SUMMARY:

Benno Gammerl explores the overlapping and contradictory meanings of subjecthood and citizenship in this comparative study of how the British and the Hapsburg Empires dealt with their subjects residing outside of the imperial domains. Based on archival sources from Hapsburg and British consulates and central institutions, Gammerl’s study problematizes the notion of an “archaic” Central Europe and modern West. According to Gammerl’s research, in the British Empire, where traditionally belonging to the polity did not presuppose automatic entitlement to citizenship rights, subjecthood survived until the twentieth century in a new racial form. For “non-European” subjects of the British Empire the maintenance or acquisition of British subjecthood was made more difficult than for the “European” subjects. In the case of the Danube Monarchy, Gammerl sees two additional distinct patterns. In the Austrian case, the imperial authorities treated their subjects without regard to their ethnic background, and instead promoted the interests of the state as such, particularly in the military sphere. In the Hungarian case, the authorities started out with a similar attitude, but as Hungary turned into a nationalizing state its policies with respect to subjecthood tended to privilege the Magyars. Gammerl typologizes the three cases as “imperialist,” “statist,” and “ethno-nationalist.” By exploring these three cases, the author suggests expanding the field of citizenship studies by including cases of large and multiethnic imperial polities.