Pevnostní město v habsburské monarchii v 19. století v dějepisné práci
A Nineteenth Century Fortified City in the Habsburg Monarchy from a Historiographical Perspective

Summary/Abstract: The presented article attempts to answer the question what is the percep¬tion of a nineteenth century fortified city in Central Europe in twentieth and twenty first century historiography, particularly in the area of some of the successor states af¬ter the dissolution of Austria-Hungary (i.e. within the territory of present-day Slovakia, Austria, the Czech Republic and a part of Poland). The subjects of interest will be pri¬marily Komárno in Slovakia, Josefov, Terezín, Prague and Hradec Králové in Bohemia, Brno and Olomouc in Moravia, Linz and Vienna in present-day Austria, Cracow and Przemyśl in Galicia. Thus, it concerns fortified cities which have played a strategically significant role in the defence of the Habsburg Monarchy since the second half of the nineteenth century. Although the focus of the analysis specifically lies in Czech historiog¬raphy, the paper also discusses the issue in the context of Slovak and Austrian historical works and, briefly, even considers Polish and Italian historiography. Over the last decade there has been a growing debate about a new perception of military history, and several articles and books have even been published which show fortified cities or fortresses from a much broader perspective than has been the case up to now. Despite this, the decades-long trend of a positivistic and technical style of writing still prevails consider¬ably in historical works. The causes of this phenomenon lie not only in the disinclination of historians (students included) to consider the topic more widely and in cooperation with other branches of historiography, but also in a disinclination (or impossibility) to re¬alise a wide-ranging research of primary sources. However, as research so far has clearly shown, for every fortified city mentioned in the article, a copious amount of records (particularly in funds of the War Archive in Vienna) – still waiting to be “discovered” and studied – exists. Thus, the full potential of the issue remains untapped.

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