DOI article:
Murár, Tomáš: ‘I am wrong about my qualifications, or I do not have any friends’: Archival Research on the First Professorship of Max Dvořák
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.73804#0064
63
from 11 August 1905,39 Dvorak agreed with Wickhoff's
suspicion that the person behind the attacks was actually
Moritz Dreger,40 who had been a student of both Wickhoff
and Riegl and a 'Privatdozent' at the University of Vienna
since 1901; the main reason for Dreger's effort to discredit
Dvorak's reputation was that he himself had been suggest-
ed for Riegl's professorship secondo loco'.41 Dvorak wrote
to Susta of this suspicion as well on 13 August 1905, and
he underlined that the nationalist arguments against him
were only a pretext, and that the real reason for the at-
tempts to discredit him was rooted in the personal con-
flict between Dreger and him.42
Because of these 'difficult fights', as Dvorak wrote to
Wickhoff on 16 July 1905,43 Count Ferdinand Zdenek
of Lobkowitz from Raudnitz in Bohemia (present-
day Roudnice nad Labem in the Czech Republic), for
whom Dvorak's father worked as a librarian and family
archivist,44 had a word with the minister Hartel in order
to secure Dvorak's professorship. Dvorak wrote to Wick-
hoff on 22 August 1905 that the count's intercession was
important, because the attacks against him had been part-
ly successful - the ministry had already been prepared
to award Dvorak the professorship but the official deci-
sion had been deliberately delayed.45 We can surmise that
Wickhoff also planned to write directly to the emperor,
knowing that Count Lobkowitz had already mentioned
Dvorak's name at the imperial court, because Dvorak
thanked Wickhoff for this suggestion in a letter to him
dated 24 August 1905.46 A few days later, in a letter from
30 August, Dvorak thanked Wickhoff for the suggestion
that he, Wickhoff, would at the ministry mention the plan
to write to the emperor.47 Thus we may suppose that when
Wickhoff at the beginning of September mentioned at the
ministry his intention to send (or the fact that he had al-
ready written) a letter directly to the emperor, the process
was set in motion, and by 5 September 1905 the newspa-
pers printed that the emperor had appointed Maxmilian
Dvorak as the new professor of art history at the Univer-
sity of Vienna.48 A week after the announcement, on 12
September 1905, Dvorak wrote to Wickhoff that he had
malifstvi ćeskeho doby Karlovy', Cesky casopis historicky, 5, 1899,
p. 5.
39 aiahvu fw, 'Dvorak to Wickhoff on 11 August 1905'.
40 Dreger was a member of the Viennese 'Burschenschaft' associa-
tion which pushed the needs of the German professors at the Vi-
enna University. See Biographisches Lexikon der Deutschen Bur-
schenschaft II: Kunstler, eds. H. Dvorak, P. Kaupp, Heidelberg
2018, pp. 148-149.
41 aiah jp, 'Transcript of Dvorak's Letter to Susta from 9 July 1905'.
42 aiah jp, 'Dvorak to Susta on 13 August 1905'.
43 aiahvu fw, 'Dvorak to Wickhoff on 16 July 1905'.
44 J. Pecirka, 'Max Dvofak. Zivotopis', p. VIII (as in note 1).
45 aiahvu fw, 'Dvorak to Wickhoff on 22 August 1905'.
46 aiahvu fw, 'Dvorak to Wickhoff on 24 August 1905'.
47 aiahvu fw, 'Dvorak to Wickhoff on 30 August 1905'.
48 Die Zeit, 5 September 1905, p. 1.
got his professorial certificate that very day and it would
be effective from 1 October.49 Then, on 16 September, in
Neue Freie Presse, Wickhoff published an article celebrat-
ing Dvofak, in which he called him an osterreichischer
Forscher'.50 Dvofak was thrilled and it seemed he would fi-
nally be able to focus on his work. However, the peace was
only temporary. In an unpublished letter, preserved only
in the form of an editor's transcript and stored in the ar-
chive of the Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy
of Sciences in Prague, Dvofak wrote to Susta on 25 Sep-
tember 1905 that Wickhoff had told him that Hartel had
informed him, Wickhoff, that the fight against Dvorak's
appointment would start again when the Imperial Coun-
cil next convened. In addition, even if the fight against
him failed, demonstrations were planned to take place
at the beginning of the academic year to prevent Dvofak
from teaching at the University of Vienna.51
Already on 2 October 1905, Rudolf Berger, a member
of the Imperial Council in Vienna, demanded to speak on
the case of Dvorak's appointment as professor of art his-
tory and presented it as a typical example of a provocation
by the minority nations that were trying to dismantle the
empire, drawing attention to the fact that Dvofak had been
born into the family of a fanatical Czech archivist [...]'
