Traditiones 53 (3): 73–98 | COBISS: 1.01 | CC BY 4.0 | DOI: 10.3986/Traditio2024530304
Indications of the In-Between in Works of W. 
Wabruschek-Blumenbach and F. Umlauft: A Case 
Study of Two Habsburg Ethnographers
Gerhard Katschnig
Department of Cultural Analysis, University of Klagenfurt, Austria
gerhard.katschnig@aau.at
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9145-6342
This article is a case study of the two Habsburg 
ethnographers, Wenzel Wabruschek-Blu-
menbach (1791-1847) and Friedrich Umlauft 
(1844-1923). It attempts to classify their works 
Neuestes Gemälde der Oesterreichischen 
Monarchie (1832/1837) and Die Österre-
ichisch-Ungarische Monarchie (1876/1897) 
against the background of nationalization 
tendencies in the long 19th century by looking 
for implicit and explicit indications of the 
in-between.
 ⬝ Keywords: Habsburg Empire, ethnography, 
nationalization, cultural hybridity, in-between
Ta članek je študija primera o dveh habs-
burških etnografih, Wenzelu Wabruschek- 
Blumenbachu (1791-1847) in Friedrichu 
Umlauftu (1844-1923). Njuni deli Neuestes 
Gemälde der Oesterreichischen Monarchie 
(1832/1837) in Die Österreichisch-Ungarische 
Monarchie (1876/1897) poskuša uvrstiti v 
ozadje nacionalizacijskih teženj v dolgem 19. 
stoletju z iskanjem nakazovanja implicitnih 
in eksplicitnih vmesnosti.
 ⬝ Ključne besede: Habsburška monarhija, 
etnografija, nacionalizacija, kulturna hibri-
dnost, vmesnost
Introduction
This article is part of a research project that aims to analyse the “in-between” of his-
torical subjects living in three selected cities of the Alps-Adriatic Region – Klagenfurt, 
Ljubljana, and Trieste – from 1815 to 1914 in terms of the economic, cultural, social 
and language practices.1 There were manifold cultural, economic, and political-admin-
istrative relations between these cities, until they underwent a process of nationalization 
towards the end of the 19th century that led to the formation of nation-states (Moritsch, 
2001: 8–9). On the one hand, it is a naturalized truism of analysis in research to speak 
of insurmountable nationality conflicts regarding the last decades of the Habsburg 
Monarchy (Hobsbawm, 2005). On the other hand, we have known since Benedict 
1  This article is part of the research project Discourses and Practices of the In-Between in the Alpine-Adri-
atic Region: Klagenfurt, Ljubljana, and Trieste 1815–1914: A Transnational, Interdisciplinary Co-Research 
Project (see Fikfak, Schönberger, 2024; https://inbetween.aau.at/). Taking the three cities of Klagenfurt, 
Ljubljana, and Trieste as examples, the Austrian-Slovenian project explores the forms of “in-between” that 
can be revealed (1) in discourses articulated in contemporary ethnographies, (2) in practices to be found in 
associations and institutions, marked by their cultural, social, religious and economic relations, and (3) on the 
basis of unpublished diaries, letters or autobiographies of historical subjects living at the time. Preliminary 
research has already been done on Trieste’s Schillerverein (Holfelder et al., 2017) and the Società Minerva 
(Ličen, 2017), showing that international networks continued to be upheld regardless of the nationalizing 
discourse.
Gerhard Katschnig 
74 |     Traditiones
Anderson’s Imagined Communities, which provided significant impetus for the theo-
retical description of nationalisms, that nations are not natural entities but imaginary 
communities. They have emerged as a replacement for, on the one hand, the former 
great dynasties and, on the other, the great religions with their narratives of meaning 
which were committed to unity (Anderson, 2006 [1991]: 37ff.). Beyond this construct 
of the development of nation-states, recent Habsburg research (Feichtinger et al., 2003; 
Wingfield, 2003; Feichtinger, Cohen, 2014; Komlosy, 2015; Feichtinger, Uhl, 2016; 
Judson, 2017; Feichtinger, Uhl, 2023) shows that this process of nationalization was 
not unambiguous and that the affiliations of historical subjects to the respective nations 
were not clear, sometimes even characterized by an in-between. They are manifested 
in, for example, the use of several languages, transnational trade relations, joint leisure 
pursuits in associations and family relations across national borders.2 In the end, how-
ever, ethnicizing and nationalizing narratives seem to have prevailed over non-coherent 
practices and non-nationalizing narratives in the dissolving Habsburg Monarchy.
Ethnographies in the Habsburg region in the 19th century had already made reference 
to the in-between on a discursive level. In relation to the characteristic aspect of the 
Austrian imperial state in the 1850s, Karl von Czörnig, for example, mentions ethnic 
groups living together in the most diverse mix (“in buntester Mischung”) in the preface 
of his Ethnographie der Österreichischen Monarchie (Czoernig, 1857: v), whereas, 
more than ten years later, Adolf Ficker pointed this out several times in his handbook 
Die Völkerstämme der österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie, ihre Gebiete, Gränzen 
und Inseln when he described the pluricultural character of Pontebba and other selected 
areas as a “triplex confinium” (Ficker, 1869: 38, 62, 72) and that of selected peoples 
on the various linguistic borders of the Habsburg Empire as “sujets mixtes” (Ficker, 
1869: 34). The terms “in buntester Mischung”, “triplex confinium” or “sujets mixtes” 
used in the ethnographies stood for a form of hybridity that, from the authors’ point of 
view, pointed to ambiguous constellations and non-ethnicizing commonalities. Bojan 
Baskar showed that there is a dynamic process and a parallel existence of narratives 
besides ethnicizing, nationalizing, and pro-Habsburg discourses (2008). I assume that 
these ethnicizing and nationalizing narratives, which started to pervade public and 
political debates after 1848/49 (Judson, 1998), were only one manifestation among 
non-nationalist narratives and non-coherent practices.3 But most ethnographies have 
2  A detailed theoretical elaboration of the term ‘in-between’, which refers to the concept as it applies to 
the Alps-Adriatic region in the 19th century, can be found in the article by Janine Schemmer and Klaus 
Schönberger (Schemmer, Schönberger, 2024). 
3  However, it is important to note that ethnicizing processes had begun even before 1848, with some rooted 
in the reduction of Johann Gottfried Herder’s idea of valuing any culture and people/ethnicity. This reduction 
can be traced back to figures such as Urban Jarnik, who already opposed the Germanization process by 
advocating for Slovenian cultural identity, or Ján Kollár as well as Pavel J. Šafárik and their influence on 
Serbian intellectuals (Ljuboja, 2018: 75–78).
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Traditiones     | 75
been only partially studied so far regarding their content, with the exception of Czörnig’s 
work and the Kronprinzenwerk (1885–1902).
