Japanese Studies in Austria
zoom in zoom out

The beginnings of Japanese Studies at the University of Vienna

Since 1869, Austria has had diplomatic relations with Japan. Starting in the 1920s/1930s, also the mutual university exchange increased gradually. In 1937, an Institute of Japanology with a focus on ethnology had been gradually established, funded by Takaharu Mitsui (1900-1983) from Tokyo. Founded in 1938, the Institute on Berggasse street in the 9th Viennese district was operational in 1939. The first guest professor was Oka Masao (1898-1983), who had studied ethnology in Vienna. His Viennese friend Alexander Slawik (1900-1997) became his assistant. In the run-up to Japan’s defeat in the war, the Institute was closed in 1944/1945. The library stocks, which can still be identified today by the “Baron Mitsui-Stiftung” stamp were consigned to the rectory in Maria Taferl in the Wachau valley after the Institute had been hit by bombs.

 Slawik was dismissed from the University as a Nazi in 1945, but was able to continue his research on Japan at the Institute of Ethnology, at which he first worked as lecturer, then as academic assistant. He obtained his habilitation on the topic of the property marks of the Ainu in 1952. Already in 1947, the library was relocated back to Vienna and was given a new home at the Hofburg castle following an intervention by Wilhelm Koppers (1868-1961), who had returned from exile in Switzerland. The Institute of Ethnology was also located there before being moved to the Stallburg castle in the Viennese city centre in 1953.

The Institute of Japanology at the University of Vienna was opened in 1965, after Federal Chancellor Julius Raab had promised to fund a chair for Japanese studies during his visit in Japan in 1959. It was opened in the Neues Institutsgebäude location under the recently appointed associate professor Slawik. In 1971, his first student Josef Kreiner (*1940) was appointed first full professor of Japanology at the University of Vienna and entrusted with the role of the institute head.

In 1998, the Institute headed by Sepp Linhart (*1944) was moved from the Neues Institutsgebäude to court 2 at the Campus of the University of Vienna. In 2000, the Institutes of Japanology and Sinology were merged: Today’s Department of East Asian Studies was founded and includes, in addition to Japanese studies and Chinese studies, also Korean studies and East Asian Economy and Society studies.

Related links:

https://japanologie.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/geschichte-und-ausrichtung/#geschichte

https://japanprojects.univie.ac.at/150jahre/

https://japanologie.univie.ac.at/research/

Photo: Alexander Slawik at a festive ceremony at the Institute of Japanology in the Neues Institutsgebäude (1980), ©Department of East Asian Studies/Japanese Studies

Fields marked with * are required.