Nation and Nationality, National Unity in the Central European Region

Nation and Nationality, National Unity in the Central European Region Csilla Dömők1 ABSTRACT Any work that takes athorough look at the problem of nationality requires akind of common ground in the form of aconsensus about such basic terms as people and nation. In the Austro-Hungarian Empire the main problem was the complexity of factors and the lack of unity, which also affected Austria’s special matter of nationality. Specifically, Austria witnessed the mutual opposition of three elements. Amidst the conflict of different ethnic groups and the historical kingdoms and provinces with the central power, ethnic groups made increasingly significant and radical demands as opposed to the other two groups. While this work also seeks to use consistent terms, it shifts the focus from the creation of unambiguous definitions to generally recognised historical development processes, such as the role of the slogans of popular sovereignty and equal rights in the definition of nation, and to trends in the scholarly interpretation of people and nation in the 19th century. KEYWORDS Nation; Nationality; National Unity; Central European Region; Federalism From the birth of the modern concept of nation to the collapse of the AustroHungarian Empire, there was hardly any other historian or scholar of adifferent origin doing research into the problem of nationality who did not deal with the fundamental issues in some way, whether by creating more or less successful individual definitions of the existing terms or relying on previous attempts to define the phenomena of nation and nationality. Nation and nationality are the products of social development so they can only be defined in the given geographic and chronological setting. In other words, one of the ways to define “nation” and “nationality” as used in the 19th century Habsburg Empire is to look at the theories of the two terms in that period. The nation as the basic principle of organising social groups and states had become so dominant by the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries that it was the first to question the common imperial ideology in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and eventually exceeded it as afactor of state organisation. While scholars in the Austro-Hungarian 1 Csilla Dömők, University of Pécs, Faculty of Humanities, Institute of German Studies, H-7624 Pécs, Ifjúság útja 6., Hungary, [email protected] OPEN ACCESS 96 DVACÁTÉ STOLETÍ 1/2018 nation state clearly recognised2 the political “force” underlying the nation, which had become significant due to the evolutionary and revolutionary events that took place during the social, economic, and political processes since the 1789 French Revolution determined “nation” as an unquestionable basic principle, the proposed theoretical solutions were unable to exert sufficient pressure on the Empire’s political practices. In late 1917, Karl Renner described the interpretation of nation as used since the French Revolution as follows: “It is the nation and only the nation that has the right and power to act upon its own initiative. It is not subject to any power, whether sacred or secular. And whatever is under the nation only has force by the nation’s authority and tolerance.”3 Here Renner is talking about a“political” or active nation as opposed to the common meaning of the term until the late 18th century. Renner called this previous concept “civic nation”4 whose most salient feature is its passive nature.5 This paper is not concerned with the reasons why the nation had not become arelevant basic principle during human cohabitation before the 19th century but it offers abrief overview of the models regarding the emergence of nation and national consciousness.6 In view of its historical origin, the organic and continuous development of the concept of nation was primarily spelt out by Leopold von Ranke. He and his followers look at the nation as one in astate of development that does not break away from older forms of organisation in any way. Another model postulates the nation as asupra-historical category that is independent from historical development. The last group includes historians who regard the nation and national consciousness as an absolute novelty since the late 18th century. As with most models of thinking, we should take care when applying any of the three models to historical reality. The approach to the problem of nationality was more structured in the old Austria than what the above schemes offer. The meaning of the term nation had not become politically relevant until the 19th century although national ideas had been promoted by the Illumination. Just why the concept played akey role in the 19th century is something caused by economic and social reforms. In the economy, for instance, the political changes were brought about by the disappearance of home economies, the emergence of major production units, and the existing economic conditions. The birth of new ideas, such as popular sovereignty and the equal rights of citizens, had created the image of acommon nation in the French Revolution, where the term nation was used to mean apolitical community created by volonté générale (J. J.Rousseau, E.Renan). 