The reason for this research gap could lie in the fact that the ethnographers do not 
offer a detailed view of the everyday life of historical subjects. There are no sources 
of these subjects or about them; it is always the ethnographer’s descriptive gaze, us-
ing sources that are documents of the activities of the administration and educational 
elites. Their descriptions take place on a more general, discursive level, hardly giving 
voice to those aspirations and attitudes that structured everyday experience and have 
remained invisible in everyday life precisely because there are no written records of 
them. This circumstance can lead to the assumption that ethnographies are of little 
use for analysing the historical life-worlds of individual subjects or are too focused 
on recording global/state structures. Using Carlo Ginzburg’s microhistory, focusing on 
threads and traces, I will re-read selected ethnographies to provide a basis that may shed 
new light on this research. Ginzburg’s method of microhistory is a close-up, minute 
analysis of a narrowly defined documentation. It is akin to securing evidence in order 
to discover anomalies within a subject or source (Ginzburg, 1993: 22, 2020: 188). In 
this way, divergent readings can be generated that provide information about horizons 
of meaning in the life-worlds of historical subjects that are not explicitly communicated 
in the sources. Reading these sources between the lines and against the grain (Ginzburg, 
2002; Schnickmann, 2020: 26–27), I suspect I will find implicit and/or explicit indica-
tions of in-between, based on clues which older research might consider insignificant. 
I will analyse the Neuestes Gemälde der Oesterreichischen Monarchie (1832/1837) 
by Wenzel Wabruschek-Blumenbach, and Die Österreichisch-Ungarische Monarchie 
(1876/1897) by Friedrich Umlauft in detail. It is not my intention to provide a com-
prehensive content analysis. Instead, selected passages are intended to illustrate how a 
reading between the lines can provide new insights into the in-between of past life-worlds. 
Furthermore, it is to be expected that various points of view can be identified in these 
ethnographies, because the authors were committed to various “Habsburg systems”: 
Wabruschek-Blumenbach was living in the Kaiserstaat of the Vormärz era, Umlauft 
in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy of the late 19th century. Both were confronted with 
the challenge of describing a multi-ethnic state whose characteristic was precisely to 
emphasize the complex unity of a heterogeneous empire. I derive two tasks from this 
basic challenge: Firstly, I will look for information they provide implicitly, but also 
explicitly, about processes and situations on a discursive level of in-between. Secondly, 
I will analyse how the ethnographers deal with those features that they characterized 
as the most salient of the monarchy: heterogeneity and difference.
In order to contextualize the descriptions of 19th-century ethnographers and to 
see what kind of information they provide, it is necessary to look at ethnography in 
general as a source in the 18th and 19th century (part one). This is followed by the 
analysis of Wabruschek-Blumenbach’s and Umlauft’s work based on the two tasks 
Gerhard Katschnig 
76 |     Traditiones
(part two and three). Brief biographical sketches of the authors serve not only to intro-
duce them but also to answer questions about the context in which their ethnographies 
were created and handed down, reconstruct the author’s motivation for writing and his 
intended readership, as well as characterize the writing style and text structure. Due to 
the considerable time span of almost 60 years between the two authors, a difference in 
methodology, argumentation and conclusion is to be expected in their work.
From Land und Leute to ethnography
Ethnographic observation interests in the 18th century
Questions about not only cultural community and togetherness in the economy, cus-
toms, and traditions but also differences to other ethnic groups signalize the beginning 
of ethnographers’ interest. These ethnographers were characterized by roaming the 
country with a horse, servant, sketchbook and astrolabe, descriptively surveying towns, 
monasteries and castles as well as markets and their protagonists. Belsazar Hacquet, for 
example, in the Physikalisch politische Reise, tried to combine the natural history of 
the Eastern Alps with a historical interest in economic fundamentals (Klemun, 1988: 
6–12), in his words:
Allein bey allen diesen mühsamen Reisen, welche ich nur meistens zu 
Fuße machte, und mit nichts als einem kleinen Gebirgpferd begleitet 
[…], stehe ich doch nicht Bürge, manches übersehen zu haben; […] Der 
Gegenstand dieser meiner Reise war hauptsächlich, die Physik der Erde, 
oder einen Versuch einer Oryctographia alpina zu entwerfen, dann neb-
stbey, wo es mir die wenige Zeit erlaubte, einige Bemerkungen aus dem 
ökonomisch- und politischen Fach mit aufzuzeichnen.4 (Hacquet, 1785: v)
This is not the place to refer to the earliest ethnographic works in Habsburg lands, 
but according to Bernleithner, Lichtenberger, and Kaschuba (Bernleithner, 1949: 
41–151; Lichtenberger, 2009: 18–21; Kaschuba, 2012: 28–34), the following scientific 
discourses, which methodically bundled ethnographic observation interests, can be 
traced from the second half of the 18th century onwards:
4  “But with all these arduous journeys, which I only made mostly on foot, and accompanied by nothing 
but a small mountain horse […], I cannot vouch for having overlooked many things. […] The object of this 
journey of mine was mainly to sketch the physics of the earth, or an attempt at an Oryctographia alpina, 
then in addition, where the little time allowed me, to record some remarks from the economic and political 
subject.” (Translations in footnotes by the author.)
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Traditiones     | 77
In order to answer the question of how to statistically record such an extensive 
territory as the Habsburg Empire, whose exact borders changed regularly due to war, 
topographers collected comprehensive data on the demographic and economic struc-
ture of the respective lands and villages. Firstly, these early forms of statistics can be 
regarded not only as an ethnographic and geographic description of the situation and 
configuration but also as evidence of facts that could serve the state in governing its 
population and levying taxes. Secondly, the Göttingen scholars in the second half of 
the 18th century, such as Gottfried Achenwall and August Ludwig von Schlözer, were 
pioneers in integrating geographical and historical analysis within the broader frame-
work of Staatswissenschaften (sciences of state), significantly shaping early modern 
practices in statistical and ethnographic studies. Their influence extended to Austrian 
scholars and the broader practice of statistics within the Habsburg Empire (Lindenfeld, 
1997: 42–45). The aim of these investigations and studies was to assess the military and 
economic potential from the point of view of administrative planning and understand it 
as an opportunity for development (Rosenmayr, 1966: 271–272). The pre-phase of the 
enlightened absolutism of the Habsburg Monarchy up to the middle of the 19th century, 
thus, created the foundations that were not only required by the geographical research 
of the time, but on which we also still rely today: precise topographical maps and 
statistical data on population, settlement, and economy. The institutional prerequisites 
for these “information blocks” were created, on the one hand, by military cartography 
and, on the other, by the establishment of a statistical service. The civil service and 
the military formed the pillars of the administration of the empire.
In addition to cadastral maps, town plans and topographical maps, topographically 
accurate censuses of the settlement, population and economy were carried out by the 
statistical service. They formed the basis for topographical encyclopaedias and address 
books, some of which were created on private initiatives. Manufacturers, traders and 
entrepreneurs were the interested parties. As early as 1782, Benedikt Franz Herrmann 
published a work on the current state of agriculture, trade, manufactories, factories and 
activities in Vienna. In his preliminary report (introduction), he described the regional 
studies as a useful and, at the same time, pleasant study, which was not merely an outline 
of the physical constitution of the Austrian states, but a handbook for the merchant, 
cameralist and statistician regarding industry: “[nicht] bloß Abriß der physikalischen 
Beschaffenheit der österreichischen Staaten seyn [soll]; sondern ich habe mich auch 
bemüht, sie in Rücksicht der Industrie zu einem Handbuche für den Kaufmann, Kamer-
alisten und Statistiker zu machen”5 (Herrmann, 1782: 3). The six-volume Geographische 
Handbuch von dem österreichischen Staate was published from 1787 to 1791 by Ignaz 
De Luca, professor of general and special political science and later of statistics at the 
5  “… that is [not] merely an outline of the physical constitution of the Austrian states; but I have also 
endeavoured to make it a handbook for the merchant, cameralist and statistician with regard to industry.”
