Chatter is Silver, Silence is Gold!

Entertainment and Drinking Habits of Slovenian Students in the 19th Century

Abstract

The vast majority of Slovenian students (including a few women after 1897) attended universities across the former Habsburg Empire, including Vienna and Graz but rarely in the pan-Slavonic Prague. Cosmopolitan Vienna was particularly popular because it offered the best material conditions as well as various kinds of entertainment for every taste. In spite of political repression and strict censorship before Taaffe’s government, student life in the second half of the 19th century followed the university model that proclaimed the freedom of learning and teaching. Taverns and coffee shops were the centers of student social life. The students partied there in their own ways, set up their own drinking rules and cared little about other’s opinion. Even though the contemporary (petit-) bourgeoisie was extremely puritan, its conspiracy of silence rules were tolerant of double sexual standards according to which men (townsmen) were allowed to seek sexual satisfaction outside the socially acceptable ways (e.g., in the red light district or even with the housemaid at home). Similarly, it did not frown upon the extreme behavior on the part of students; instead, it roguishly approved of bohemian life.