IT IS A GOOD COUNTRY

Republican history lesson(s)

Wolfgang Maderthaner, historian, Director General of the Austrian State Archives
in dialogue with
Sibylle Hamann, Journalist and author

In 2018, we celebrated the centenary of the founding of the Republic. But what does Austria actually mean?
In 2018, historian Wolfgang Maderthaner published the magnificent volume "Austria. 99 Documents, Letters, Charters". In it, he presents classics of the historical memory of the Central European region as well as the unexpected, the unknown, the surprising, from the first surviving document from the year 816 to the great migration crisis of 2015. The documents illustrate unique cultural achievements as well as acts of the deepest barbarism, they tell of dynastic imperialism, of great power politics, resistance and rebellion, of the fates of the powerful as well as the (survival) strategies of those usually forgotten by history.
In our new series "Es ist ein gutes Land. Republican History Lesson(s)", Wolfgang Maderthaner and various dialogue partners will outline an up-to-date history of the space that has been given the signature "Austria" within a wide variety of borders and in massively changing attributions of meaning.

Wolfgang Maderthaner
AUSTRIA
99 documents, letters and certificates
Brandstätter publishing house, 2018
ISBN: 978-3-7106-0193-4, 592 pages; 50,- €