Gerhard Katschnig 
78 |     Traditiones
University of Vienna (1795–1799). Under the heading Land und Leute, interesting and 
curious facts from regional history and the present, both of which were largely agrarian 
in character, reflected the economic and living conditions of the time.6
To summarize, in the sense of an economic-geographical representation, the focus 
of the observation interests of the 18th century was less on linguistic-ethnographic 
aspects of the inhabitants of the imperial state and more on the economic structures.
Ethnographer’s emphasis in the 19th century
In relation to the Habsburg Empire, the scientific discourses mentioned above contrib-
uted to the development of regional studies/geography/ethnography to varying degrees. 
Until the late 18th century, these early ethnographic treatises were largely the result of 
the private initiative of individual researchers from the various Austrian provinces. This 
gave rise to a second series of regional studies monographs, which originated in the 
Vormärz period and were now more institutionally anchored in universities and similar 
scientific institutions. Regional studies associations in all the larger cities, geographical 
and agricultural societies, and provincial museums devoted themselves to the further 
development of regional studies in the broadest sense of the term. Wenzel Wabrus-
chek-Blumenbach, for example, wrote a three-volume work on factories and trade in 
the Austrian imperial state (Vienna, 1819–1824). His popular scientific work Neuestes 
Gemälde der Oesterreichischen Monarchie (Vienna, 1830–1833) was published in an 
improved second edition in three volumes in 1837. The approach to the geography 
and regional studies of Austria focused on geological, climatic, economic-geographical 
and ethnographic questions – a methodology that would later be used by Franz Sartori 
(Neueste Geographie von Steyermark), Franz Vierthaler (Wanderungen durch Salz-
burg), Franz Schweickhardt, Adolf Schmidl (Reisehandbuch durch das Erzherzogthum 
Österreich, 1834), who was the first private lecturer in geography to give lectures on 
regional studies from 1849, and Friedrich Umlauft, among others (Leopold, 1995: 
64–72; Lichtenberger, 2009: 20–21).
The following ethnographies were best known in the second half of the 19th cen-
tury: Czörnig’s Ethnographie der Österreichischen Monarchie (Vienna, 1855–1857), 
Adolf Ficker’s Die Völkerstämme der österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie (Vienna, 
1869) or the major anthologies Die Völker Österreich-Ungarns. Ethnographische 
und Culturhistorische Schilderungen (13 vol., Teschen, 1881–1883), Die Länder 
6  Another genre can be mentioned here, which I will not go into in detail: travel and travel literature. To 
a certain extent, it transferred the aforementioned concept of Land und Leute into the literary genre. Trav-
elogues, travel manuals, apodemics and the first travel guides conveyed, on the one hand, the attempt to 
describe the distinctive features and peculiarities of a country ethnographically and, on the other, the training 
of the correct observation when travelling in order to adequately absorb customs and traditions. Records 
of the geographical and climatic conditions of the regions visited were a natural part of these travelogues. 
Ute Holfelder et al. discuss this in detail in their contribution to this volume of Traditiones (Holfelder et al., 
2024).
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Traditiones     | 79
Oesterreich-Ungarns in Wort und Bild (15 vol., edited by Friedrich Umlauft 1880–1889), 
and Die österreichisch-ungarische Monarchie in Wort und Bild (Kronprinzenwerk, 24 
vol., 1885–1902). These ethnographies provide insight into the “culture, production, 
and popularisation of culture” (Bendix, 2010: 294) in the Habsburg crown lands or 
today’s Alps-Adriatic region and are of particular interest in relation to the analysis of 
the beginnings of anthropological research as a scientific discipline in Austria-Hungary. 
Czörnig’s Ethnographie der Österreichischen Monarchie and the Kronprinzenwerk 
can be used to show the further development of ethnography in the second half of the 
19th century. Czörnig, a civil servant and head of the Austrian Office for Statistics, 
worked less with data from outdated literature and more with new data from language 
surveys that he commissioned himself as well as with regular and up-to-date statistical 
reporting on for example population, agriculture, factories, education, and justice. The 
production of scientific knowledge via census defined the social realities of individuals 
in the Habsburg Empire by standardizing and reducing them to loyal citizens of the 
crown with an ethnic classification. The results were intended to provide information 
on ethnographic conditions that were as binding as the topographical characteristics 
of mountains or rivers. Such a construct could lead to the depiction of a diverse and 
harmonious entity from ethnographic descriptions of different nationalities, which did 
not reveal any political unrest, but rather the unity of a huge state and the need for a 
nationally neutral centralized administration (Grieshofer, 2006: 62–65; Rumpler, 2010: 
842–843; Labbé, 2011: 150–151; Göderle, 2016: 50–63; Stergar, Scheer, 2018: 580ff.). 
Czörnig stated in his lecture Über die Ethnographie Österreichs at the Imperial Academy 
of Sciences in 1857 that for all the diversity and equality of the individual nations in 
the Habsburg Empire, it was the Austrian monarchy and with it German culture that 
provided the decisive direction for the existence and prosperity – “zur Entwicklung der 
Cultur in religiös-sittlicher, intellectueller und materieller Hinsicht”7 (Czoernig, 1858: 
16) – of the individual ethnic groups. Subsequently, ethnographers, such as Umlauft, 
would refer to it literally.
The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 meant preserving the unity of the 
Habsburg Monarchy by dividing it into two parts. This Greater Austrian and Greater 
Hungarian concept reflects the so-called Kronprinzenwerk (Die österreichisch-ungarische 
Monarchie in Wort und Bild, 1885–1902). The hope was that it would be brought to 
the public and read as a popular book. Therefore, it was written in a generally under-
standable way in order to promote Habsburg patriotism and counteract national aspi-
rations. In this way, attempts were made to describe every ethnic group or nationality 
in the kaiserlich-königlich (k. k.) monarchy without destroying the politically desired 
cohesion, as the aim was to paint a picture of the life of all peoples in which they had 
identical or at least similar habits and were, thus, culturally connected to one another. 
7  “… for the development of culture in religious, moral, intellectual and material terms.”
Gerhard Katschnig 
80 |     Traditiones
If differences were identified, these were intended to mark the cultural richness of the 
multi-ethnic state (Fikfak, 2008: 89–92; Fikfak, Johler, 2008). The dualistic liber-
al-national conception did not realize the idea of an alliance of small peoples of equal 
rank, but regarded the German-Austrians and Hungarians as great nations due to their 
historical heritage, which had to act not as primus inter pares towards the country’s 
minorities but as hegemonic in culture and dominant in politics (Szás, 1997: 67ff.).
Czörnig’s publication and the Kronprinzenwerk were meant to emphasize a unity in 
diversity. Furthermore, they functioned as a cultural-political instrument, intended to 
hold the disintegrating Habsburg Monarchy together (Stagl, 1998). However, according 
to Peter Stachel among others, this was a task that was not able to be realized simply 
because the nationality conflicts within the monarchy could hardly be interpreted as 
being caused by insufficient knowledge of the other ethnic groups (Stachel, 2002: 
351–367). The ethnographer’s emphasis on the complexity of identities and differences 
presupposes a cultural hierarchy of the diverse ethnic groups of the monarchy, whereby, 
especially in the second half of the 19th century, the endeavour of a comprehensive 
representation of ethnic-cultural diversity as part of a political unity is contradictorily 
mixed with tendencies of national-cultural dominance thinking. Even if these ethnogra-
phies confirmed cultural differences and rather undermined the imperial identity, the 
order on paper, thus, became a supposed guide for political action.
