The first part of the book’s title “The State Treaty Fifty Years on: Writing, Identity and Austrian Independence“, edited by Gilbert J. Carr and Caitríona Leahy, could be taken as either subject matter or time frame. The book deals both with how the state treaty is represented and instrumentalised in public discourse 50 years on, and how writing and Austrian identity have developed over the 50 years of Austrian independence. As such, not all of the essays in this collection are about events or publications from 2005, and not all thematise the state treaty directly. Rather, they deal with three main themes outlined by the editors in the foreword, namely: The analysis of public events which took place as part of the government’s official ‘Year of Commemoration and Reflection’ in 2005; interpretations of literary works from the 1960s to the present day by politically engaged post-war writers; and critiques of the way in which Austria has dealt with its past.

One of the strongest points of the book is its introduction. This provides both a history of the state treaty, including its reception in Ireland as “an outside view from the periphery’“ (p. 2), and an overview of the development of Austrian historical memory. It discusses the essays not as a list of what is to come, but rather through and around various themes which come up again and again throughout the book. These include: performances of national selfhood; the role of neutrality in Austrian politics and self-perception; the emotionally resonant term “Heimat”; developments in literature and art since 1945; the function of the Kunstskandal; and the relationship between the past and present.

In the first of the three essays dealing with commemorative public events in 2005, Heidemarie Uhl discusses the signing of the state treaty as a ‘site of memory’ in Austrian national consciousness, one that has remained largely unquestioned as a central founding moment in the history of the Second Republic. Karin Liebhart’s essay compares two of the main exhibitions put on in 2005 about Austria and the state treaty (“Das Neue Österreich“ in Vienna’s Belvedere Gallery and “Österreich ist frei! Der österreichische Staatsvertrag 1955“ in the Schallaburg Castle in Lower Austria) and goes on to critically analyse the “25 Peaces“, 25 artistic events and interventions which went on in public space throughout 2005. Both this essay and Uhl’s draw out the way public memory is staged to inscribe the state treaty into an ‘Austrian’ identity. Liebhart sums up the official events of 2005 as, “eine recht unreflektierte Inszenierung der Erfolgsstory Zweite Republik“ (p. 39) and both also discuss the ways in which the now discredited ‘victim myth’, which posited Austria as the first victim of Nazi aggression, has been reformulated to position Austria as a victim of the war against Nazi aggression.

Both articles also look at Austria in a European context, which is also central to Nikolaus Unger’s essay, in particular the challenge to Austrian national identity posed by Austria’s EU membership and EU expansion in recent years. In his discussion of two publications exploring Austrian identity in 2005 (“Österreich 2005. Das Lesebuch zum Jubiläumsjahr mit Programmübersicht“ issued by the Federal Chancellor’s office, and “Österreich – und jetzt? Das Lesebuch zum Jubiläumsjahr“ by Andreas Unterberger), Unger takes a generational approach to charting the development of Austrian national identity construction. In particular, he calls for the use of the pre-1945 past as a cultural resource to deal with the challenge of moving beyond seeing Austrian national identity solely in terms of a nation building project. It is, however, not clear if he is referring to a specific period of Austria’s pre-1945 past.

The two articles by Jacqueline Vansant and Ben Hutchinson, which deal with writing by Bruno Kreisky and Jean Améry respectively, are about the role of personal stories in constructing the national discourse of what it is to be Austrian. In her article, Vansant maps the ways in which Kreisky, as someone returning to the Austrian collective from exile, uses his memoirs to legitimize himself as Austrian (as opposed to someone like Kurt Waldheim, whose ‘Austrianness’ is taken for granted in his memoirs), and construct his identity as Austrian and Jewish. His memoir ends with the signing of the state treaty, demonstrating both the political and personal significance of Austrian independence. Hutchinson’s analysis of Améry’s writings on exile and Heimat explores their semiotic structure and shows how Améry understood exile and Heimat in terms of each other.

Austrian literature also has a particular identity, as Sigurd Paul Scheichl argues in his essay on Austrian literature as a separate variety of literature written in German, one which has its roots in the “oberdeutsches Literatursystem” (p. 103) of the 17th century. The remaining five essays in the book go on to deal with a range of literary works, including Christoph Ransmayr’s “Die vergorene Heimat“, Thomas Bernhard’s “Alte Meister“, Ingeborg Bachmann’s “Malina“, Alois Vogel’s “Schlagschatten“ and Elfriede Jelinek’s “Burgtheater“. That the book as a whole is biased towards literary representations of identity is perhaps not surprising for a symposium about writing.

In looking at the reception of Vogel and Jelinek, Andrew Barker and Helga Mitterbauer draw on opposition to the works to reveal the mentality prevalent at the time. In its even-handed style, Vogel’s work reflects the consensus climate of 1960s Austria, but his thematisation of the events of February 1934 meant he had difficulty getting it published. Jelinek’s play challenged what people were willing to countenance as part of Austrian history and reviewers concentrated on the content, paying little attention to its aesthetic style and innovations. Mitterbauer’s article compliments that of Christine Kibuszinska, which contains a more detailed analysis of Jelinek’s “Burgtheater“ and “Totenauberg“.

Andreas Stuhlmann and Peter M. McIsaac look at prose works by six of Austria’s most provocative post-war writers. Stuhlmann uses the works of Josef Haslinger, Christoph Ransmayr and Robert Menasse to explore different figurations of Heimat and the distrust of postmodern narrative strategies of the image of history. As he points out, it is a mistrust which is „überaus berechtigt“(p. 135), given the images in circulation for the 50th anniversary of the state treaty.

McIsaac examines how the museum is used as a narrative strategy to discuss particular problems in Austrian society and culture in works by Thomas Bernhard, Gerhard Roth and Ingeborg Bachmann. His article is very illuminating in this respect, but seems to bear little relation to the state treaty or its 50th anniversary. This is the case for many of the essays on literature, which concentrate more on writing and identity in the post-war period than on the particular historical moment of 1955/2005.

Taking writing and the state treaty as the frame for looking at how individuals and groups in Austria construct and negotiate their self-understanding, this collection explores how notions of Austrian independence and a corresponding Austrian identity that were founded by the state treaty in 1955 have developed and been challenged. Furthermore, it looks at how the state treaty is utilised in ideas about Austrian identity today on the occasion of its 50th anniversary and highlights how unreflected that utilisation often is. A concern with the way past and present inform each other thus runs through what is a very thought-provoking collection of essays.