Austria before Austria: The Medieval Past of Polities to Come
Herwig Wοlfram
Throughout the world, historians expand history of their nations and states into periods when these polities did not yet exist. The French speak first dynasty mean Frankish Merovingians. Until recently textbooks even for students in overseas territories started with “Nos ancêtres, les Gaulois.” In German Kaiserreich between 1871 1918, let us say, little Jan Kowalski Poznan had to accept Germanic peoples as his forefathers, every textbook on dealt them at length. Needless only medievalists Germans long before theodiscus or teutonicus came deutsch . All over world people search roots identity. Take, instance, present preoccupation Celtic ancestors. Not Irish, Welsh, Scots, Bretons, but a great many other Europeans also want be Celts by origin. “Their successors Brittany, Wales, Ireland do threaten anybody Anschluss war. origins, therefore, fit Austrian neutrality perfectly well,” Erich Zöllner ironically put it 1976 after Chancellor Bruno Kreisky openly declared that were our forefathers.
Austrian History Yearbook