Wenzel Wabruschek-Blumenbach and his Neuestes 
Gemälde der Oesterreichischen Monarchie
Short biography
Wenzel Wabruschek-Blumenbach8 was born in Vienna in 1791, according to the bap-
tismal register under the name Wenzel Wolfgang Wawaruschek (Taufbuch, 1791). As 
a young man aged 16, he published an ethnographic study of the Marchfeld region 
(east of Vienna) and its inhabitants, before studying law, geography, mineralogy, 
technology and statistics at the University of Vienna from 1805. He was employed as 
a secretary at the Cosmographic Institute under the geographer Joseph von Liechten-
stern from 1813 to 1815, at the end of which employment, his first major work, the 
Neueste Landeskunde von Österreich unter der Enns, was published under the name 
Wenzel Wabruschek-Blumenbach. He then became an employee of Stephan Edler von 
Keeß at the k. k. Niederösterreichischen Fabriken-Inspektion (Factory Inspectorate). 
The result of this collaboration was the publication in 1819–1824 of three volumes of 
a description of the factory and trade system in the Austrian imperial state. This was 
8  In all published works, he was referred to as W. C. (or K.) W. Blumenbach.
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Traditiones     | 81
followed by a presentation of the latest advances in the trades and manufactories and 
their current state.
Wabruschek-Blumenbach then began working in the Imperial and Royal Cabinet 
of National Technology (k. k. Vaterländisch-technologisches Cabinet) founded by 
Crown Prince Ferdinand, who later became Emperor; this cabinet later became part 
of the Vienna University of Technology. He became Ferdinand’s private librarian in 
1825 and worked in the engraving and map collection. In 1829, he became a book 
censor and retained this position until his death in 1847. In 1835, he was promoted to 
the position of the custodian of the cabinet mentioned above and also held this position 
until the end of his life (Kurze Anzeigen, 1832: 1599–1600; Gräffer, Czikann, 1835: 
317–318; Bernleithner, 1942: 141–152).
Neuestes Gemälde der Oesterreichischen Monarchie
Wabruschek-Blumenbach wrote numerous articles on regional history in the broadest 
sense from 1808 to 1847, as shown in part one (above). They were published alter-
nately as geographical and statistical sketches. His three-volume popular science work 
Neuestes Gemälde der Oesterreichischen Monarchie was published by Anton Doll in 
1830–1833 as part of Joseph Baptist Schütz’s large-scale, 30-volume Allgemeine Erd-
kunde, oder Beschreibung aller Länder der fünf Welttheile (1829–1834) (Bernleithner, 
1973: 157ff.; Koschier, 2011: 199).
The 13th, 14th and 28th volume of Schütz, which Wabruschek-Blumenbach published 
in a second, improved edition in 1837, dealt with the Austrian Monarchy. Each of the 
volumes has the practical dimensions of about 13 by 25 cm for a handbook and, unlike 
unwieldy encyclopaedias, almanacs, or other reference works, could be taken along by 
a reader from the first half of the 19th century when travelling and used for reference. 
On the other hand, however, there is little structure in the form of headings or similar 
content. There are also hardly any references to sources such as Johann Weichhardt 
Valvasor’s Die Ehre deß Herzogthums Crain of 1689 and Hacquet’s Physikalisch 
politische Reise, whose combination of the natural history of the Eastern Alps with a 
historical interest in economic fundamentals Wabruschek-Blumenbach took over. Instead, 
the work contains, as he prefaces in the third volume as a “preliminary reminiscence” 
(Vorerinnerung), a compilation of the most worthwhile knowledge from regional and 
ethnological studies, which does not correspond to a new monograph of its own. After 
a general overview which consists, to a large extent, of geographical, in the broadest 
sense, natural history descriptions, Wabruschek-Blumenbach goes on to describe the 
individual provinces. He makes a rough distinction between the German-Illyrian, Italian, 
Bohemian, Polish, and Hungarian lands. The descriptions of the Kingdom of Illyria 
(“Gubernium Laibach” = “Herzogtum Krain” and “Herzogtum Kärnten”, “Gubernium 
Triest” = “Illyrisches Küstenland”) relevant to this contribution to the three-volume set 
of almost 1500 pages can be found in the second book (14th volume). In addition to the 
Gerhard Katschnig 
82 |     Traditiones
geographical and climatic descriptions, a great deal of space is devoted to the trade and 
manufacturing industry in the respective regions. This type of “economic geography” 
can be traced back to the areas of work in Wabruschek-Blumenbach’s biography and 
was primarily intended to provide information. It operated in a concise, narrative style 
with figures, data and facts. The emphasis corresponds to the research focus of several 
treatises that Wabruschek-Blumenbach wrote over the course of almost two decades.
Regarding the characterizations and external appearances of the inhabitants, 
Wabruschek-Blumenbach used popular and national stereotypes in the style of con-
temporary travel literature. He referred to the comparative perspective of the Steirische 
Völkertafel, an oil painting by an unknown painter from the first half of the 18th century 
(e.g. Blumenbach, 1837: 74). 
The oil painting dates from the mid-18th century, but its content is based on older 
models. In the header in the upper section, it shows ten men in different costumes 
standing next to each other in a row. The typical features of the Central European 
region are recognizable in the background: a hilly, mountainous landscape with trees, 
a river, a town and a fortress. At the bottom are the characteristics and peculiarities 
assigned to nations in rows and columns, which, even before the formation of modern 
Figure 1: “Kurze Beschreibung der In Europa Befintlichen Völckern Und Ihren Aigenschafften”; 
genannt Völkertafel oder Steirische Völkertafel. Volkskundemuseum Wien, Signatur: ÖMV/30.905.
Indications of the In-Between in Works of W. Wabruschek-Blumenbach and F. Umlauft: A Case Study of Two ...
Traditiones     | 83
nation-states, led the recipient to read, absorb and disseminate those stereotypes that 
had been formed according to national and ethnic characteristics in order to define a 
rigid, generalizing idea of a socially or ethnically defined group of people (Stanzel, 
1999: 9–15).
Wabruschek-Blumenbach’s analysis of the character of the peoples studied, thus, 
reads like a tableau of prejudices and stereotypes, which he rarely took from personal 
field research, but rather from the oil painting and literature, as the following example 
about the Illyrische Küstenland shows:
Der Charakter dieser Völkerschaften ist zum Theil noch der slavische wie 
in Krain, zum Theil geht er schon mehr oder weniger in den italienischen 
über, besonders im Görzischen und in Istrien. Mäßigkeit im Essen und 
Trinken, Mangel an deutscher Reinlichkeit sieht man fast allenthalben, 
aber auch Trägheit wird in Istrien schon allgemein, wovon man die 
Schuld auf die ehmalige venezianische Regierung zu schieben pflegt.9 
(Blumenbach, 1837: 127–128)
He tries to take a similarly strict approach to languages, which, in his opinion, are 
of equal value as long as they are pure, i.e. spoken without foreign language influences. 