and that he had been 'brought up in the Czech milieu and
"armed" with exclusively Czech schooling'.52 In his speech,
among the other insults he directed against Dvofak, Berg-
er pointed to the speed with which Dvofak had been ap-
pointed as Riegl's successor, even though he had been re-
jected as a candidate for professorships at the universi-
ties in Prague and Fribourg only a few years earlier, and
described this new appointment as a calculated move to
prevent a true expert from applying for the professor-
ship. Berger claimed that there were therefore grounds to
challenge Dvorak's appointment, and he suggested that
Dvofak should rather be sent to one of the 'Slavic' univer-
sities in Prague, Cracow, or Lviv, arguing that there was
no need for two professorships of art history at the Vien-
nese university at all, because the empire should instead
be increasing the number of professorships it offered in
hygiene, medicine, or pharmacology.53 Dvofak described
Berger's interpellation speech in detail to Wickhoff in
a letter from 7 October 1905,54 and he concluded that a lot
49 aiahvu fw, 'Dvorak to Wickhoff on 12 September 1905'.
50 F. Wickhoff, 'Max Dvorak', Neue Freie Presse, 16 September 1905,
pp. 21-22. For this appraisal Dvofak thanked Wickhoff in a letter
from 18 September 1905.
51 aiah jp, 'Transcript of Dvorak's Letter to Susta on 25 September
1905'. Dvorak's first lecture was announced on 26 October 1905 on
the topic of Baroque art in Italy in Die Zeit, 30 September 1905,
p. 4.
52 Stenographische Protokolle uber Sitzungen des Hauses der Abgeord-
neten des osterreichischen Reichsrathes 351, Siztung der XVIII Ses-
sion am Oktober 1905, pp. 31742-31745, here 31743.
53 Ibidem, p. 31754.
54 aiahvu fw, 'Dvorak to Wickhoff on 7 October 1905'.
from 11 August 1905,39 Dvorak agreed with Wickhoff's
suspicion that the person behind the attacks was actually
Moritz Dreger,40 who had been a student of both Wickhoff
and Riegl and a 'Privatdozent' at the University of Vienna
since 1901; the main reason for Dreger's effort to discredit
Dvorak's reputation was that he himself had been suggest-
ed for Riegl's professorship secondo loco'.41 Dvorak wrote
to Susta of this suspicion as well on 13 August 1905, and
he underlined that the nationalist arguments against him
were only a pretext, and that the real reason for the at-
tempts to discredit him was rooted in the personal con-
flict between Dreger and him.42
Because of these 'difficult fights', as Dvorak wrote to
Wickhoff on 16 July 1905,43 Count Ferdinand Zdenek
of Lobkowitz from Raudnitz in Bohemia (present-
day Roudnice nad Labem in the Czech Republic), for
whom Dvorak's father worked as a librarian and family
archivist,44 had a word with the minister Hartel in order
to secure Dvorak's professorship. Dvorak wrote to Wick-
hoff on 22 August 1905 that the count's intercession was
important, because the attacks against him had been part-
ly successful - the ministry had already been prepared
to award Dvorak the professorship but the official deci-
sion had been deliberately delayed.45 We can surmise that
Wickhoff also planned to write directly to the emperor,
knowing that Count Lobkowitz had already mentioned
Dvorak's name at the imperial court, because Dvorak
thanked Wickhoff for this suggestion in a letter to him
dated 24 August 1905.46 A few days later, in a letter from
30 August, Dvorak thanked Wickhoff for the suggestion
that he, Wickhoff, would at the ministry mention the plan
to write to the emperor.47 Thus we may suppose that when
Wickhoff at the beginning of September mentioned at the
ministry his intention to send (or the fact that he had al-
ready written) a letter directly to the emperor, the process
was set in motion, and by 5 September 1905 the newspa-
pers printed that the emperor had appointed Maxmilian
Dvorak as the new professor of art history at the Univer-
sity of Vienna.48 A week after the announcement, on 12
September 1905, Dvorak wrote to Wickhoff that he had
malifstvi ćeskeho doby Karlovy', Cesky casopis historicky, 5, 1899,
p. 5.