2 Vö. Wenzel Frind, Das sprachliche und sprachlich-nationale Recht in polygotten Staaten und Ländern mit besonderer Rücksichtnahme auf Oesterreich und Böhmen (Wien 1899), 3 f. 3 Karl Renner, Das Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Nationen in besonderer Anwendung auf Oesterreich. Teil I: Nation und Staat (Leipzig und Wien 1918), 9 f. 4 U.o., 8 f. 5 V.ö. Friedrich Meinecke, Weltbürgertum und Nationalstaat, In: Friedrich Meinecke, Werke. Bd 4, hgg. Und eingeleitet von Hans Herzfield (München 1962), 15 f. 6 Vö. Moritz Csáky, Nation und Nationalstaat. Gedanken zur Genese des neuheitlichen Nationsbegriffs. In: Integratio. Die Volksgruppen in Österreich (Wien 1979), 15–22 ff. OPEN ACCESS CSiLLA DöMők 97 At that time, the feeling of national unity could only rise after estate society collapsed. In Europe, the newly arisen, politically motivated national feeling gained strength and developed further under the influence of two factors. One was the Napoleonic wars, which touched off national resistance in the affected territories. The other was related to cultural history, the period of romanticism, which made German speaking cultures the first ones to look at the terms nation and people. Herder, the father of German language explanations that had national values, created all conditions for what would become irrational nationalism by defining people in terms of cultural and biological characteristics. Central and Eastern Europe’s romantic term of nation and the predominance of German literature on the notions of people and nation rest on two pillars. Firstly, the outstanding significance of romanticism, which captivated people and still ensures the primacy of this period in German intellectual history. Secondly, ethnic-national groups in the first half of the 19th century exceeded the limits of small states that would merge to become amajor political unit. As opposed to the situation in Western European states, the lack of political agreement in national terms led to the “use of the German language” recognised throughout the 19th century, where nation referred to common origin and hence common ethnic origin and the consequent ethnic and cultural relationship. The term also included tribal affiliation whereas people meant ‘political union’. As opposed to this Eastern and Central European theory, in the areas where acultural union arose based on apolitical alliance,7 i.e. in the English speaking world and partly in Romania, auniform theory of political and cultural alliance was created. Both were designated by the term nation. In this Western theory, the term nation meant affiliation to apolitical union, citizenship,8 which prevented the registration of any nationality in official censuses from becoming apolitical matter in national conflicts. On this view, the term nation meant people of the same citizenship and thereby created adefinition that did not offer any solution to the Austro-Hungarian nation state. The Austro-Hungarian Empire’s common imperial ideology was unable to enforce the concept of nation that would have logically been in the state’s interest against the particular interests of individual ethnic groups and historical nations: “Wir können immerhin diese Empiree als Einheitstaat declarieren können, ihr eine Verfassung geben, welche im Punkte der Centralisation sogar die französische noch hinter sich zurücklässt, können ihr Gebiet mit Winkelhaken und Lineal in correcte Quadrate theilen, oder ihre einzelnen Länder nach den verschiedenen Nationalitäten zerstückeln. Zuall’ dem braucht man sogar verhältnissmässig wenig Zeit. Aber den Begriff, welchem 35 Millionen Menschen mit dem Worte Vaterland verbinden, diesen Begriff, so irrig oder veraltet er auch sein möge, vermag keine Macht und kein Raisonnement plötzlich umzuändern, und dieser Begriff ist, vielleicht das einzige Erzherzogthum Oesterreichs ausgenommen, nicht mit dem 7 Rudolf Hermann vHerrnritt, Nationalität und Recht dargestellt nach der österreichischen und ausländischen Gesetzgebung (Wien 1899), 16 f. 8 Renner, Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Nationen, 12 f. OPEN ACCESS 98 DVACÁTÉ STOLETÍ 1/2018 gesammten Reiche, sondern mit der einzelnen Provinz verknüpft.”9 (Nevertheless, we may declare this monarchy as aunited state and may give it aconstitution which surpasses even the French Constitution in terms of centralisation, and we may use asextant and aruler to divide it into exact squares or break up its provinces according to the different nationalities. Indeed, we need relatively little time for that. But the concept that 35 million people relate to the term homeland, whether erroneously or archaically, cannot be altered by either power or reasoning all of asudden, and it is not related to the overall empire but only to its individual provinces, maybe except for the only archduchy of Austria.) In the debate on nationality statistics at the London Congress of Statistics, the French delegate Legoyt firmly rejected the registration of nationalities on the grounds that he only knew asingle nationality in France.10 The Congress of Statistics looked at the methodological questions of demographic statistics in London as had its previous editions both in Brussels (1853) and in Vienna (1857). All efforts to define the terms nation and people and