But the “mehr oder weniger” (more or less) straightaway points to Wabruschek-Blu-
menbach’s difficulty in including the simultaneity between stereotypical characteri-
zation and fluid transitions or mixtures of ethnicities in his analysis. This becomes 
even clearer in the following example: He seems to make detailed descriptions about 
work and leisure activities where it is no longer a matter of small-scale attributions or 
repetitions of character images that he takes from literary models but of overlaps that 
do not allow a strict localization as suggested by the Steirische Völkertafel. He writes, 
for example, about farmers from the area around Klagenfurt, who sell their goods as a 
matter of course “in all neighbouring countries” (Blumenbach, 1837: 71), and outlines in 
great detail the customs and traditions, such as wedding celebrations, baptisms, church 
days or entertainments and games, which are similar, here and there, in Klagenfurt, 
Ljubljana, and Trieste (Blumenbach, 1837: 40–47, 130–134).
Wabruschek-Blumenbach seems to be confronted with a contradictory situation 
here. On the one hand, he adopts common stereotypes in a way that readers are con-
fronted with a series of overlapping, supposedly self-evident opposites: civilized and 
impetuous life, industriousness and laziness, prosperity and scarcity. On the other 
hand, he sees himself as having a low-threshold obligation to the empirical ethos of 
9  “The character of these peoples is still partly Slavic, as in Carniola, and partly more or less Italian, 
especially in Gorizia and Istria. Moderation in eating and drinking, lack of German cleanliness can be seen 
almost everywhere, but also indolence is already common in Istria, for which one tends to blame the former 
Venetian government.”
Gerhard Katschnig 
84 |     Traditiones
reporting these overlaps on a discursive level. On the level of practices in daily life, it 
would be quite helpful to find out more about this; however, the author did not con-
duct the kind of ethnological field research that has become the classic method since 
the beginning of the 20th century (Marchetti, 2015: 325–326). Instead, as an author of 
the early 19th century, he wrote a popular handbook for readers interested in a quick 
overview. It is hardly possible to delve more precisely into this issue and, thus, into the 
question of whether the situations described correspond explicitly to the in-between. 
Wabruschek-Blumenbach is not telling us much about how the historical subjects 
negotiate with each other and with external forces of community building; how these 
interactions in the customs and traditions take place. Of course, one can imagine that 
the process always implies a decontextualization and subsequent recontextualization 
of content (customs/traditions and the sale of goods). This process does not lead to its 
seamless adoption into the new context but rather to an ongoing process of negotiation 
in which remnants of the old context and elements of the new interact with each other 
perhaps in a thoroughly conflictual manner, thereby, also bringing about a change in 
the original contexts (Rössner, 2016: 214). At best, this can be true for those merchants 
described who sold their goods in all neighbouring regions, as we can, at least, imagine 
how they interacted with each other economically. However, reading between the lines 
and against the grain, implicitly, it may be precisely this contradiction that points to the 
fact that the entanglements, connections and concrete cultural practices can obviously 
by no means be differentiated along the stereotypes of the Steirische Völkertafel. And 
precisely in relation to the economic necessities, it thus provides an indication of the 
pragmatics of the form of dealing with the in-between; situationally, it may have been 
necessary for the subjects to rather ignore corresponding distinctions and differentiations 
because they would have been obstructive in leisure activities and areas of work.10
In order to deal with the heterogeneity and difference that Wabruschek-Blumenbach 
observed in the regions, he introduced a homogenizing frame of reference that was 
linked to the state’s regulatory power. Regarding personal welfare, the monarchy had a 
civilizing mission via infrastructure and associations. Wabruschek-Blumenbach writes:
Für Unterrichtsanstalten ist […] in den […] Theilen der Monarchie gesorgt, 
damit es nirgends an Gelegenheit zur Bildung fehle, und die Einrichtung 
der Schulanstalten ist hier dieselbe wie dort. […] Die k. k. und ständische 
Gesellschaft zur Beförderung des Ackerbaues und der Künste in Kärnten, 
welche sonst ihre Sitzungen zu Klagenfurt hielt und die k. k. Landwirthschaft-
gesellschaft in Krain haben sich durch ihre Bemühungen zur Beförderung 
10  Further investigations as part of the research project, as described at the beginning in the first footnote, on 
the level of associations (articles and statutes of the associations, programmes, commemorative publications, 
lists of members) and historical subjects ((auto-)biographies, diaries, correspondences) will provide a more 
detailed insight in the complexities of cultural hybridity in everyday situations in the region.
Indications of the In-Between in Works of W. Wabruschek-Blumenbach and F. Umlauft: A Case Study of Two ...
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der gemeinnützigsten menschlichen Kenntnisse hochverdient gemacht, und 
eben so sucht die philharmonische Gesellschaft zu Laibach möglichst zur 
Verbreitung musikalischer Kenntnisse mitzuwirken und aufzumuntern.11  
(Blumenbach, 1837: 74–75) 
This is a reference that he had used since his earliest writings and that would later 
also be important for Friedrich Umlauft: Associations and associations-like organiza-
tions had existed in the Habsburg Empire since the end of the 18th century. They were 
formalized voluntary associations or purpose- and interest-based private societies, whose 
legal standardization increasingly came to the fore in the course of the 19th century. 
Charitable and economic societies were founded, aiming at practical reforms and so-
cial charity, in order to address broader sections of the population, such as craftsmen 
and farmers (Böning, 1992: 218–219). In Wabruschek-Blumenbach’s case, it was the 
previously mentioned k. k. Ständische Gesellschaft zur Beförderung des Ackerbaues 
und der Künste in Klagenfurt, the k. k. Landwirtschaftsgesellschaft in Ljubljana or 
the Società di Minerva in Trieste that made up the decisive economic and, thus, social 
location factor. It is characteristic of Wabruschek-Blumenbach and, therefore, also of 
the Vormärz period that the traditional manufacturing system had to undergo a change 
as industrialization progressed. The imperial state expected measures to increase prof-
itability and yield from the agricultural societies, which carried out educational and 
research work. In other regions, such as parts of the Illyrian provinces, which had not 
long belonged to the Austrian Monarchy, it was not possible to speak of such an influ-
ence, as the following example shows: “Bevor hier an Einführung einer Gewerbindustrie 
gedacht werden kann, müssen die einfachen ländlichen Gewerbe der Vernachläßigung 
und rohen Betreibung entzogen werden […]”12 (Blumenbach, 1837: 149). Consequently, 
according to Wabruschek-Blumenbach, this was due to the negative influence and lack 
of diligence of the previous government, such as the Venetian government in Istria 
(Blumenbach, 1837: 154–155). In this way, the state’s territorial interests can be dis-
guised as cultural development for the region. Wabruschek-Blumenbach, thus, points 
to a circumstance inherent in the complex Habsburg multi-ethnic state: The negotiation 
of differences and heterogeneities becomes a matter for the state. Thus, the pluricultural 
fields of activity in work and leisure between Klagenfurt, Ljubljana, and Trieste were 
11  “Educational establishments are […] provided for in the […] parts of the monarchy, so that there is no 
lack of opportunity for education anywhere, and the organisation of the educational establishments is the 
same here as there. […] The Imperial and Royal Society for the Promotion of Agriculture and the Arts in 
Carinthia, which otherwise held its meetings in Klagenfurt, and the Imperial and Royal Agricultural Society 
in Carniola have rendered outstanding services through their efforts to promote the most charitable human 
knowledge. The Philharmonic Society in Ljubljana also endeavours to contribute to and encourage the 
dissemination of musical knowledge.”
