Editing Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor (section)

==Memory and legacy==
[[File:Allegorie auf das Toleranzpatent Kaiser Josephs II.jpg|thumb|Joseph II's [[enlightened absolutism]] included the [[Patent of Toleration]], enacted in 1781, and the [[1782 Edict of Tolerance|Edict of Tolerance]] in 1782.]]

Biographer [[Derek Beales]] ranked Joseph II as one of the three great Enlightenment monarchs with [[Catherine the Great]] of [[Russian Empire|Russia]] and Frederick the Great of Prussia.{{sfn|Beales|2009}}


The legacy of [[Josephinism]] would live on through the Austrian Enlightenment. To an extent, Joseph II's enlightenment beliefs were exaggerated by the author of what  Beales called the "false Constantinople letters". Long considered genuine writings of Joseph II, these forged works have erroneously augmented the emperor's memory for centuries.{{sfn|Beales|1987|p=65}}<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last=Beales |first=Derek |date=1975 |title=The False Joseph II |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2638606 |journal=The Historical Journal |volume=18 |issue=3 |pages=467–495 |doi=10.1017/S0018246X00008414 |jstor=2638606 |issn=0018-246X}}</ref> These legendary quotations have created a larger-than-life impression of Joseph II as a Voltaire and [[Denis Diderot|Diderot]]-like ''[[philosophe]]'', more radical than he probably was.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sadie |first=Stanley. |title=Wolfgang Amadè Mozart : essays on his life and his music |date=1996 |publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn=0-19-816443-2 |page=9 |oclc=231661778}}</ref>

In 1849, the [[Hungarian Declaration of Independence]] declared that Joseph II was not a true King of Hungary as he was never crowned, thus any act from his reign was null and void.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Hungarian Declaration of Independence |date=14 April 1849 |url=https://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/handle/1813/1446/Hung_Independence_1849.pdf;sequence=1 |website=Habsburg H-Net Discussion Network}}</ref>

In 1888, Hungarian historian Henrik Marczali published a three-volume study of Joseph, the first important modern scholarly work on his reign, and the first to make systematic use of archival research. Marczali was Jewish and a product of the bourgeois-liberal school of historiography in Hungary, and he portrayed Joseph as a Liberal hero. The Russian scholar Pavel Pavlovich Mitrofanov published a thorough biography in 1907 that set the standard for a century after it was translated into German in 1910. The Mitrofanov interpretation was highly damaging to Joseph: he was not a populist emperor and his liberalism was a myth; Joseph was not inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment but by pure power politics. He was more despot than his mother. Dogmatism and impatience were the reasons for his failures.{{Sfn|Szabo|2011|pp=125-127}}

[[File:Medaille Einnahme Belgrads 1789.jpg|thumb|Medal commemorating the Austrian victory over the [[Ottoman Empire]] and the [[Siege of Belgrade (1789)|Siege of Belgrade]]]]

P. G. M. Dickson noted that Joseph II rode roughshod over age-old aristocratic privileges, liberties, and prejudices, thereby creating for himself many enemies, and they triumphed in the end. Joseph's attempt to reform the Hungarian lands illustrates the weakness of absolutism in the face of well-defended feudal liberties.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |first=P. G. M. |last=Dickson |title=Monarchy and Bureaucracy in Late Eighteenth-century Austria |journal=English Historical Review |publisher= Oxford University Press |date=April 1995 |volume=110 |issue=436 |pages=323–367 |doi=10.1093/ehr/CX.436.323 |issn=0013-8266 |jstor=576012}}</ref> Behind his numerous reforms lay a comprehensive program influenced by the doctrines of enlightened absolutism, natural law, mercantilism, and physiocracy. With a goal of establishing a uniform legal framework to replace heterogeneous traditional structures, the reforms were guided at least implicitly by the principles of freedom and equality and were based on a conception of the state's central legislative authority. Joseph's accession marks a major break since the preceding reforms under Maria Theresa had not challenged these structures, but there was no similar break at the end of the Josephinian era. The reforms initiated by Joseph II were continued to varying degrees under his successor Leopold and later successors, and given an absolute and comprehensive "Austrian" form in the Allgemeine Bürgerliche Gesetzbuch of 1811. They have been seen as providing a foundation for subsequent reforms extending into the 20th century, handled by much better politicians than Joseph II.{{citation needed|date=August 2018}}


