ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the journey of the Austrian modernist writer, Hermann Bahr (1863–1934) down the Adriatic coast in 1908. At the time of Bahr’s journey, the Habsburg provinces of Istria and Dalmatia were at the centre of tense discussions around Habsburg sea power and imperial expansion, Italian and Slavic nationalism among the Dual Monarchy’s southeastern subject peoples, and the role of the Habsburg state in modernising the region and implementing a specific Austrian “civilising mission”. Bahr’s publicised observations and criticisms of Austria’s role in Dalmatia set off a debate in the Viennese public sphere that involved modernist artists such as Bahr, former Habsburg administrators, and Croatian representatives. Bahr’s journey and the debate it triggered can be compared to the critical interventions of modernist artists in the practices of other Western empires in the period before World War I.