ABSTRACT
There can be no doubt that Austrian contemporary history as a field of academic specialization is in a state of crisis. The work of the Austrian "historical commission" testifies to the importance of the subject, and the flow of publications released since the commission took up its activities has not seemed to ebb. Proceeding from a Viennese perspective, one might be inclined to comment that most recent trends of "culture" and "gender" seem to have bypassed Austria's remote western provinces. In 1947-1948, three of Austria's neighbor states with whom it entertained long-standing relations of a political, economic, and social nature became part of the "Soviet block." In modern Austrian history, progressive westernization was accompanied by a long, drawn out struggle to cope with the status of a small country. Deregulation and modernization of the Austrian economy and society did not come as a sudden shock, but proceeded slowly and steadily, almost in homeopathic doses.