most opinions in scholarship and the press on the matter gave rise to amethodological debate in this period while the essence of the question of nationality was pushed to the background. At that time, people found that national movements aimed to acquire political power and exercise political rule.11 The desire for national equality included efforts to gain supremacy over national minorities as national feelings were primarily based on the belief in “eigene Größe” (individual greatness) as explained by Gustav Rümlein in his 1872 “Rede über den Begriff des Volkes” in interpreting the term people: “Am liebsten würden wir den Schmuck dieses Namens ganz jenen Gruppen der Menschheit vorbehalten, welche eine eigenthümliche Anlage an Geist und Gemüth in festen und bleibenden Formen auszuprägen vermochten…”12 (We would prefer to reserve the glitter of this word only for groups of humanity that are able to express their special intellectual and spiritual endowments in afixed and lasting form…). This idea was recognised and analysed as early as 1851 by the Hungarian politician and statesman Baron József Eötvös: “Die Grundlage aller nationellen Bestrebungen ist das Gefühl höherer Begabung, ihr Zweck ist die Herrschaft.”13 (The foundation of all national efforts is the feeling of an outstanding ability and its goal is to rule.) Eötvös not only expressed the principle of individual superiority as the basic principle of nationalism, an excessively one-sided interpretation according to 19thcentury scholarship, but also went as far as to make aclaim so far rejected in the Austrian Republic, namely that the adoption of the majority principle based on demographic statistics cannot be applied in matters of nationality. At the same time, the debates between nationalities could not have systematically been solved 9 Joseph von Eötvös, Die Nationalitätenfrage. Überetzt von Max Falk (Pest 1865), 129 f. 10 Fr. J.Neumann, Volk und Nation S. (Leipzig 1888), 131 f. 11 Vö. Renner, Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Nationen, 7 f. 12 Gustav Rümlein, Reden und Aufsätze Bd. I. (Freiburg i./b. und Tübingen 1875), 91 f. 13 Joseph von Eötvös, Über die Gleichberechtigung der Nationalitäten in Österreich (Wien 1851), 17 f. OPEN ACCESS CSiLLA DöMők 99 amidst the nationality conflicts in Austria without explicit precautionary measures to defend minorities speaking other languages because Eötvös primarily considered the essence of the national principle as “the attempt to obtain power”. In fact, what prevented the solution for the problems of Austria’s legal and social systems was the dynamics of the issue of nationalities. So far no mention has been made of the terminological difficulties faced by all branches of science that came into contact with the terms of nation and people in the early 19th century. The fact that the issue of nationalities gained political strength in the 19th century brought about the need for uniform scholarly terminologies. The process of seeking aconsensus over the issue has not finished to date but some fundamental works of ethnography, statistics, sociology, and law already used universally accepted terms in the latter half of the 19th century. Previous authors such as Fichte, Mohl, and Ahrens had not made any distinction between nation and people. The use of these terms was only differentiated from the mid-19th century. One way of doing this was to conceive the nation as apolitical entity and to postulate it as anatural entity. On this view, people became part of the nation’s status as astate and political entity: “…; es ist die Institution des Staats, in welcher ein einheitlicher, ordnender, intelligenter Wille der Kräfte, Anlagen und Richtungen eines Volkes zur realen äußeren Gestaltung bringt, und das Volk zu einem beseelten, persönlichen Wesen wird.”14 (… the institution of the state where auniform, arranging, and intelligent will gives arealistic external form of appearance to apeople’s force, abilities, and orientations to make such people alively, personal being.) This theory, which views the nation as astate unit, has the same consequence for the concept of nationality as Western approaches to nationality. In other words, both theories resulted in the coincidence of citizenship and nationality. As the actual conditions did not allow for such final conclusion for the region of Eastern and Central Europe, Eötvös already used the terms in his “Über die Gleichberechtigung der Nationalitäten in Österreich” (About the equal rights of nationalities in Austria) that most terminologists recognised as abasic principle and later even justified theoretically.15 By contrast, the term people meant apolitical entity as described by Fr. J.Neumann in his “Volk und Nation”: “Und in dieser Beziehung ist Volk heute erstens der spezifische, unter allen Umständen zulässige Ausdruck für “politische Einheit”, besser gesagt: für die Gesamtheit der Angehörigen des Staats.”16 (In this respect, people is today primarily aspecific term that can be accepted under any circumstances to denote “political union”, in other words: all citizens.) The term nation was reduced to common origin (cf. the Latin word nasci) and the consequent ethnic and cultural relations, in view of historical development. As opposed to other terminological issues, the