39 aiahvu fw, 'Dvorak to Wickhoff on 11 August 1905'.
40 Dreger was a member of the Viennese 'Burschenschaft' associa-
tion which pushed the needs of the German professors at the Vi-
enna University. See Biographisches Lexikon der Deutschen Bur-
schenschaft II: Kunstler, eds. H. Dvorak, P. Kaupp, Heidelberg
2018, pp. 148-149.
41 aiah jp, 'Transcript of Dvorak's Letter to Susta from 9 July 1905'.
42 aiah jp, 'Dvorak to Susta on 13 August 1905'.
43 aiahvu fw, 'Dvorak to Wickhoff on 16 July 1905'.
44 J. Pecirka, 'Max Dvofak. Zivotopis', p. VIII (as in note 1).
45 aiahvu fw, 'Dvorak to Wickhoff on 22 August 1905'.
46 aiahvu fw, 'Dvorak to Wickhoff on 24 August 1905'.
47 aiahvu fw, 'Dvorak to Wickhoff on 30 August 1905'.
48 Die Zeit, 5 September 1905, p. 1.
got his professorial certificate that very day and it would
be effective from 1 October.49 Then, on 16 September, in
Neue Freie Presse, Wickhoff published an article celebrat-
ing Dvofak, in which he called him an osterreichischer
Forscher'.50 Dvofak was thrilled and it seemed he would fi-
nally be able to focus on his work. However, the peace was
only temporary. In an unpublished letter, preserved only
in the form of an editor's transcript and stored in the ar-
chive of the Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy
of Sciences in Prague, Dvofak wrote to Susta on 25 Sep-
tember 1905 that Wickhoff had told him that Hartel had
informed him, Wickhoff, that the fight against Dvorak's
appointment would start again when the Imperial Coun-
cil next convened. In addition, even if the fight against
him failed, demonstrations were planned to take place
at the beginning of the academic year to prevent Dvofak
from teaching at the University of Vienna.51
Already on 2 October 1905, Rudolf Berger, a member
of the Imperial Council in Vienna, demanded to speak on
the case of Dvorak's appointment as professor of art his-
tory and presented it as a typical example of a provocation
by the minority nations that were trying to dismantle the
empire, drawing attention to the fact that Dvofak had been
born into the family of a fanatical Czech archivist [...]'
and that he had been 'brought up in the Czech milieu and
"armed" with exclusively Czech schooling'.52 In his speech,
among the other insults he directed against Dvofak, Berg-
er pointed to the speed with which Dvofak had been ap-
pointed as Riegl's successor, even though he had been re-
jected as a candidate for professorships at the universi-
ties in Prague and Fribourg only a few years earlier, and
described this new appointment as a calculated move to
prevent a true expert from applying for the professor-
ship. Berger claimed that there were therefore grounds to
challenge Dvorak's appointment, and he suggested that
Dvofak should rather be sent to one of the 'Slavic' univer-
sities in Prague, Cracow, or Lviv, arguing that there was
no need for two professorships of art history at the Vien-
nese university at all, because the empire should instead
be increasing the number of professorships it offered in
hygiene, medicine, or pharmacology.53 Dvofak described
Berger's interpellation speech in detail to Wickhoff in
a letter from 7 October 1905,54 and he concluded that a lot
49 aiahvu fw, 'Dvorak to Wickhoff on 12 September 1905'.
50 F. Wickhoff, 'Max Dvorak', Neue Freie Presse, 16 September 1905,
pp. 21-22. For this appraisal Dvofak thanked Wickhoff in a letter
from 18 September 1905.
51 aiah jp, 'Transcript of Dvorak's Letter to Susta on 25 September
1905'. Dvorak's first lecture was announced on 26 October 1905 on
the topic of Baroque art in Italy in Die Zeit, 30 September 1905,
p. 4.
52 Stenographische Protokolle uber Sitzungen des Hauses der Abgeord-
neten des osterreichischen Reichsrathes 351, Siztung der XVIII Ses-
sion am Oktober 1905, pp. 31742-31745, here 31743.
53 Ibidem, p. 31754.
54 aiahvu fw, 'Dvorak to Wickhoff on 7 October 1905'.