12  “Before the introduction of a commercial industry can be considered here, the simple rural trades must 
be removed from neglect and crude operation […]”.
Gerhard Katschnig 
86 |     Traditiones
homogenized by the standardizing intervention of the Habsburg administration. The 
threads and traces for the in-between are getting lost where the diversity of the peasant 
imagination is neutralized by the hegemonic culture.
Friedrich Umlauft and his Die Österreichisch-Ungarische Monarchie
Short biography
Friedrich Umlauft was born in Vienna in 1844. 
After studying geography, history and philosophy 
at the University of Vienna, he worked as a sec-
ondary school teacher until he left the teaching 
profession in Vienna in 1904/05. He received 
his doctorate in 1874 and became a lecturer in 
geography at the Vienna Municipal Teachers’ 
Academy the following year. He developed new 
teaching aids for geography lessons and initiated 
the establishment of the first geographical school 
museum in the monarchy. In 1884, his teaching 
experience resulted in a geography textbook for 
the lower grades of secondary schools, which went 
through several new editions and translations into 
other languages.
Further (popular) scientific works followed, including the geographical-statistical 
handbook on the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (1876), which is cited in this article in the 
third edition of 1897. In the 1880s, Umlauft was the editor of a 15-volume ethnographic 
series on the history of the monarchy (Die Länder Oesterreich-Ungarns in Wort und 
Bild). He regularly gave lectures on regional studies at the newly founded Urania – a 
popular science institute with regular lectures, and experimental and exhibition halls 
(Petrasch, 1997: 14–15; Wolfschmidt, 2013: 103–104) – and became its director in 
1899.13 The Emperor Franz Joseph I honoured him for the third edition of his hand-
book to be discussed here and he was awarded the title of k. k. Regierungsrat on his 
retirement. Umlauft died in a sanatorium in Vienna in 1923 (Beyer, 1903: 330–331; 
Hassinger, 1910: 568–572; Neue Freie Presse, 1923: 7). 
13  As part of his work as the director, Umlauft worked in an international network of lecturers with whom 
he maintained a correspondence and/or had connections to, inter alia: German writers, such as Wilhelm 
Bölsche (1861-1939), who worked in Berlin in the field of adult education in the natural sciences and gave 
a lecture on Das Weltall als Kunstwerk in 1914 (Bölsche, 1914), or with Max Halbe, as well as with Aus-
trian writers, such as Emil Lucka (1877-1941), Emil Ertl (1860-1935) (Ertl, 1916), the leading figure of 
the German nationalist literary circle Südmarkrunde based in Graz, or the Jewish Austrian journalist Klara 
Mautner (1879-1959).
Figure 2: Friedrich Umlauft, 1914. Depot 
Rathaus, TF-010843.
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Die Österreichisch-Ungarische Monarchie
The third edition of Die Österreichisch-Ungarische Monarchie was supplemented 
with 15 maps depicting the geography of the monarchy and a list of the pronuncia-
tion of non-German proper names, in addition to full-page illustrations. In contrast to 
Wabruschek-Blumenbach, Umlauft took great care with the headings and cross-refer-
ences within the book, even including other authors. A reviewer came to the following 
assessment and summary in the Zeitschrift für österreichische Volkskunde (Huffnagl, 
1897: 125–126):
Das Leben der Bewohner, die Pflanzen- und Thierwelt erfuhren in gleicher 
Weise eine aufmerksame Neubearbeitung. Von großem Wert sind die 
eingestreuten Charakterbilder, Schilderungen von Land und Leuten aus 
der Feder verschiedener namhafter Autoren stammend. Sie ergänzen in 
erzählender Form den wissenschaftlichen Theil des Werkes und verleihen 
so dem Ganzen einen lebhafteren Charakter.14 
This new edition comprises almost 1200 pages and is divided into a general section, 
dealing mainly with physical geography and a bit of economic statistics, that contains 
14  “The life of the inhabitants, the flora and fauna have also been carefully reworked. The interspersed character 
portraits and descriptions of the country and its people by various well-known authors are of great value. They 
complement the scientific part of the work in narrative form and thus lend the whole a more lively character.”
Figure 3: Brüder Kohn KG (B. K. W. I.): Wiener Urania. Wien, I. Aspernplatz, around 1910, Wien 
Museum Inv.-Nr. 167790, CC0 (URL: https://sammlung.wienmuseum.at/objekt/341095).
Gerhard Katschnig 
88 |     Traditiones
little of ethnographic substance, and a special section, which briefly deals with the 
kingdoms and countries of Austria-Hungary. In the special section, Umlauft devotes 
only about 35 pages to the regions relevant to this article (“Herzogtum Kärnten”, 
“Herzogtum Krain” and the “Küstenland”).
Following Czörnig and the Kronprinzenwerk, Umlauft begins by describing the 
heterogeneities and differences as salient features of the Habsburg Empire. However, 
he does not refer unilaterally to a harmonious coexistence of pluralities (Csáky, 2002: 
43–44), but speaks of the most glaring opposites that make the monarchy a state of 
contrasts: “so schließt es infolge seiner bedeutenden Längen- und Breitenausdehnung 
auch die grellsten Gegensätze in Beziehung auf physische Verhältnisse, Bevölkerung 
und geistige Cultur in sich, weshalb man die Monarchie auch einen Staat der Contraste 
zu nennen berechtigt ist”15 (Umlauft, 1897: 1).
Umlauft deduces here from a geographical-topographical heterogeneity to an equally 
great contrast among the many ethnic groups, which would have mixed with one another 
in an ongoing process of ethnogenesis. As a result, it would be difficult to imagine a 
clear demarcation in Umlauft’s present, whether according to political or ethnic criteria. 
Umlauft derives two things from this statement: Firstly, like Blumenbach before him, 
he attempts to describe the pluricultural character of the state as a positive peculiarity. 
The various ethnic groups form the foundations on which the Habsburg state rests in 
their union, not in their subordination:
Aber nicht allein die Völkermischung ist es, welche diese Eigenthümli-
chkeit begründet; es geschieht dieses hauptsächlich durch die großartigen 
Verhältnisse, in denen die Hauptvölkerstämme auftreten, so dass sie […] 
in ihrer Vereinigung, nicht in ihrer Unterordnung, die Grundfesten bilden, 
auf denen das Staatsgebäude ruht.16 (Umlauft, 1897: 613)
He attempts a definition of ethnography to describe these ethnic groups that includes 
historical subjects and their behaviour in relation to their surrounding nature, society 
and culture:
Die Beziehungen zwischen dem Menschen und den physischen Verhält-
nissen der Erdoberfläche, sein Verhalten zu der ihn umgebenden Natur, 
wie es sich in seinem körperlichen Gedeihen und Wohlbefinden, in seiner 
15  “As a result of its considerable longitude and latitude, it also contains the most striking contrasts in terms 
of physical conditions, population and intellectual culture, which is why the monarchy can also be called a 
state of contrasts.”
16  “But it is not only the mixture of peoples that gives rise to this peculiarity; it is mainly due to the great 
proportions in which the main tribes of peoples appear, so that […] in their union, not in their subordination, 
they form the foundations on which the state building rests.”
