The Congress of Vienna and its Global Dimension, 18-22 Sep. 2014, University of Vienna

The Vienna Conference was the apex of British imperial hegemony aiming at imposing its rule on Europe, noticeably by forbidding other powers (and above all France) to practice the Atlantic slave trade. Notwithstanding, it exacerbated European nationalisms. So doing, it was also the end of an epoch. All over the 19th century, the rise of capitalism among competing Western colonial powers will impose new types of agreements. Vienna (1815) was the last conference aiming at ending a European war. The next to come would be Berlin (1885) aiming at avoiding European wars, i.e. prefigurating a building of Europe.

Lovejoy

Paul E. Lovejoy

Distinguished Research Professor (Canada Research Chair in African Diaspora History), Department of History, York University (Toronto, Canada):

The jihad movement in West Africa in the context

of the Congress of Vienna

Plenary lecture on Sunday 21 September, 6pm

HS 33, University of Vienna (main building)

The monumental shifts in power relationships that followed the defeat of Napolean and the emergence of independent states in the Americas occurred at the same time as the jihad movement in West Africa achieved a new level of militancy. By 1815, jihad had become the dominant force in the interior of West Africa, with the result that virtually all of the major states and most of the minor polities from Senegambia to Lake Chad had been overthrown or subjected to extensive reform. Yet the conservative reaction to revolution in Europe and the emergence of independent states in Haiti, Brazil and virtually everywhere in Hispanic America, except Cuba and Puerto Rico, is perceived within a Eurocentric perspective that ignores what was happening in West Africa, and indeed in other parts of Africa, too. It is argued in this paper that the conception of the "Atlantic World" has to be redefined so as to include the African shores of the Atlantic Ocean. The challenge is to understand the virtual isolation of the Islamic world from the analysis of the Black Atlantic, including the independence of new countries, slave resistance in the Americas, and the transformation of West Africa into a stronghold of Muslim governance. The paper calls for a different, multi-perspective approach to the so-called "Age of Revolutions" that has dominated the analysis of the history of Europe and the Americas.

Wolfgang SCHMALE

Wolfgang Schmale

Professor of Modern History,

Institute of History, University of Vienna (Austria):

The Holy Alliance and the Rise of Christian Imperialism

Plenary lecture on Friday 19 September, 4:15pm

HS 33, University of Vienna (main building)

When answering questions about the origins of Christian imperialism, reference is usually made to the development of the missionary movement in the nineteenth century, which distinguished itself markedly from the practices and objectives of early-modern missions. In connection with possible trajectories established during what Reinhart Koselleck termed the “Sattelzeit” – or in more neutral terms the transitional period around 1800 between the early-modern and modern eras – I find it illuminating to direct a “penetrating” gaze upon the Holy Alliance, which may have functioned as a catalyst for a form of Christian imperialism.

At the very least, one must acknowledge that the Holy Alliance was perceived and discussed far beyond Europe as a potential actor. Czar Alexander, the spiritus rector of the Holy Alliance, saw to this himself. First, he would have liked to gain the United States as a member; second, he worried about Spain and South America. With regard to South America, the path toward independence dismayed him less than did the prospect that these new independent countries might not be monarchies.

Alexander I opened the way for a form of Christianity that entered into a supportive partnership not only with politics but also with emerging imperialism. The latter availed itself of a Christian identity that later with imperialists like Cecil Rhodes, for example, would take on racist characteristics. The new understanding of Christendom also had an internal effect, constituting a connection between individual believers within the various congregations and imperialism in the world beyond.

wallerstein photo

Immanuel Wallerstein

Professor emeritus of Sociology, senior research scholar,

Yale University (New Haven, U.S.A.):

The congress of Vienna. From 1763 to 1833:

Europe and the Americas

Closing lecture on Monday 22 September, 10am

Großer Festsaal, University of Vienna (main building)

Public lecture in the series Vienna Lectures – the dialogue forum of the City of Vienna

The Congress of Vienna, which met between September 1814 and June 1815, was only an event, albeit a very important one, in the longer, wider, and more important story of how Great Britain obtained, secured, and institutionalized its hegemony in the world-system. It required Great Britain to undertake actions at home, on the European continent, in south Asia, and in particular in the Americas.

The story begins with the Seven Years' War, which Great Britain won in 1763 and hoped would mark its definitive defeat of its rival for hegemonic status, France. It turned out to be only the penultimate moment in that struggle. France was able to recover sufficiently to force a second round of the battle, which culminated in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars between 1792 and 1815.

In between 1763 and 1792, the Thirteen Colonies of British North America achieved independence. Analogous movements began in Hispanic America, similar in some but not all respects to the drive in British North America.

With the defeat of France at Waterloo, Great Britain was able to secure the ouster not only of France, but of Spain and Portugal, from any significant role in the Americas. Great Britain could now turn her efforts to containing the ability of the three great autocratic governments of the European Continent - Russia, Austria, and Prussia - from succeeding in Metternich's program of total repression of liberal revolutionary movements. She did this with the assistance of France as a junior partner in establishing the model of the liberal states in a privileged economic position in the world-system.

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