The institutionalization of geography emerged in the 19th century with the establishment of geographical societies and university departments. In many nation-states, the discipline primarily served to support colonization and imperialist ambitions. However, the development of geography within the Habsburg Empire was significantly more complex, particularly in relation to its legal system. The empire underwent profound transformations in governance, transitioning from a centralized absolutist system to a dualistic state structure following the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867. This compromise created a distinctly divided political framework between Austria and Hungary, where the science policy was also bifurcated. Given this intricate administrative-legal context, a critical question arises: How did the discipline of geography respond to this complex legal and political structure in terms of institutionalization and intellectual development? This paper addresses this question by examining three key aspects of the development of Austrian and Hungarian geography from the mid-19th century to the end of World War I. First, it explores the evolution of geography’s institutionalization within the empire’s two halves. Second, it introduces the most influential scholars in Austrian and Hungarian geography across generations, analyzing their intellectual impacts within the broader international scientific context. Finally, the paper investigates the shifting research agendas of Austrian and Hungarian geographers through an analysis of articles published in the leading journals of the Austrian and Hungarian Geographical Societies between 1857 and 1918. The findings reveal that geography’s role in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy was more complex than in other nation-states. The institutional division of geography between Austria and Hungary profoundly influenced both the intellectual development of the discipline and the way its research agendas were shaped by the political narratives of the respective governments. However, the findings also demonstrate that the common foreign policy objectives of the shared government played a significant role in aligning their research agendas, particularly in studies concerning regions beyond the empire's borders. As an epilogue, the paper briefly examines the legacy of geographical knowledge produced during the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, shedding light on its impact in the post-imperial era.

Erwin Hanslik (1880-1940) has been an object of a limited number of biography-oriented studies. A student of the renown (and notorious) German geomorphologist, Albrecht Penck (1858-1945), Hanslik developed a holistic ‘philosophy of humanity’ and cooperated broadly with Austrian artists and men of culture at the turn of the 20^th century. During the First World War his pamphlets, published under the auspices of the Institut für Kulturforschung, advocated the Habsburg cause by means of cultural geography inspired by his earlier work on Galician/Silesian borderland. Both his philosophical musings and undeterred Habsburg patriotism contributed to Hanslik’s marginal position among his peers, a cohort including such strong personalities (and ardent nationalists) as Eugeniusz Romer (1871-1954), Jovan Cvijić (1865-1927), or Stepan Rudnytskyi (1877-1937). Perceived as incurably idealist and, later in his life, mentally ill, he has not been seen as a political actor.

This paper situates Hanslik’s wartime writings and cartography within the context of the Austro-Hungarian politics and the debate on the Monarchy’s war aims. Basing on Hanslik’s writings, cartographic works, and sparse archival documents, it establishes a link between his eccentric worldview and Austria’s unfulfilled expansionism during the First World War.

This paper examines competing ideas on geography and boundaries held by different British and Hungarian geographers during and immediately following WWI. There are two strands to the analysis. The first is epistemological: how and why did different geographers develop the ideas they did on Europe’s political boundaries in this period? Among British geographers, attention is paid to the work of Lionel Lyde and his Some Frontiers of Tomorrow: An Aspiration for Europe (1915), to Thomas Holdich’s Frontiers and Boundary Making (1916) and his Boundaries in Europe and the Near East (1918), and to Cyril Fawcett’s Frontiers. A Study in Political Geography (1918). Hungarian geographers include Pál Teleki and Ferenc Fodor, and we analyse the Manifesto of the Hungarian Geographical Society to the Geographical Societies of the World (fundamentally the work of Teleki, and published in Hungarian in 1918, and French in 1919). The second is historiographical: how should we conceive of the geographical community at this time? Lyde and Fawcett were leading figures in the development of a ‘modern’ academic British geography. Holdich was a prominent geographically minded civil servant within the Royal Geographical Society. Teleki was a politician and a leading academic geographer at a time when Hungary’s boundaries were dramatically altered after WWI. His protégé Fodor was a schoolteacher prior to the peace talks. Arguably the leading figure in Britain over discussions on how to map the borders of the ‘new’ Europe was also a schoolteacher, Bertram (‘Bertie’) Cotterrell Wallis. Wallis was a significant figure in the geographical and British military intelligence communities in this period. In his teaching, he was also a leading advocate of statistical approaches in teaching geography – themes quite different from those of Holdich, Lyde, and Fawcett. How then should we understand these different histories within early twentieth century geography? How may we think of ‘the geographical community’ at this time given international similarities and intranational differences?

Zoltán Hajdú

Abstract

Since the last third of the 19th century, and largely due to changing foreign policy circumstances, modern Hungarian geography has become increasingly interested in Russia. If we review the material of the volumes of the most important journal of Hungarian geography - Geographical Bulletins - from 1873 to 1923 with the help of the Arcanum internet database, we can conclude that there is hardly a volume in which there has not been some kind of material (geographical exploration, railway construction, statistics, territorial conflict, nationality, emigration of Jews, etc.) about the Russian Empire. The question of Ukrainian hostel territories and Ukrainians (Little Russians) appeared only rarely and incidentally. In 1914, István Rudnickyj's basic work on Ukraine was published in Budapest, which received substantial criticism. During World War I, interest in the internal affairs of hostile Russia increased. A part of Hungarian science (history, literary history, linguistics, ethnography, geography), especially with the financial support of Miklós Szemere, focused on research into the complexities of Ukraine. This work became organised through the publication of the journal "Ukrania". The journal, published in 1916, made a significant contribution to raising awareness of Ukrainians. Ukrainian ideas concerning the territory of the Hungarian state were not only criticised but also rejected.