difference between nation and nationality was defined in away as to meet scientific criteria. “Nation und 14 Gustav Rümlein, Reden und Aufsätze Bd. I. (Freiburg und Tübingen), 108 f. 15 Heintritt, Nationalität und Recht, 16 f. 16 Neumann, Volk und Nation, 32 f. OPEN ACCESS 100 DVACÁTÉ STOLETÍ 1/2018 Nationalität bezeichnen eine Gruppe von Menschen, welche unter sich eine gewisse Gemeinsamkeit haben und eben durch diese Gemeinsamkeit, die wir gleichfalls “Nationalität” nennen, von anderen Menschengruppen sich unterscheiden.”17 (Nation and nationality denote agroup of people who have aset of common features and differ from other people precisely for these common features, which we call “nationality”.) Therefore, nationality has two meanings.18 Firstly, it refers to aspecific group of population as a rival term of nation and tribe. Secondly, it designates the collective status of agroup or, as proposed by Herrnritt, “abstracte Eigenschaft des Volksstammes” (atribe’s abstract characteristic).19 Neumann’s definition seeks to describe the features of “Volksstamm” (tribe) as used in jurisdiction and public administration but primarily in Article 19 of the Fundamental Law of 21 December 1867: “… eine kleinere Bevölkerungsgruppe, die infolge der Gemeinsamkeit äusserer Lebensbedingungen und eigenartiger Kulturanfänge ein eigenartiges gemeinsames Wesen gewonnen hat, das sich von Generation zu Generation überträgt und sich vorzugsweise in gemeinsamer Mundart, gemeinsamen Charakterzügen, gemeinsamen Sitten und Gebräuchen und in dem Gefühl der Zusammengehörigkeit zu äussern pflegt.”20 (… aminor group of the population having apeculiar common essence due to the coincidence of its external living conditions and unique cultural background, passed down from generation to generation, and is most manifest in acommon spoken dialect, features, habits and traditions, and the feeling of shared identity.) Neumann is talking about the features that determine atribe’s existence by listing even the subjective and objective elements of the definition of nation and nationality in the very first meaning of tribe. In this way, he highlighted the essence of statements that are relevant for nationality statistics. However, the term nation was defined, the main issue was to interpret the criterion that the existing forms of organisation allowed for. In other words, the refusal to identify nation with citizenship gave rise to the problem that must underlie all further final conclusions in writings about research into language use beyond the river Leitha: Which features determine anationality? The criteria of nationality not only underlay nationality statistics but were also vital for theoretical proposals. As these issues are detailed in the chapter on the historical development of nationality statistics, here we only take acursory look at the criteria of nationality. The possible criteria included common origin, race, residence, historical and cultural background, religion, and language. Meanwhile, language did not enjoy the supremacy at all that was accorded to it in 19th century ideology without making aclear distinction between language and nation. The two terms often overlapped 17 Uo., 8 f. 18 Gerald Stourzh, Die Gleichberechtigung der Nationalitäten und die österreichische Dezember-Verfassung von 1867. Sonderabdruck aus: Der österreichisch-ungarische Ausgleich von 1867, (Wien/München 1967), 191 f. 19 Heintritt, Nationalität und Recht, 17 f. 20 Neumann, Volk und Nation, 48 f. OPEN ACCESS CSiLLA DöMők 101 because the national self-evaluation of individual tribes was primarily based on language. Scholars had the opinion that language was the primary form of expression of national consciousness although the smallest and linguistically isolated groups sometimes had to adopt this theory of legitimacy to achieve national group egoism in addition to linguistic autonomy despite their low level of education and culture. Scholars overestimated the values of common language in that they misjudged, under the influence of nationalist trends, the link between the “Spracheupforie” (language euphoria) of the period and the really complex components of nationality.21 “Die Gemeinschaft der Sprache ist also, wie die gewöhnliche Meinung mit Recht annimmt, das zuverlässigste Merkmal nationaler Gemeinschaft.” (Thus, alanguage community is, as rightly supposed by the public opinion, the most reliable criterion of national community.) Both scholars and the “gewöhnliche Meinung” (public opinion) accepted what they had experienced in reality and converted the language nation, which had to achieve aspecific goal in the situation of national groups of different levels of development and in the ideologies of Austria’s individual nationalisms, into aprinciple that reduced the conflict between nationalities to amatter of language even though national movements used language quite consciously to enforce their national interests. As the latter conflicts become visible through different languages, they are embodied in the struggle for language, i.e. its use in public life and its equal rights. However, this form is not the essence of the struggle. The essence cannot be other than the essence of all social struggles, i.e. the struggle for power. Gumplowicz’s opinion is clearly marked by