Austrian Identity

Suhyeon Oh
Professor Teresa Rieger
Understanding Austrian Culture & Society
Portfolio 4

The presentation Jimin, Eelhea and I did on 12th, Nov was about Austrian Identity. Before we started the research, we thought we should clarify what national identity means. National identity can be defined as a person’s identity and sense of belonging to one nation, a feeling one shares with a group of people, regardless of one’s citizenship status. In a nutshell, identity is what makes Austrian ‘Austrian’. One survey done in 2001 revealed that about 91% of Austrians said that they are proud of their country. This number is outstanding compared to that of other nations’. Therefore, we thought that they have quite strong national identity as Austrians

Opfernation is austria’s victim status, which implies that Austria is Hitler’s first victim. Using this premise, politicians in modern Austria tried to deny their fault of involving in the World War 2 and avoid the responsibility such as monetary compensation. There some new movements in Austria which admit their fault and try to fix it since 1980s. The next term is Heimat Austria, which is related to the second and the third founding myth of Modern Austria. The leaders of the republic including Renner put great emphasis on Heimat Austria to restore their confidence and build up the distinct national and cultural identity. In order to establish their new identity, they reactivated its great heritage by connecting the second republic with the habsburg era, which is considered to be the best days in the history. In addition to the rich historical, they stressed that they were blessed with the beautiful nature. As it was implied in the concept of Heimat Austria, the natural beauty means a lot to Austrians. Especially, snow-capped mountains such as Alpine have had big influence on Austrians’

We asked her three questions and she kindly shared her opinion with us. She said she feels proud of being Austrian because Austria was chosen as one of the best places to live in several times already, which means they have good living conditions, and people are happy here. And also the beautiful nature makes people feel happier other than people in other countries. However, she was not sure about other Austrians have strong sense of identity as well. Based on her experience travelling many foreign countries, she said she had the feeling that Austrians have a little bit individualistic way of life compared to people in other countries. She also added that it is good in the way that it could mean that they respect others’ privacy but it also interpreted into the weak tendency to view themselves as one unity. This was the most interesting part of the interview. That is because I thought that Austrians have pretty strong sense of community. To me, it seems that they love their tradition and know how to preserve it. However, on the second thought, I realized that the community spirit could have something to do with the sense of identity but could not perfectly be related to it. Still, they love their country, proud of being Austrian itself. In addition to it, they are gentle enough to respect others’ life. Through this presentation I had a tremendous opportunity to know about Austrian Identity