"Be Proud and Firm, Citizens of Austria!" Patriotism and Masculinity in Texts of the "Political Romantics" Written during Austria's Anti-Napoleonic Wars

With images of patriotism and masculinity the "political romantics," who worked for the government before and during the Austrian "War of Liberation" of 1809, tried to mobilize men for the militia system, which the government had created in 1808 to raise a "people's army" against Napoleonic France. Romanticist writers like Friedrich Schlegel were among the most active producers of patriotic propaganda in this period. They extolled love of fatherland and national pride not only as official agents for the state, but also in their personal writings. Patriotic devotion and martial masculinity thus became the defining elements of their male self-image.