The History of Chinese Studies in Austria Revisited

Abstract This article traces the origins and developments of Chinese studies in Austria. In addition to factors and institutions that were instrumental in the development of these studies, the lives and works of individuals important to this development are revisited, starting with brief remarks on the scholarly interest in China in eighteenth century Austria and on early efforts to obtain Chinese books and Chinese printing types in the nineteenth century. The achievements of individual scholars are examined against the backdrop of their institutional affiliations and their experiences, if any, in China. In addition, the reasons for the delayed institutionalization of Sinological studies at university level are highlighted.


Introduction
This article offers a reconsideration of the history of Chinese studies in Austria. Due to the ethnic and linguistic diversity of the former Habsburg empire and divergent Orientalist traditions, developments in the Bohemian (Czech), Hungarian and Italian regions of the former Habsburg monarchy are deliberately excluded.
Since the seventeenth century, the Habsburg Emperors and thus the Imperial Library at Vienna had received Chinese books and maps sent by Jesuit missionaries. These materials found their way into the library's catalogs of manuscripts and rare prints. 1 In contrast to Berlin and Paris, the existence of Chinese books in Vienna did not prepare the ground for an early philological interest in the Chinese language during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Nevertheless, examples for the reception of Jesuit translations of Confucian texts can also be found in Austria even if they hitherto have not been mentioned so far in connection with the history of Chinese studies. 2 Unsurprisingly, these examples come from the pens of Austrian Jesuits or Jesuits working in Austria. In 1707, Albert Count Purgstall SJ (1671-1744) published a short account of the life and teachings of Confucius, based on Confucius Sinarum Philosophus. 3 The purpose of Purgstall's publication was to congratulate the highest-ranking of the newly graduated doctors, as was customary in the early modern period. This brief account suggests that Confucius Sinarum Philosophus was used at the University of Vienna to study Chinese philosophy. 4 While teaching at the Jesuit College in Innsbruck, Ignaz Weitenauer SJ (1709-1783), who was born in Bavaria, did further research in Oriental languages. During this time, he published a panegyric on the Habsburg rulers (1765) in which he equated the achievements of these rulers with famous mountains. 5 The booklet also documented Weitenauer's work with European and Asian languages. Some of the hundred aphorisms were given in Chinese (rendered in Latin script) taken from Jesuit translations of Chinese texts. The hundred mountains selected by Weitenauer include some from China.

The Beginnings of Chinese Studies in Vienna
The actual beginnings of Chinese studies in Austria date back to the 1830s and 1840s and are linked to the names of the botanist Stephan Endlicher   6 and the orientalist August Pfizmaier (1808-1887). 7 Since Austria-apart from an unsuccessful attempt in the early 1820s-played no role in the China trade, the motives for this first serious interest in the study of the Chinese language were of a purely scholarly nature. The suggestion for this came from Moriz, Prince of Dietrichstein , the head of the Imperial Library, who wanted to expand the holdings to include books from all over the world. In connection with this, Endlicher was given the task of 2 On the history of Sinology in Austria, see Bernhard Führer, Vergessen und verloren: Die Geschichte der österreichischen Chinastudien (Bochum: Projektverlag, 2001). For an earlier, often biased and sometimes inaccurate account, see Gerd Kaminski and Else Unterrieder, Von Österreichern und Chinesen (Vienna: Europaverlag, 1980), 98-119, 260-95, and 329-63. 