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Nahrung, seiner Kleidung und Wohnung, in seinen Waffen und Geräthen, 
in seinen Transportmitteln ausspricht; sein Verhalten zu den Mitmenschen, 
wie es in der Ehe, in der Familie, im Stamme, in der Regierungsform 
erscheint und durch die Sprache vermittelt wird; sein Verhalten zu ein-
er übersinnlichen Macht, wie es sich in den verschiedenen Religionen 
darstellt: sind Gegenstand der Ethnographie. Viele dieser Punkte werden 
erst durch Zahlenangaben hinlänglich erhellt […].17 (Umlauft, 1897: 612)
The scheme set out in this definition seems ambitious and offers, compared to 
Wabruschek-Blumenbach, a greater wealth of information on demographics (e.g. age, 
gender, nationality, religion, place of residence), but it is mostly of statistical origin 
(durch Zahlenangaben), including a lot of figures as well as tables on agricultural and 
forestry products, and is largely based on general information taken from literature 
ranging from Valvasor, Hacquet and Sartori to Czörnig, Ficker and the latest statistical 
material from 1897. Since Valvasor, the explorers as frequent travellers had been char-
acterized by their efforts to see the areas to be described for the most part themselves 
and leave notes about them. However, intellectual borrowings could not be ruled out, as 
shows for example the description of the mercury mines in Idria, in today’s Slovenia, 
which Umlauft partly copied verbatim from Wabruschek-Blumenbach who, in turn, 
had probably copied from Hacquet; or the ethnographic overview that Umlauft also 
copied partially verbatim from Czörnig’s preface of his lecture Über die Ethnographie 
Österreichs. The character images (Charakterbilder) that follow are based on the same 
stereotypical models that Wabruschek-Blumenbach had already used.
Secondly, Umlauft derives different degrees of education from the pluricultural 
character of the inhabitants of the monarchy. This is reinforced by his view, similar 
to Wabruschek-Blumenbach, that the educational and associational system as well as 
the cultural state (Kulturzustand/Kulturstufe) of a nation shapes and defines it, thereby 
creating “imperial coherence” (Feichtinger, Uhl, 2023: 17):
Das Unterrichtswesen ist nicht bloß der mächtigste Hebel der geistigen 
Cultur, es ist auch das verlässlichste Mittel, den Culturzustand eines 
Volkes zu erkennen. Freilich ist hiezu nur der öffentliche Unterricht 
besonders geeignet, da der private Unterricht und die Mitwirkung der 
Familie bei der Erziehung einer statistischen Controle sich zum großen 
17  “The relations between man and the physical conditions of the earth’s surface, his behaviour towards 
the nature surrounding him, as expressed in his physical prosperity and well-being, in his food, his clothing 
and dwelling, in his weapons and implements, in his means of transport; his behaviour towards his fellow 
men, as it appears in marriage, in the family, in the tribe, in the form of government and is conveyed by 
language; his behaviour towards a supernatural power, as it appears in the various religions: are the subject 
of ethnography. Many of these points are only adequately explained by figures […].”
Gerhard Katschnig 
90 |     Traditiones
Theile entziehen. In der Österreichisch-Ungarischen Monarchie ist in 
jüngster Zeit ein sehr erfreuliches Streben nach Hebung der geistigen 
Bildung durch Förderung des Schulwesens sichtbar gewesen. Der Staat, 
die Kronländer und die Gemeinden wetteiferten miteinander in dieser 
Hinsicht.18 (Umlauft, 1897: 773)
In this argument, Umlauft makes no secret of the fact that the German element is 
the bearer of culture to which all other ethnic groups must orientate themselves. This 
is a leitmotif that creates a normative context in his argumentation, which has signalled 
a need for action since Wabruschek-Blumenbach (Stachel, 2003: 264–268). Umlauft 
cites, in addition to the education system, the number of periodical publications and 
cultural associations that have a moralizing effect on their members as a yardstick for 
assessing this “cultural level”. This civilizing influence is lacking in the eastern regions 
of the empire, where, in Romania for example, according to Umlauft, a lack of edu-
cation and general backwardness still leads to homicides in connection with the belief 
in vampires (Umlauft, 1897: 649)! And in the south, in Trieste, the coming together 
of “the most diverse elements” can be observed: Italians, Italianized southern Slavs, 
Germans – “Außerdem gibt es hier Griechen, Engländer, Armenier, Türken, Schweden, 
Holländer und Amerikaner […] die Bauern der Umgegend sind Slovenen […], welche 
Sonntags in malerischer, der neapolitanischen ähnlichen Tracht einhergehen”19 (Umlauft, 
1897: 971). The city’s rise from a small village to an important, cosmopolitan mari-
time trading town is closely linked to its ties to the Habsburg Empire. However, if we 
follow Umlauft’s threads and traces that he left us at the beginning of his ethnography 
when he did not start the discourse on the pluricultural constitution of the region from 
a national ideological perspective, Umlauft’s clearer focus on regimenting Germanness 
in comparison to Wabruschek-Blumenbach can be interpreted as an indication of the 
strong cultural diversity that existed.
If we take a closer look at the description of the situation in Ljubljana (Herzogtum 
Krain) in this respect, we might expect different approaches taken by Wabruschek-Blu-
menbach and Umlauft due to the period of time between them. Wabruschek-Blumenbach 
describes Ljubljana in terms of the interrelationship between economic opportunities, 
political power, and the specific factors of the cultural sphere, which he sees as being 
18  “Education is not only the most powerful lever of intellectual culture, it is also the most reliable means 
of recognising the cultural state of a people. Of course, only public education is particularly suitable for this 
purpose, as private education and the involvement of the family in education are largely beyond statistical 
control. In the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, a very pleasing endeavour to raise intellectual education by 
promoting the school system has been visible in recent times. The state, the crown lands and the municipal-
ities competed with each other in this respect.”
19  “There are also Greeks, Englishmen, Armenians, Turks, Swedes, Dutch, and Americans […] the local 
farmers are Slovenians […], who walk around on Sundays in picturesque costumes similar to those of 
Neapolitan style.”
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characterized by science, education and art (Blumenbach, 1837: 74–75). The heteroge-
neous cultural events related to the urban space described here include trade relations 
that show how well parts of the Alps-Adriatic region were infrastructurally developed 
and connected across later national borders. Around 1830, there was still no question 
of the formation of Slovenian or nationalizing cultural associations. But the situation 
was different at the end of the 19th century. The year of publication of the third edition 
of Umlauft’s work (1897) which, according to his own statement in the foreword, he 
had extensively revised compared to the second edition, coincides with the so-called 
Badeni-Krise (Badeni Crisis). It is one of the turning points in the history of the Aus-
tro-Hungarian monarchy, from which time onwards, there was an inexorable ethnici-
zation and radicalization of political life. The Badeni language ordinances in Bohemia 
represent a final attempt to implement a transnational solution to the nationality conflict 
as opposed to a national-autonomistic one. The attempt failed and anticipated the disin-
tegration of the monarchy into individual nation-states, each with its own national (state) 
language (Burger, 1994: 89). The use of the Slovenian language in schools (Almasy, 
2023: 10–18) in Ljubljana from the 1860s onwards and the formation of associations 
such as Slovenska Matica and Muzejsko Društvo za Kranjsko, whose publishing and 
lecturing activities were instrumentalized in the interests of nationalization, became the 
main markers of Slovenian ethnicity. Although integration into the Habsburg state as 
a whole was not called into question, the national question itself became increasingly 
important until the end of the century (Stromberger, 2004: 60–68). Umlauft does not 
mention a word of this. He provides information on the increasing number of period-
ical publications in the various languages of the monarchy, but the statistical material 
is not followed by any further analysis. The same applies to associations. He breaks 
down the associations precisely according to economic and non-material affiliations 
in Klagenfurt, as well as in Ljubljana and Trieste, but merely comes to the general 
conclusion that the association system has become a characteristic phenomenon that 
influences all areas of social life (Umlauft, 1897: 779–801, 956–957, 968). Reading 
between the lines and against the grain, we know that since the enforcement of the 
right of assembly and association in 1867, associations could become a supportive 
mouthpiece for cultural values or educational projects as well as rallying points for 
socio-political, religious, or economic movements (Nipperdey, 1972: 19; Drobesch, 
1991: 38). In every respect, associations stood for the diversity of interests within a 
community – not least nationalistic ones (Wehler, 2019: 41ff.; Judson, 2021: 653–654) 
– and Umlauft implicitly provides us with an indication of the cultural diversity of the 
inhabitants by giving us a list of all the associations.
