Franz Sartori: Scholar, Journalist, and Censor

Abstract

The subject of the paper in question is Franz Sartori (1782–1832), born in Styria. His career was spectacular inasmuch as he became the head of the Censorship Police Department in Vienna. After Napoleon had retreated from Vienna, Emperor Francis II (I) and Chancellor Prince Clemens Metternich launched a revision of the institution in 1811. Sartori excelled as author of travel books and treatises with a scholarly orientation in fields such as zoology and botany as well as speleology. He was soon invited to join the editorial boards of important periodicals in Vienna. Despite his duty as censor, he continued his career as a prolific writer and researcher. This paper dwells on his last publication, a history of all the literary cultures of the Habsburg monarchy. Sartoris intention was to show that Austria had a rich multilingual literary tradition. The second volume was to cover the history of literature in German in the Habsburg lands but was not finished owing to the author’s death. For the survey of Slavic literature, Sartori borrowed from P. J. Šaf.rik’s “History of the Slavic language and literature by all vernaculars” (1826). He was accused of plagiarism; this verdict undermined the importance of the book and damaged his reputation until today.