3 Confucius Sinarum Philosophus, sive scientia sinensis latine exposita, trans. Prospero Intorcetta, Christian Herdtrich, François Rougemont, and Philippe Couplet (Paris: Horthemels, 1687 compiling a list of Chinese books. In addition, he was to acquire more Chinese books. Julius Klaproth (1783Klaproth ( -1835 in Paris andPaul Schilling von Canstadt (1786-1837) in St. Petersburg both played important roles in the acquisition and cataloging of Chinese books. English journals compared the size of the Vienna collection of East Asian books to the size of the Chinese collections in London. The Imperial Library in Vienna "may perhaps be equal in this department to that of the British Museum, or even of the East India Company, but is certainly inferior to that of the Asiatic Society, or the London university." 8 In 1845, the President of the Royal Geographical Society (London), Roderick Impey Murchison (1792-1871) linked Endlicher's publication of an atlas of China 9 not only to the legacy of the Jesuit missionaries, but also to contemporary developments in international relations in East Asia: "and with the addition of our own recent surveys of her coasts and harbours, and the Russian exploration of her mountainous northern frontiers …, China will, I trust, be not much longer the great 'terra incognita' of the civilized portions of the globe." 10 For both his catalog and the list of places added to the atlas he published, Endlicher had Chinese printing types produced: "he had made a fount of Chinese types, and presented it to the national printing establishment: he published expensive works at his own cost, and presented them to the literary world." 11 This fount of Chinese types had attracted the attention of August Pfizmaier who in the early 1840s took up the study of Chinese, Japanese, and Manchu. In a letter published by "M." in the Athenaeum in spring 1846, Pfizmaier wrote that he had obtained from Paris "a very rare work, known by the name of 'Tso Chuen,' [Zuo zhuan 左傳] which contains memoirs of the principal feudal states of China" and that, as "the Austrian Government has now taken care to get a complete set of Chinese types, there will be every hope of having this work printed with a European translation, the first published out of China." 12 The correspondent of the Athenaeum pointed out that Pfizmaier's progress in his Chinese studies may "interest members of a nation whose banner is now floating in Chinese ports." Pfizmaier would be a suitable choice for a chair of Chinese: "why should not 8 "Chinese Literature," Mechanics' Magazine, Museum, Register, Journal, and Gazette, No. 730 (August 5, 1837), 304. See Stephan Endlicher, Verzeichniss der chinesischen und japanischen Münzen des k.k. Münzund Antiken-Cabinets in Wien, nebst einer Übersicht der chinesischen und japanischen Bücher der k.k.
Hofbibliothek (Vienna: Beck, 1837); Riedl-Dorn, Ein uomo universale, 147-48. Endlicher published the catalog of East Asian books as an appendix to a catalog of Chinese and Japanese coins of the Imperial collection in Vienna; see Helen Wang, "A Short History of Chinese Numismatics in European Languages," Early China 35-36 (2012-13), 411. either University summon from the dingy Leopoldstadt of Vienna one so capable of filling it as Dr. Pfitzmayer [sic] in default of sufficient teachers at home?" 13 From the winter of 1843/44, Pfizmaier taught "Chinese and Turkish language and literature" at the University of Vienna. 14 In May 1847, it was announced that "a Japanese grammar, written by Pfizmaier, and the Chinese historical work Tso-tschuen [Zuo zhuan] with German translation" were to be published at Vienna. 15 At that time, an Austrian newspaper mentioned the proposal printed in the Athenaeum in the summer of 1846: the prospect of Pfizmaier's appointment to a chair of Chinese and Japanese to be created in England. In this context, the wish was expressed that Pfizmaier "remains faithful to his fatherland Austria and that he should be granted a quiet place there in order to be able to bring the fruits of his tireless research to light." 16 This wish of a "quiet place" to pursue his research came true for Pfizmaier in early 1848, when he was made a member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences at Vienna. 17 This also marked the end of his teaching at the University of Vienna.