socio-Darwinist features and is thereby the same as the national ideas of the majority of the contemporaries quoted above. Also, language was clearly overemphasised in the decision of the International Statistics Congress to introduce “Nationalitätenstatistik” (nationality statistics) and hence in the incorporation of abox for languages in the census forms. According to the official statements, the nationalities of Austria did not form part of the language census after 1880. Indeed, there were national conflicts as some part of the population believed that the financial status of certain nationalities mattered more than the category of their language. This generated an incongruence as census takers and some respondents tried to state language as ameans of communication in the census while others, motivated by the teachings of socio-Darwinism, considered the principle of language as essentially the expression of the struggle for national supremacy and wanted to make this anorm in censuses. Coming back to the criteria of nationalities, which are relevant not for nationality statistics but primarily for nationality rights, we have to point out atrend that gave rise to another shift of focus in the definition of nationality around the collapse of the Empire, specifically the popularisation of national ideas and hence the increasing 21 Wenzel Frind, Das sprachliche und sprachlich-nationale Recht in polygotten Staaten und Ländern, 96 f. OPEN ACCESS 102 DVACÁTÉ STOLETÍ 1/2018 intensity of the feeling of oneness. In addition to the already defined “objective” features, under the influence of the national development of certain tribes, the term nationality increasingly came to include “subjective” features, such as the typical national consciousness, the feeling of oneness, and the individual’s national allegiance based on their free determination.22 This overview of theories about the definition of nationality has revealed the following basic attitudes. The two extremes in the interpretation of nationality, i.e. the one-sidedly subjective or objective approach, do not exclude each other apriori but an attempt was made at the general perception of both methods.23 Basically, there was always an interplay of several factors but no theoretical consensus was reached as to the composition and number of the required factors. As suggested by Renner, Herrnritt and Bernatzik, the scholars who dealt the most with the theoretical foundations of the issue of nation, in the last decades of the Empire, in scholarly theory, the so-called “Bekenntnisprinzip” (allegiance based on individual declaration) was increasingly significant but this did not change nationality survey methods. In summary of all scholarly opinions expressed in response to the terminological problems about nationality until the collapse of the Empire, also in consideration of the wide array of proposed solutions, it is fair to say that nation, just like nationality and tribe, treated as synonyms, was defined as asocial group by scholars in the period, agroup that had emerged under the influence of different objective and subjective features with different effects, and that represented an attempt at absolute political power against the other principles of human coexistence. Nationality as asocial and political basic principle appeared in Europe already in the early 19th century. At the same time, it became clear that aperiod determined by legal uncertainty must elapse between the emergence and the actual relevance of aphenomenon and between its legal appearance. Such time difference between appearance in practice and statutory regulation was typical of nationalities in the life of the Austro-Hungarian Empire up until the Constitution of December 1867 in the areas west of the Leitha. While nationality as apolitical term existed already in the first half of the century, the Austrian legislators did not know the exact definition of nationality until the end of the Empire and used the term tribe in its place. The process of laying down the basic principle of nation in the laws, which essentially differed from the mere recognition of national terms, already started in the drafts of the 1849 Kremsier Constitution and went on until the registration of national elections based on the principle of personality in Moravia (1905) and Bukovina (1910).24 22 This makes the literature include the “subjective” elements in the term Bekenntnisprinzip. 23 Vö. Wolfgang Steinacker, Der Begriff der Volkszugehörigkeit und die Praxis der Volkszugehörigkeitsbestimmung im altösterreichischen Nationalitätenrecht (=Schriften des Instituts für Sozialforschung in den Alpenländern an der Universität Innsbruck IX. Folge, Innsbruck 1932). 