Липа, дуб и василек: О символическом измерении национального конфликта в Австро-Венгрии рубежа XIX–XX веков
Linden, oak and cornflower: On the symbolic dimension of the national conflict in Austria-Hungary at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries

Summary/Abstract: Based on the material of the press, journalism and visual sources, the article discusses the role of vegetative symbols — oak, linden and cornflower — in the national conflict in Austria-Hungary at the turn of the 19th – 20th centuries. The political and ideological relevance of symbols, a number of social practices associated with them are being studied. As a German national symbol, the oak has been especially actively used since the beginning of the 19th century and by the end of it already undoubtedly prevailed in the public space of Germany, since the meanings and metaphors associated with it reflected the changes in public consciousness that occurred in connection with the creation of the German Empire; linden as an alternative plant symbol has lost its political meanings. In Austria-Hungary, on the other hand, national tensions kept the linden as a political symbol relevant, but its perception was ambivalent, ranging from recognizing it as unequivocally «German» to statements about the «Slavic» nature of the tree. Embodied by plant emblems, national characters were conceived as synchronous configurations, oppositions, which often led to the representation of national conflicts as a competition of symbols, which had an integrating effect and made it possible to more clearly identify one’s own national features. At the same time, the symbols of oak and linden combined, on the one hand, a specific nationality — Germans and Czechs, respectively, and, on the other, «Germanism» and «Slavdom». If a number of interpretations of the «German oak» had an unconditionally pan-German content, then the symbol of the linden remained basically Austro-Slavic. The cornflower carried the most radical political meanings, being a spokesman for nationalist, pan-Germanist and anti-Semitic views. For most of the 19th century the opposition of oak and linden was interpreted in terms of history and culture, but since the turn of the century the same rivalry has been increasingly depicted as a struggle for existence.

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