Pfizmaier's translations included parts of the encyclopedia Taiping yulan 太平御覽 (Imperial Digest of the Taiping Reign Period), chapters from the standard histories and works of Chinese poetry. 18 In the mid-1850s, Pfizmaier was involved in the preparations for the scholarly program of the circumnavigation of the Austrian frigate Novara. Pfizmaier drew up a list of Chinese works that the participants in the expedition were to acquire during their stay in China. In the official travelogue, Karl (von) Scherzer , the first officer of this expedition, reported on the acquisition of most of these books, which was made possible through the English missionary William Muirhead (1822-1900) near the east gate of Shanghai. 19 Scherzer not only supervised the acquisition of books and helped to increase the number of Chinese coins in Austrian collections, 20 but also sent in a wall poster displaying a proclamation of the Taiping forces. 21 After 1848, Pfizmaier's extensive translations appeared exclusively in the publication series of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Chinese printing types available in Vienna were used for the printing of his writings; initially those of the Imperial & Royal Printing Office, and from the early 1870s mainly those available in Adolf Holzhausen's printing establishment. 22 Since both printers were very well equipped for printing works in non-Latin scripts, they also took over the printing of Sinological publications from abroad: the Imperial & Royal Printing office printed Stanislas Julien's Syntaxe nouvelle de la langue chinoise (1869) and Holzhausen printed, among others, Georg von der Gabelentz' Chinese grammar and-from the second volume of the first edition onwards-Henri Cordier's Bibliotheca Sinica. A review of von der Gabelentz' grammar in the China Review mentioned that the quality of the author's presentation of his subject matched the "general appearance and get-up of the book … a chef-d'oeuvre of the printer." The reviewer could not resist a dig at the products of English printers: "A more clear and finished style of Chinese printing can scarcely be produced, and as this type is available at Vienna, we cannot understand how English authors still content themselves with the use of such clumsy characters as those which disfigure, for instance, The Religions of China, by Dr. Legge." 23

A Study Trip to China and Chinese lessons in Vienna: Franz Kühnert
In 1916, the ethnologist Robert Bleichsteiner  wrote an overview of the works published by the Imperial Academy of Sciences in the field of Oriental studies. In the field of East Asian studies, he mentioned the "tremendous productivity" (ungeheure Produktionskraft) of Pfizmaier, who published "far more than 200 articles" in the Academy's publication series covering a great variety of subjects of Chinese and Japanese history, literature, and culture. 24 In a single sentence, Bleichsteiner summarized further Sinological activities within the framework of the Academy: "In the field of Sinology, Franz Kühnert should also be mentioned, who published a syllabary of the Nanking dialect with a subsidy from the Academy." 25 Franz Kühnert (1852-1918) studied mathematics, physics, and astronomy at the University of Vienna (Ph.D., 1885); from 1873 he worked for the Austrian Geodetic Survey (k.k. With financial support from the Ministry of Education, Kühnert went to China for a year in August 1892 to continue his language studies. During this stay he collected materials on the Nanjing dialect, which eventually resulted in an article on the subject and the above-mentioned book Syllabar des Nanking-Dialekts (Syllabary of the Nanking Dialect). In October 1894, Kühnert commented on the Sino-Japanese War during one of his lectures on the history of China at the University of Vienna. In this lecture he criticized "the often-incorrect judgments of Europeans about China," that Japan is fighting an "unjust war" and that "China is by no means the country of barbarism that some reports want to label it." 28 In another attempt to correct the image of China prevailing in Europe, in 1898/99, he published a series of articles under the title "The Real China" (Das wirkliche China) in a Catholic conservative weekly magazine widely read in German-speaking countries. 29 The consequences of the Sino-Japanese War for international politics in East Asia affected Austria-Hungary's foreign service in China: on the one hand Chinese lessons were held for prospective consular officials at the newly established Austro-Hungarian legation in Beijing, 30 and on the other hand, Chinese lessons were also offered at the training school for future diplomats in Vienna, starting in autumn 1897. 31 This training school, which was renamed from Oriental Academy to Consular Academy at that time, had offered Japanese lessons in the 1870s, according to newspaper reports. A Chinese course was to follow as soon as a suitable teacher had been found. 32 In 1896, there were renewed plans to offer Chinese and Japanese at the Oriental Academy, 33 but eventually only a Chinese course was offered.
