Europas Großreiche waren geprägt von ethnischer Differenz und räumlicher Vielfalt. Gerade diese Pluralität galt lange als Ursache für Scheitern und Zerfall. Empires prägten die Geschichte Europas jedoch viel länger und stärker als die jungen Nationalstaaten, die unsere Vorstellung von Europa bis heute bestimmen. Die Beiträge dieses Bandes vergleichen systematisch vier europäische Empires im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert: das Britische Empire, die Habsburgermonarchie, Russland und das Osmanische Reich. Wie spannungsreich die Beziehungen zwischen Zentrum und Peripherie sowie zwischen Herrschern und Beherrschten waren, wird am Beispiel von Infrastrukturen, Konflikten und Kriegserfahrungen ebenso deutlich wie anhand der Praxis von Monarchie und Religion.

InhaltsangabeIntroduction 1. Ulrike von Hirschhausen (Rostock) und Jörn Leonhard (Freiburg/Br.): Beyond Rise, Decline and Fall - Comparing Multi-Ethnic Empires in the long Nineteenth Century I. Exploring and mobilizing - The challenge of imperial space 2. Valeska Huber: Highway of the British Empire? The Suez Canal between Imperial Competition and Local Accommodation 3. Frithjof Benjamin Schenk: Mastering Imperial Space? The Ambivalent Impact of Railway Building in Tsarist Russia 4. Marsha Siefert: "ChingisKhan with the Telegraph": Communications in the Russian and Ottoman Empires 5. Murat Özyüksel: Integration and Control? Railway Building and the Stability of Rule in the Ottoman Empire 6. Karl Schlögel: Commentary II. Mapping and classifying - Surveying composite states and multi-ethnic populations 7. Ulrike von Hirschhausen: People that count: The Imperial Census in 19th and early 20th Century Europe and India 8. Thomas Guy: Cartography and the Imperial Gaze: Projections of the British Quest for Hegemony in sub-Saharan Africa 9. Mehmet Hacisalihoglu: Borders, Maps and Censuses: Politicization of Geography and Statistics in the Multi-Ethnic Ottoman Empire 10. Ute Schneider: Commentary III. Mediating and representing - The Monarchy as an imperial instrument 11. Ulrike von Hirschhausen: Representing monarchy as an imperial tool-kit: Great Britain and India in the 19th and early 20th century 12. Daniel Unowsky: Dynastic Symbolism and Popular Patriotism in Late Imperial Austria 13. Richard Wortman: The Tsar and Empire: Representation of the Monarchy and Symbolic Integration in Imperial Russia 14. Hakan Karateke: The Ideal of the Ottoman Sultan in the Nineteenth Century 15. Peter Haslinger: Commentary IV. Believing and integrating - Religion and education as media for imperial images 16. Benedict Stuchtey: Mission and Cultural Civilization: Religion, Confession and the British Empire 17. Joachim von Puttkamer: Ambiguities of Integration: Educational Infrastructures in the Habsburg Monarchy and Tsarist Russia 18. Martin Schulze Wessel: Politics and Religion in two Empires: Russia and the Habsburg Monarchy in Comparison 19. Azmi Özcan: The Tradition of the Caliphate in the Ottoman Empire 20. Fikret Adanir: Commentary V. Ruling and bargaining - Confronting conflicts within the empire 21. Jörn Leonhard: "The British are always at war somewhere": Imperial Conflict Strategies during the Indian Mutiny and the South African War 22. Alice Freifeld: Conflict and De-escalation: The Crisis of the Habsburg Monarchy 1848/49 and the "Ausgleich" of 1867 in Comparison 23. Alexei Miller: The Romanov Empire and the Polish Uprisings of 1830-31 and 1863-64: A Diachronic Comparison 24. Maurus Reinkowski: Between Imperial Idea and "Realpolitik": Reform Policy and Nationalism in the Ottoman Empire 25. Jürgen Osterhammel: Commentary VI. Defending and fighting - The experience of the First World War 26. Santanu Das: "Heart and Soul with Britain"? - India, Empire and the Great War 27. Martin Zückert: Imperial War in the Age of Nationalism: The Habsburg Monarchy and the First World War 28. Eric Lohr: Core Nationalism: The Russian Empire in the First World War 29. ErikJan Zürcher: Demographic Engineering, the Army and the End of the Ottoman Empire 30. Jörn Leonhard: Commentary

The empires of Europe with their multiethnic societies have long been considered failures, and their history was often presented as a narrative of mere disintegration and decay. With the ever-dominating subject of nation-state formation receding, a new scope for considering empires as the much longer and pervasive alternative in European history opens up. Against this background this volume contributes to a more systematic comparison of the ambivalent und changing relationships between central and peripheral areas, between those who colonized and those who were colonized in the British Empire, the Habsburg Monarchy, Russia and the Ottoman Empire. The spectrum of such relationships ranges from infrastructure and political conflicts to the practice of monarchy between religion and war.>