Re: [Harp-L] history

[Frank Evers <frank@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi

Am Montag, 17. November 2008 schrieb Dave Payne, Elk River Harmonicas:
> Again, Haida (thus our legendary Richters) was in the
> Austro-Hungarian Empire, not Germany, but you have loosed no
> respect from me because of, even though I didn't have to google it.

You're right, that Haida was in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but you 
should keep in mind, that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was founded in 
1867. 
Before Haida was part of the Austrian Empire, which was itself part of 
the German Federation (Deutscher Bund, 1815-1866). The German 
Federation was a federation of 39 (later 35) sovereign states that 
was founded to enforce the common interests of it's members against 
surrounding forces like russia, poland and france.

So "german" was kind of an umbrella term for a wide variety of 
nationalities. The idea of a german nation and restauration of 
germany as a sovereign state was pushed by bourgeois classes all the 
time from 1815 and led to the revolution of 1848 (americans might now 
the term fourtyeighters, which is derived from this date) which 
however failed in 1849. 
With bourgeois nationalists defeated Prussia and Austria were trying 
to enforce dominance in the German Federation which resulted in a war 
in 1866. Prussia won and founded the German Empire (1871), Austria 
and Hungary (which was never part of the German Federation) formed 
the Austrio-Hungarian Empire.

Harp content (well, kind of):
So was Richter (Joseph or Anton, i don't care) german? Though Haida 
was in the Austrian Empire that country was multi ethnic, and they 
were living in a borderregion of two different ethnic groups, german 
(or saxonian as a subdivision of germans) and czechs.
Since the names Joseph, Anton and Richter sound very german, and not 
at all czech i however strongly assume they  can be assumed german.

-- 
Gruß,Frank