For almost two decades, Kühnert taught Chinese at the Consular Academy in Vienna. In the winter of 1900-01 he spoke about China at the "popular university courses" (Volksthümliche Universitätskurse) in Vienna. 34 In October 1911, Kühnert wrote a short newspaper article on the "unrest in China" that was to spread into revolution. 35 A first proposal for the establishment of chairs of Chinese and Japanese language and literature in Austria  , vol. 25 (1898-99), No. 19, 340-42, ibid., No. 20, 355-56 and 358, No. 30, 551f. and 554, No. 31, 564-66, No. 39, 721-23 and No. 40, 742-43. 30 Georg Lehner, "Chinesisch für den Auswärtigen Dienst: Zwei Dolmetsch-Eleven an der k.u.k. Gesandtschaft in Beijing in den Jahren 1897 bis 1900," Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 46 (1998), 107-24. Vienna. Gomperz did not want to blame the faculty for the fact that the proposal had remained without consequences. He pointed out that there was a lack of scholars for these subjects internationally. Gomperz mentioned the Chinese lessons established at the Consular Academy, but the situation in this field seemed highly unsatisfactory to him: The fact that the Ministry had made this proposal showed that there were not only "speculative considerations" behind it, but tangible "material interests." In his final remarks on the subject, Gomperz said that it would be difficult, but not impossible, to win over such persons. Without mentioning him by name, Gomperz cited the example of Friedrich Hirth (1845-1927) ("an eminent private scholar of this subject from Munich"), who had received an appointment in the United States a few weeks earlier. 36 Chinese Studies and the Austro-Hungarian Legation at Beijing At various times, the staff of the Austro-Hungarian legation in Beijing included several men who later worked in the field of Sinology: Arthur von Rosthorn (1862-1945), Erwin Ritter von Zach (1872-1942), and Leopold Woitsch (1868-1939. Having studied German literature, Sanskrit, and comparative linguistics at Vienna, Rosthorn went to Oxford for further study in 1882. 37 According to Norman Girardot, Rosthorn was the only "serious Sinological disciple" of James Legge (1815-1897). 38 After his stay at Oxford 39 , Rosthorn joined the Imperial Chinese Maritime Customs in 1883. Four decades later, he recalled setting off for China from Venice with "the feeling of a Columbus or a Marco Polo." 40 For about a decade Rosthorn served in the customs and an intense study of the Chinese language and culture was "duty and passion" (Pflicht und Leidenschaft) for him. 41 During the preparations for the establishment of an Austro-Hungarian legation in Beijing, Rosthorn was accepted into the foreign service. He acted as chargé d'affaires several times, including during the siege of the legations in the summer of 1900. After having served as Austrian envoy extraordinary to Teheran (1905-11), he returned to China, then as envoy extraordinary . In this capacity Rosthorn also had to take care of the fate of a China expedition financed by the Imperial Academy of Sciences. At the beginning of 1914, botanist Heinrich von Handel-Mazzetti (1882-1940), together with Camillo Karl Schneider (1876-1951, the Secretary General of the Dendrological Society, had embarked on a research trip to the southern Chinese province of Yunnan. 42 In Lijiang 麗江, they had met with another Austrian explorer, Anton Karl Gebauer , who was interested primarily in the ethnology of continental Southeast Asia. 43  ethnographical materials in Yunnan, Schneider went by land via Suifu (Xuzhou 叙州, today Yibin 宜賓) and Chongqing to Shanghai and later to the United States. Handel-Mazzetti stayed in Yunnan to do more botanical research until the end of the war and traveled to Sichuan and Hunan provinces. The necessary funding was provided by the Imperial Academy of Sciences. 44 Erwin Ritter von Zach had first studied medicine in Vienna (1890-95) and, in addition to mathematical interests, had also begun studying classical Chinese with Franz Kühnert and modern Chinese with Carl Kainz. 45 While "recovering from appendicitis in Noordwijk, a coastal town near Leiden, and a popular resort among Germans," Zach continued his Chinese studies with Gustaaf Schlegel  in Leiden for a full year. 46 During this time, Zach had been invited to participate in the Jessup North Pacific Expedition (1897-1902) 47 , but through the mediation of Karl von Scherzer, Zach was given the opportunity to join the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service in 1897. Scherzer was also decisively involved in Zach being accepted into the foreign service of Austria-Hungary.