The Austrian-born American scholar [[Saul K. Padover]] reached a wide American public with his colorful ''The Revolutionary Emperor: Joseph II of Austria'' (1934). Padover celebrated Joseph's radicalism, saying his "war against feudal privileges" made him one of the great "liberators of humanity". Joseph's failures were attributed to his impatience and lack of tact, and his unnecessary military adventures, but despite all this Padover claimed the emperor was the greatest of all Enlightenment monarchs.{{Sfn|Szabo|2011|p=127}} While Padover depicted a sort of [[New Deal]] Democrat, [[Nazism|Nazi]] historians in the 1930s made Joseph a precursor of [[Adolf Hitler]].{{Sfn|Szabo|2011|p=128}}

[[File:Festung Josefov (38631333261).jpg|thumb|Statue of Josef II. in [[Josefov Fortress|Josefov]], Czech Republic]]

A new era of historiography began in the 1960s. American Paul Bernard rejected the German national, radical, and anticlerical images of Joseph and instead emphasized long-run continuities. He argued that Joseph's reforms were well suited to the needs of the day. Many failed because of economic backwardness and Joseph's unfortunate foreign policy.{{Sfn|Szabo|2011|p=130}} British historian [[Tim Blanning]] stressed profound contradictions inherent in his policies that made them a failure.  For example, Joseph encouraged small-scale peasant holdings, thus retarding economic modernization that only the large estates could handle.{{Sfn|Szabo|2011|pp=130-131}} French historian [[Jean Bérenger|Jean Berenger]] concludes that despite his many setbacks, Joseph's reign "represented a decisive phase in the process of the modernization of the Austrian Monarchy". The failures came because he "simply wanted to do too much, too fast".{{Sfn|Szabo|2011|p=133}} Szabo concludes that by far the most important scholarship on Joseph is by Derek Beales, appearing over three decades and based on exhaustive searches in many archives. Beales looks at the emperor's personality, with its arbitrary behavior and mixture of affability and irascibility. Beales shows that Joseph genuinely appreciated Mozart's music and greatly admired his operas. Like most other scholars, Beales has a negative view of Joseph's foreign policies.  Beales finds that Joseph was despotic in the sense of transgressing established constitutions and rejecting sound advice, but not despotic in the sense of any gross abuse of power.{{Sfn|Szabo|2011|pp=133-136}}

===Popular memory===
Joseph's image in popular memory has been varied. After his death there were many monuments to him built by the central government across his lands. The [[first Czechoslovak Republic]] tore down the monuments when it became independent in 1918. While the Czechs credited Joseph II with educational reforms, religious toleration, and the easing of censorship, they condemned his policies of centralization and Germanization that they blamed for causing a decline in Czech culture.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Nancy Meriwether |last=Wingfield |title=Conflicting Constructions of Memory: Attacks on Statues of Joseph II in the Bohemian Lands after the Great War |work=Austrian History Yearbook |date=1997 |volume=28 |pages=147–171}}</ref>

The [[Budapest]] District of [[Józsefváros]] was named for the Emperor in 1777 and bears this name up to the present.

===Patron of the arts===
Like many of the "[[enlightened despot]]s" of his time, Joseph was a lover and patron of the arts and is remembered as such. He was known as the "Musical King" and steered Austrian high culture towards a more Germanic orientation. He commissioned the German-language opera ''[[Die Entführung aus dem Serail]]'' from [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart]]. The young [[Ludwig van Beethoven]] was commissioned to write a [[Cantata on the Death of Emperor Joseph II|funeral cantata]] for him, but it was not performed because of its technical difficulty.

Joseph is prominently featured in [[Peter Shaffer]]'s play ''[[Amadeus (play)|Amadeus]]'' and the [[Amadeus (film)|movie based upon it]]. In the film version, he is portrayed by actor [[Jeffrey Jones]] as a well-meaning but somewhat befuddled monarch of limited but enthusiastic musical skill, easily manipulated by [[Antonio Salieri]]; however, Shaffer has made it clear his play is fiction in many respects and not intended to portray historical reality. Joseph was portrayed by [[Danny Huston]] in the 2006 film ''[[Marie Antoinette (2006 film)|Marie Antoinette]]''.

Joseph also converted Vienna's defensive [[glacis]] into public park. The [[Linienwall]] defending Vienna's historic center were surrounded by a ditch and glacis about 500m wide, which were kept clear of vegetation and buildings for defensive purposes. Under Joseph the ditch was filled and carriage drives and walkways were built through the glacis, and the area planted with ornamental trees and provided with lanterns and benches. This green public space persisted until the second half of the 19th century, when the [[Ringstrasse]] and its associated buildings were built there.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Olsen |last=Donald J. |date=1986 |title=The City as a Work of Art |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=0-300-04212-4}}</ref>