24 Edmund Bernatzik, Das österreichische Natinalitätenrecht (Wien 1917), 890 f. OPEN ACCESS CSiLLA DöMők 103 What was the intention of legislators in defining tribe and nationality, the latter in the sense of asocial group’s characteristic, also for the group itself, and why did they institutionalise it later? The idea of anation’s proportionate representation, which greatly exceeded the purely linguistic demands of the individual nationalities (the use of official and school language), despite the predictable consequence of the protracted nationality debates, became ademand of national representations.25 The individual not only demanded increasing recognition of their own language in the educational system and official matters but also had to confront with the representatives of their own nationality. The intended institutionalisation of national relations took shape as aright as early as 1873 in the linguistically diverse areas of Bohemia, initially only at aschool level, provincial legislation, and in the establishment of the national “sections” of certain school boards. The principle of “national autonomy” was surpassed by the previous principle of “command of language” to such extent that nationality law entered into anew stage of development where individual national autonomy became anecessary basic principle of political organisations. As has been mentioned, the first such law was the “Schulaufsichtgesetz für Böhmen” (School Supervision Act for Bohemia) dated 24 February 1873 (LGB1. 17), which ordered the appointment of alocal school board for both the German and the Czech nationalities in places where schools existed for both nationalities unless the principle of territoriality, i.e. local demarcation applied. The village or city representatives were allowed or “required” to elect the local representatives for both school boards, “Wie auch der Ortsschulinspektor den Angehörigen jener Nationaität entnommen werden, für welche die Schule, die der Ortsschulrat vertritt, bestimmt ist.” (As the school inspector must also be of the same nationality for which the school was designated and which is represented by the local school board).26 In the decades after the first such law was passed, the areas of Bohemia and Moravia which, as aresult of the polarisation of national forces, were engaged in the most fierce debate over nationalities increasingly used the opportunity to establish “national sections” in the areas of school, agriculture, and medical chambers during legislative or other official regulations.27 Eventually, Silesia established aNational Cultural Council with three national sections in 1910. Tirol enjoyed aprivileged situation as in 1881 it introduced the principle of differentiated sections in agriculture following the national criterion but implemented the separation of the German and Italian sections, based on the natural geographic separation of the two nationalities, by means of ageographic adscription.28 Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia found the exact geographic demarcation of the national zones problematic as the only possible basis for the above laws was 25 Ebenda. 26 Zitiert in: Bernatzik, Das österreichische Natinalitätenrecht, 990 f. 27 Bernatzik, Nationalitätenrecht, 989–1007 ff. 28 Storzh, Probleme der Nationalitätenrechts, 143 f. OPEN ACCESS 110 DVACÁTÉ STOLETÍ 1/2018 Yet, when summary census statistics were used, in diametric opposition to the legal basis accepted for the individual establishment of nationality, the language spoken in everyday life was used to draw aconclusion as to nationality. In afew cases also minorities of alimited number were taken into consideration. At the same time, the court recognised few language minorities in the compromise solution between the Czech proposal of bilingual equal rights and the German proposal of monolingual equal rights and considered the language spoken by minorities as used in the province (landesüblich) in the referendum.49 Summarising all aspects of the principle of spoken language and the principle of national affiliation, the link between language and nationality not to be determined meant that, as expressed figuratively by Renner, language eventually served as a“Gesslerhut” (Gessler hat),50 which was also affected by the significance of international conflicts. “Der Kampf um die Sprache erhitzt die Gemüter vor allem deshalb, weil hinter dem meist formalen Streit um das gesprochene und geschriebene Wort sich der Kampf der Nation um die Macht im Staate oder über den Staat verbirgt.” (The struggle for language has stirred up such acontroversy mainly because underlying the debate, mostly formal, about written or spoken language is the struggle of nations for power in or over the state.)51 Such struggle for power, which took shape in the principle of nationality, can explain the discrepancy that arose during the debate over nationality and language. The only way to obtain language and national rights was for the language to be “landesüblich”, i.e. used in the given province, or for the individual to be amember of the given tribe, whether or not it lived in the area, or for the given tribe to inhabit the area, irrespectively of the person’s national affiliation.52 Yet, the recognition of such rights by the supreme authorities not only depended on the language factor by lack of the relevant law. The individual could demand language rights on the grounds of nationality but language was not recognised as adecisive component of the definition of nationality. 49 Vö. VGH-Erkenntnis vom 1905. 03.11. Budw. Nr.3372/A; VGH-Erkenntnis vom 1909.12.16. Budw. Nr.7081/A. und VGH-Erkenntnis vom 1914. 12.09. Budw. Nr.10624/A. 50 Renner, Das Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Nationen, 63 f. 51 Uo., 65 f. 52 Vö. Hernritt, Die Ausgestaltung des österreichischen Nationalitätenrechts, 588 f. OPEN ACCESS