Although Zach was to return to Austria only for short stays after his time in Leiden, the Viennese newspapers at first reported regularly on his career progress: According to these reports, Zach had declined an offer to become professor of German language and literature at the newly established Peking University and maintained "friendly relations" with Emilio Aguinaldo , the President of the Philippine Republic (1899)(1900)(1901). 48 From the end of March 1901, Zach worked as interpreter at the Austro-Hungarian legation at Beijing. Zach's service in China lasted until 1908, when he was transferred to Yokohama because of constant friction and disputes with his colleagues. From 1909 to 1914 Zach served as Austro-Hungarian consul in Singapore. After the outbreak of World War I, he went to Batavia where he served as Austro-Hungarian honorary consul until the end of 1919. 49 As it was not possible for him to return to Europe for financial reasons, he stayed in Java. After a few years in Dutch service, he lived as a private scholar in Batavia from the mid-1920s onwards. 50 Due to his quarrelsome character and his repeated outbursts against other Sinologists, he gradually lost the opportunity to publish his work in Sinological journals-one only has to think of Paul Pelliot's famous verdict in T'oung pao. 51 Nevertheless Zach continued his translations from Chinese and published them in journals in Batavia, which were largely unknown to the specialist community. 52 Zach's most notable achievements lie primarily in the first (almost) complete translation of the Wenxuan 文選 into a Western language, and especially in the translation of the Tang-era authors Li Bai 李白 (701-762), Du Fu 杜甫 (712-770), and Han Yu 韓愈 (768-824). 53 Zach lived in the Dutch East Indies until World War II. When he was to be taken to Ceylon with about 500 other German internees in January 1942, the ship sank during a Japanese air raid.
From 1899 onwards, Leopold Woitsch, who worked for the actuarial service in the Austrian Ministry of the Interior took up the study of East Asian languages. Apart from Chinese he also included Tibetan, Mongolian, Manchu, and Japanese in his studies. He was guided by the idea of "one day obtaining a teaching position for the languages mentioned" at the University of Vienna. He was further encouraged by the fact that "Tibetan, Mongolian, Manchu and Japanese are not taught at all at the local university and a representative of the language group mentioned is hardly to be found elsewhere." These motives were behind his application for a position in the Austro-Hungarian consular service in China, which he submitted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on July 27, 1903. 54 A few months before this application, Woitsch gave a lecture in Vienna on Chinese language and language teaching methods in China. For Woitsch, a look at the peculiarity of the Chinese language seemed to provide the answer to the question "whether and to what extent China as a whole is accessible to European culture" (ob und inwieweit China als Ganzes der europäischen Kultur zugänglich ist). 55 From spring 1904 onwards, Woitsch served at the Austro-Hungarian legation in Beijing and at the Austro-Hungarian Consulate General in Shanghai. In May 1908 he was diagnosed with "mental overstrain" (geistige Überanstrengung). After his return to Vienna, he again began working in the Ministry of the Interior from autumn 1909 onwards. 56 Woitsch also began teaching Chinese at the University of Vienna. The different interests of Kühnert and Woitsch were evident from their teaching programs: "the growing interest in East Asia is mirrored by the lectures of … Dr. Franz Kühnert on the grammar of Chinese official documents and Dr. L. Woitsch on the Beijing colloquial language." 57 Woitsch taught at the University of Vienna until 1934, 58 8, 1903, 9-11 andibid., March 10, 1903, 1-2. 56 Lehner,Beiträge, Die Zeit, April 25, 1911, 5. 58 Führer, Vergessen und verloren, 134.
