To mark its twenty-fifth issue, Austrian Studies examines practices and representations of celebration from 1750 to the present in the Habsburg Empire, the Austrian Republics and former areas of the Habsburg Empire. Festivities, festivals, anniversary celebrations and the ways in which they are organized and experienced, shed unique light on the culture that supports – or is supported by – such events. Celebrations constitute conscious, if temporary, departures from everyday life, moments of collective performance. Their potential is paradoxical in that they can either unsettle or confi rm existing narratives and identities, depending not only on why and how they are staged, but also on their context and aftermath. As Elias Canetti claimed of the ‘Festmasse’ (celebratory or holiday crowd), celebrations can produce a temporary state of liberation, of abandon; they can also be markers of continuity or sources of reactionary energy, as Joseph Roth noted, looking back to the ‘Kaiserjubil umsfestzug’ after the demise of the Habsburg Empire. Contemporary practices of memory and discourses of heritage rely heavily on a globally marketable Festkultur which assimilates aspects of earlier celebratory practices.

Austrian Festkultur – from Habsburg court ritual to the media spectacles of the present day, from Volksfeste to festivals of high culture and classical music – offers a broad field of enquiry.