had no connection to the new educated classes. The entrepreneurs only gradually achieved some of the social standing that the intelligentsia had already claimed for itself. The state, which needed both, awarded outstanding members of the two groups with titles of nobility.7 These peerages (from a simple “von” to “knight” – or “baron” at the most) characterised the “second society” with their upper-class lifestyle who ranked behind the traditional high nobility but combined their sophisticated modes of behaviour with scientific, artistic, and literary interests. Schubert was honoured in these circles, and this is also where Grillparzer and Bauernfeld socialised. Grillparzer’s close ties were due to his uncle Joseph Sonnleithner’s connections. These circles were also the principal clients for painting which, along with music and theatre, rapidly blossomed in the Biedermeier and pre-March periods. Its master artists Friedrich von Amerling, Moritz Michael Daffinger, Josef Danhauser, Peter Fendi, Josef Kriehuber, and Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller created many portraits of members of this society.
The “second society” and the middle classes
The “second society” can be considered the leading group of the new bourgeois class that referred to itself as middle class. As early as in 1770, a rhyme typifying the self-awareness of the new middle class made the rounds:
“No-one’s lord, and no-one’s slave
That is the right of the middle-class”
The middle class therefore found itself between the ruling system (sovereign, bureaucracy, military, and nobility) and those who were still subjected to feudal domination – the mass of the farmers, as well as those dependent on domiciliary rights, apprentices, labourers, messengers, servants, and maids. In an anonymous document published in Leipzig in 1843 “Pia desideria of an Austrian Writer”, Eduard von Bauernfeld described all the intellectually active segments of society, “Professors, academics, artists, fabricants, tradesmen, economists, and even civil servants and clerics”, as belonging to the middle classes that were urgently demanding that censorship be relaxed and a general change in the political situation:
“… the Viennese have changed; they have become desperately serious. Here, as everywhere else, industry has set up its throne; a people that forms trade associations no longer has time to deal with what they prefer most: fried chicken, the Theatre in the Leopoldstadt, and the music of Strauss and Lanner.”8
With the Lower Austrian Trade Association (1839), the Inner Austrian Trade Association in Graz (1839), the Juridical-Political Reading Circle (1841), and the Concordia Writers’ Club (1844), the still-young middle-classes created new, modern organisational forms – ultimately also discussion forums in which, in spite of censorship and the police, certain demands on the state were also formulated.
Numerous problems were waiting to be solved – the farmers’ demands to abolish the feudal system, the growing need of the lower classes, and the national discontent that was becoming increasingly pressing, as well as the paralysis of the government that had been playing absolutism without a monarch (since the death of Franz I). Ferdinand I (1835–1848) was only nominally in power.
1848 – “… bourgeois revolution” –?
The long-expected revolution erupted on 13 March 1848 – it was a reaction to the Parisian February Revolution as well as Kossuth’s inflammatory speech in the Hungarian Parliament that was meeting not far from Vienna in Pressburg (Bratislava) at the time. Bourgeois circles prepared several petitions to be presented to the court, but the demands were expressed most clearly in the petition that the students formulated in the Aula and handed over to the Lower Austrian State Parliament on 13 March. The first success came soon after the first shots had been fired and the first people had been killed (“the fallen of March”). Metternich, the hated symbolic figure of the old regime, was overthrown on the same evening (the fact that he had already been disempowered was not known outside of court circles).
The Revolution quickly chalked up other victories. Freedom of the press, arming the people (national guards and the Academic Legion), and the promise of a constitution were announced on 15 March. When the so-called Pillersdorf Constitution was enacted on 25 April, it seemed as if the majority of the bourgeois demands had actually been fulfilled. But, the constitution, which was modelled on the Belgian version, had its weaknesses. It had been issued, or imposed, from above and allowed for a two-chamber system and an absolute veto from the monarch.
The “storm petition” of 15 May opposed this and especially the extremely restrictive electoral procedure that had been proclaimed on 9 May. The so-called May Revolution was borne mainly by students, craftsmen, and labourers whose situation had not improved since March. This led to the “bourgeois” revolution finding itself in a decision-making crisis. What was more important – especially for the members of the upper middle-class: the expansion of personal and political rights or the preservation of the Habsburg Empire? Faced with these alternatives, quite a few the dissatisfied bourgeois citizens remained silent. Or – like Franz Grillparzer in early June in his famous poem on Field Marshall Radetzky (“Good luck, Commander! Get it done! […] Austria is on your side”) – came out in favour of the nation state, the military, and ultimately, on the side of the counterrevolution.
However, the Austrian Reichstag assembled before the victory of the counterrevolution – this was the first elected parliament in the Western sector of Habsburg Monarchy (elections to the lower house had been held previously in Hungary – but only entitled members of the nobility had taken part). The election resulted in a clear bourgeois majority: approximately 55 per cent of the 383 representatives belonged to this class. Almost one quarter – 92 – were farmers. They considered the question of the constitution relatively unimportant; their main concern was with the agrarian reform to abolish the landlord’s primary ownership and resulting contractual obligations on the part of the farmer as well as the landlord’s jurisdiction and police force. This was actually passed by the Reichstag at the end of August and made the farmers fully entitled citizens. The differences between citizens and labourers, property owners and those without possession, intensified during these debates. When the empty state coffers caused the Minister of Labour to cut former subsidies, this resulted in mass demonstrations by the workers who were bloodily dispersed by the bourgeois National Guard (“Prater Battle”, 23 August 1848). It proved impossible to overcome this split.
The rest is well known: The Croat Banus Jelačić invaded Hungary, leading to war between that country and the imperial army. When it was planned to send troops from Vienna to Hungary, the October Revolution broke out and ultimately led to the military conquest of Vienna by the emperor’s forces on 31 October. This was followed by numerous arrests and executions.
But, similar to the retarding element before the catastrophic last act of a tragedy, the Reichstag assembled once again – this time, in Kremsier (Kroměňiče) in Moravia in the imposing castle of the Archbishop of Olmütz (the imperial family had been housed in his residence in Olmütz since October 1848). Here, the exclusively “German” liberals were isolated in a Czech environment and there was no danger of a popular uprising for this parliament. However, the Reichstag performed extremely positive work until its dissolution on 7 March 1849 – a draft for a constitution was agreed on: it not only proclaimed the principle of the sovereignty of the people and civil liberties, but also aimed to solve the problem of the coexistence of the different language groups in the multinational state. At the same time as the dissolution of the parliament, Prince Felix Schwarzenberg’s government proclaimed its own constitution (once again: imposed from above) dated 4 March 1849. The parliamentary representatives who were thought to be radical were arrested, and several were sentenced to death (including the “Preacher of the Revolution”, Anton Fuster, Dr Josef Goldmark, Dr Ernst (von) Violand, and the “liberator of the farmers” Hans Kudlich,