Languages (Öffentliche Lehranstalt für orientalische Sprachen) 59 , which from 1919 onwards was located in the building of the Consular Academy. In 1928, a Chinese course was held with six participants. 60 According to an advertisement from 1938, Chinese and Japanese courses were offered at this institution in addition to courses in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. At that time, the language courses only took place when there were twenty or more participants. 61 Woitsch, who was said to have spoken fifteen languages, 62 published on the Beijing colloquial language, worked extensively on the Manchu language, and translated Chinese poetry. 63

A Chinese Library and East Asian Art History: The Interwar Years
In the interwar period, it was Arthur von Rosthorn who decisively shaped Chinese studies and a more sophisticated image of China in Austria. In addition to his teaching activities at the University of Vienna (held in the rooms of his private library), some of his publications, his public lectures, his political commitment, and his Chinese library contributed to this. As Girardot put it, Rosthorn published "extensively on ancient Chinese society, religion, and philosophy as well as on the work of his mentor, Legge, and on Max Weber's sociological studies of China." 64 Rosthorn's only booklength monograph was a history of China, which received positive reviews in both history and orientalist journals in the German-speaking world. 65 Rosthorn regularly commented on developments in China and on China's relations with foreign countries, to mention only his remarks on China's treatment at the Paris Peace Conference and on the causes of the Chinese Civil War. 66 In addition, he took a stand on general social issues, such as women's suffrage, and served as president of the Austrian Peace Society. 67 Rosthorn was able to accommodate his Chinese library in the rooms of the former Imperial Palace. 68 These rooms soon emerged as a meeting place not only for his Viennese students but also for Chinese living in Vienna. Rosthorn made the holdings of his library accessible to other Austrian researchers who were engaged in comparative cultural studies. For example, the historian of technology Hugo Horwitz  thanked Rosthorn for allowing him to use the copy of the encyclopedia Gujin tushu jicheng 古今圖書集成 ("Complete Collection of pictures and books of ancient and modern times") and of the Songshi jishi benmo 宋史紀事本末 ("The History of the Song topically arranged") for a study on the history of paddlewheel propulsion. In his acknowledgement, Horwitz mentioned that one of Rosthorn's students, Erwin 59 Lehner, "Der Chinesisch-Unterricht," 281n90. 60 "Welche Sprachen lernt man heute in Wien?" Reichspost, November 25, 1928, 12. 61 Verordnungsblatt des Stadtschulrates für Wien No. 18 (November 1, 1938), 123. 62 According to a note in "Chinaforscher aus Oberösterreich," Linzer Volksblatt, February 26, 1949, 6. 63 For an assessment of Woitsch' Sinological work, see Führer,Vergessen und verloren, Girardot, The Victorian Translation of China, 201. See also ibid., 338: "his [i.e., Legge's] first and only, real Sinological disciple." Reifler (together with a certain "Kuo-Ying-do"), had done the translation of the passages in question. 69 Erwin Reifler (1903-1965 70 had been one of the students attending Rosthorn's classes in his library, which had been termed "seminary of the smile" (Seminar des Lächelns) and "China Institute" (Chinainstitut) by their contemporaries. 71 Among other things, Reifler had worked for the Chinese news agency in Europe and for a short time acted as an interpreter for the Chinese police students who had come to Vienna. 72 In an interview given to him by the actress Anna May Wong (Wong Liu-tsong;i.e. Huang Liuxiang 黃柳霜, 1905-1961, Reifler noted that he had studied "the Chinese classics in the original" at the University of Vienna. 73 In 1932, Reifler was attached to an Austrian expert invited to Shanghai to reorganize the Chinese police. Shortly thereafter, Reifler was appointed professor at Jiaotong University. As an Austrian newspaper put it, Reifler was the only foreign professor at Jiaotong University who gave his lectures in Chinese. 74 After ten years of missionary work in China, Theodor Bröring SVD (1883-1960  the history of Asian art and culture). 87 This association was chaired by Rosthorn, and Stiassny served as vice president. Rosthorn, Stiassny, and the association succeeded in bringing a whole series of both established and young promising China scholars from other European countries to Vienna for lectures, including Paul Pelliot (1878-1945May 1928), Richard Wilhelm (1873December 1928), Wolfram Eberhard (1909-1989December 1936), and Bernhard Karlgren (1889-1978November 1937). 88 The fruitful activity of the association ended in 1938. After the Anschluss, a new board was installed and Stiassny had to emigrate to Switzerland, where she continued her scholarly work.