Gerhard Katschnig 
92 |     Traditiones
Conclusion
Wabruschek-Blumenbach and Umlauft follow a similar structure in their ethnographies. 
They begin with a description of the landscape and natural resources, then move on 
to the depiction of typical regional agriculture, with statistically and economically 
orientated questions, before describing the general economic situation. In both cases, 
we see schematically recorded socio-economic contexts that are partly attributed to 
geographical and climatic differences and partially to cultural, often stereotypical var-
iations between the inhabitants. The emphasis on commonalities throughout the state, 
hidden in customs, traditions, and work activities, that might point on a discursive level 
to an in-between implicitly rather than explicitly, is attributed to the positive effects and 
interventions of the Habsburg administration for the purpose of raising the “cultural 
state” (Kulturzustand). When both ethnographers talk about the beneficial effects of 
schools, education and associations, one might have expected a different argument from 
Umlauft in the 1890s – in fact, the patriotism cultivated in both Wabruschek-Blumenbach 
and Umlauft’s writings, which refused to be translated into day-to-day political events, 
was oriented towards the House of Habsburg, but, at the same time, provided options 
for progress and survival that imagined an equal coexistence of peoples.
In order to make sense of the informative value of an ethnography as a source, I 
suggest reading between the lines, looking for threads and traces that hint at what is not 
explicitly stated. Such a re-reading can uncover implicit indications of the in-between. 
A 19th-century Habsburg ethnographer can describe the diversity of the peoples of the 
Habsburg Empire solely in terms of uniformity within the Habsburg Empire. This 
scheme characterizes his basic methodological approach. In order to catch something 
about the historical life-worlds of the subjects and their social framework conditions, 
detailed snapshots must be used that provide insights into the interplay of various 
factors and the concrete in-between situations of individuals and groups. If, similar 
to Blumenbach, one was the emperor’s private librarian or, like Umlauft, received an 
imperial honour for the third edition of the ethnography – in other words, both culti-
vated a clear professional and ideological proximity to the imperial house – it is not 
surprising to ward off the addition of a schema that is not in harmony with political 
reality (“unity in diversity”).
Acknowledgements
This paper originates within the framework of the Austrian-Slovenian bilateral project 
Discourses and Practices of the In-Between in the Alps-Adriatic Region: Klagenfurt, 
Ljubljana, and Trieste 1815–1914: A Transnational, Interdisciplinary Co-Research 
Project. The project is financed by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and the Slovenian 
Indications of the In-Between in Works of W. Wabruschek-Blumenbach and F. Umlauft: A Case Study of Two ...
Traditiones     | 93
Research and Innovation Agency (ARIS). I would like to thank the members of the 
research project Werner Drobesch, Ute Holfelder, Janine Schemmer and Klaus Schön-
berger for their advice and helpful comments on earlier drafts.
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Indikacije vmesnosti v delih W. Wabruschek-Blumenbacha in F. Umlaufta: 
študija primera dveh habsburških etnografov
Članek je del raziskovalnega projekta, katerega namen je analizirati »vmesnost« 
zgodovinskih subjektov, ki so v letih 1815–1914 živeli v treh izbranih mestih 
alpsko-jadranske regije – Celovcu, Ljubljani in Trstu. Na diskurzivni ravni so 
se etnografije v habsburški monarhiji že v 19. stoletju sklicevale na vmesnost. 
Z izjemo redkih primerov, npr. Kronprinzenwerk (1885–1902), pa je bila večina 
etnografij doslej vsebinsko le delno preučena. Da bi zapolnili to raziskovalno 
vrzel, se je avtor poglobil v izbrana dela dveh piscev, Wenzla Wabruschek- 
Blumenbacha in Friedricha Umlaufta. Izhodišče analizi je kontekstualizacija 
Gerhard Katschnig 
98 |     Traditiones
etnografskih opisov v 18. in 19. stoletju, v drugem delu pa je analiza obeh 
avtorjev, pri čemer avtor sledi konceptu mikrozgodovine Carla Ginzburga.
V 18. stoletju je bil fokus etnografij bolj na gospodarskih strukturah in manj 
na jezikovno-etnografskih vidikih prebivalcev habsburške monarhije. Vse do 
poznega 18. stoletja so bile etnografske razprave v veliki meri rezultat zasebne 
pobude posameznih raziskovalcev. V obdobju pred marčno revolucijo je nas-
tala druga serija regionalnih monografij, ki so že bile povezane z znanstvenimi 
ustanovami. Te etnografije ponujajo pogled na kulturo, produkcijo in popula-
rizacijo kulture v habsburških kronovinah do druge polovice 19. stoletja ter so 
še posebej zanimive v povezavi z analizo začetkov antropološkega raziskovanja 
kot znanstvene discipline v Avstro-Ogrski. Z Ethnographie der Österreichischen 
Monarchie Karla von Czörniga avtor nakaže nadaljnji razvoj etnografije do 
konca 19. stoletja.
V drugem delu besedila avtor analizira Neuestes Gemälde der Oesterrei-
chischen Monarchie (1832/1837) Wenzela Wabruscheka-Blumenbacha in Die 
Österreichisch-Ungarische Monarchie (1876/1897) Friedricha Umlaufta. V 
obeh primerih gre za shematsko zapisane družbenoekonomske kontekste, ki 
jih je mogoče pripisati deloma geografskim in podnebnim razlikam, deloma 
kulturnim, pogosto stereotipnim razlikam med prebivalci. Izbrani odlomki po-
nazarjajo, kako nam lahko branje med vrsticami (po Ginzburgu) ponudi nove 
poglede na vmesnost preteklih življenjskih svetov. Pri tem avtor išče informa-
cije, ki ponujajo implicitno, včasih tudi eksplicitno podobo procesov in situacij 
vmesnosti na diskurzivni ravni. Drugi poudarek je na analizi, kako se etnografa 
ukvarjata z zanju najizrazitejšima pojavoma v monarhiji, tj. s heterogenostjo in 
drugačnostjo, pri čemer oba opisujeta značilnosti, skupne prebivalstvu po vsej 
državi, ki se skrivajo v šegah, tradicijah in delovnih dejavnostih. Vsekakor bi 
na diskurzivni ravni to lahko kazalo na implicitno in ne eksplicitno vmesnost.