Povijesni prilozi, Vol. 41 No. 63, 2022.
Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.22586/pp.v41i63.22810
Short Biographies of the Earliest Historiographers of the Military Frontier
Alexander Buczynski
orcid.org/0000-0002-7036-9722
Filip Hren
orcid.org/0000-0001-8618-5461
Abstract
This paper brings together biographies of the earliest historiographers of the Military Frontier, whose works represent the inevitable “zero point” in historical disciplines as well as the humanities at large. These historiographers include Johann Andreas Demian (ca. 1770 – 1845), Carl Bernhard von Hietzinger (November 3, 1786 – March 26, 1864), Mathias Stopfer (1795 – September 8, 1841), Franz de Paula Julius Frass (1794 – March 11, 1868), Paul Kussan (January 12, 1795 – February 2, 1875), Franz Bach (1793 – February 3, 1868), Josef Hostinek (1830 – January 10, 1905), Leopold Martin Krainz (born around 1820), and Franz Vaniček (July 6, 1809 – April 6, 1894).
Their lives were reconstructed on the basis of previously published data in secondary literature, and gaps were filled in, where possible, with the help of relevant monthly army censuses, the accompanying documentation, and registry books. Transfer certificates, which in addition to basic information on personal lives offer a very detailed overview of progress in the professional career, helped the most. Using these documents, it was possible to correct some overlooked errors in the previously published biographies.
Comparing the biographies of the first historiographers of the Military Frontier, the authors have noticed some very interesting similarities as well as differences. Most of the studied persons were officials of the Military Frontier administration, except for Demian and Hietzinger, who belonged to the highest military council in Vienna, and Krainz, who partly made his career in a military unit. Three of them were prominent members of educational staff in the Military Frontier. Stopfer was a professor at the Military Administration School in Graz, Frass was the principal of all schools in the Karlovac Generalate, and Vaniček was the principal of the Higher Grammar School in Vinkovci. Bach and Krainz served as military judges.
Historiographers with most writings relevant to the Military Frontier are Demian, Stopfer and Vaniček. Hietzinger, Kussan, Bach, Hostinek, and Krainz published one seminal work each. While at the beginning the emphasis was on statistics and geography, from the mid-19th century the focus increasingly shifted to historical events. Most authors based themselves on works published before theirs: Hietzinger on Demian, Stopfer on Hietzinger, Frass on Hietzinger and Stopfer, and so on.
However, the most interesting discoveries about their personal and professional lives concern the way these were intertwined. Based on the available and collected data, it could be established that seven of the nine mentioned persons lived to be between 74 and 84 years old. Stopfer died the youngest, at the age of 45, and it was not possible to find out Krainz’s date of death. A combination of high age and a long professional career, which implied frequent transfers, created favourable conditions for possible encounters. Between 1828 and 1830, Stopfer and Bach served simultaneously in the Otočac Regiment, Hostinek was a student of Vaniček and then Stopfer, and Vaniček was member of a society whose president was Hietzinger, the Imperial and Royal Geographical Society in Vienna (k. k. Geographische Gesellschaft).
Although the authors of this paper have tried to shed as much light as possible on the careers of historiographers whose works have been indispensable guideposts on the path of scholarly knowledge about the Military Frontier as a historical phenomenon, the primary intention was to encourage further research into this understudied historical topic.
Keywords
19th century; Croatia; Austria; Military Frontier; historiography; Demian; Hietzinger; Stopfer; Frass; Kussan; Bach; Hostinek; Krainz; Vaniček
Hrčak ID:
288245
URI
Publication date:
11.12.2022.
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