In November 1937, a "Chinese-Austrian Cultural Association" was founded in Vienna. Arthur von Rosthorn became president of the association, and Dekien Toung (i.e., Tong Deqian 童德乾, 1887-1944?), the Chinese chargé d'affaires in Vienna, became honorary president. The main aim of this association was the establishment of closer contacts between Chinese students in Austria and Austrians studying Chinese language and culture. 89 In the 1930s, scholarly preoccupation with China was no longer content with presenting findings in publications and exhibitions or within the framework of lectures organized by scholarly-oriented associations. Chinese art and translations of Chinese poetry also became the subject of some radio broadcasts: In June 1930, Melanie Stiassny reported on an exhibition of Asian art from the holdings of the Museum of Arts and Industry and from other collections in Vienna and in November 1932, she gave a presentation on an exhibition of East Asian painting and graphics held at the Albertina in Vienna. 90 Another of these broadcasts featured translations of Chinese poetry by Anna (von) Rottauscher   91 andErwin Weill (1885-1944)  Der Tag, May 24, 1928, 6 ("Paul Pelliot in Wien"); Neues Wiener Journal, December 18, 1928, 6 ("Der berühmteste deutsche Chinaforscher in Wien"); Die Stunde, December 8, 1936, 2. Der Tag, November 5, 1937 Der Tag, November 6, 1937, 7. In 1938, Benno Greiser (1873-1950 95 moved to Vienna, where he worked, among other things, as a court interpreter. Before that, if a Chinese interpreter was needed in court, the Sinologists working in Vienna were consulted, as examples of Leopold Woitsch (1914) and Arthur von Rosthorn (1930) show. 96 Among the languages for which there were court interpreters in Vienna, Chinese was explicitly mentioned in a newspaper report from March 1940. 97 During World War II, Greiser also worked on the cataloging of the Chinese books of the Austrian National Library. 98 Belated Institutionalization: From the Margins of Oriental Studies to the Department of East Asian Studies Shortly after the end of World War II, an "Austro-Chinese Cultural Association" (Österreichisch-Chinesische Kulturvereinigung) was formed from a circle of China friends led by Greiser during the war. 99 This association provided a forum for the exchange of information about China. The lectures regularly organized by the association had an average of forty and sometimes two hundred visitors. The topics of the lectures included issues of both ancient and modern China, such as literature, philosophy, numismatics, and astrology. A beginners' course in Chinese "held by the university lecturer Wurm at the Oriental Institute of the University of Vienna was the only opportunity to learn Chinese in Vienna at that time." 100 Speakers at the association's events included Benno Greiser, Anna von Rottauscher and the above-mentioned lecturer Stefan A. Wurm .
Wurm taught Chinese and Manchu at the Oriental Institute from 1945 to 1951-a more recent biographical sketch only mentions "Altaic languages." 101 Wurm's preoccupation with the Chinese language may be inferred from some book reviews for the journal Anthropos. 102 In 1951, Wurm moved to London and later to Australia where he became professor of linguistics at Australian National University in 1967. Wurm did not pursue Chinese studies, but he was one of the co-editors of the Language Atlas of China (2 vols., 1987-89).
While the emigration of scholars was not an issue in the Austrian public sphere after World War II, there is at least one example of coverage of the research activities of an Austrian-born scholar working in East Asia. In 1947, the Austrian-born Joseph Francis Rock (1884Rock ( -1962 103 , commissioned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the 95