Rudolf Svoboda

In the 1830s and 1840s, departures on missions from historic Austria to the United States were one of the most important ways of having contact between the Old and New Worlds. In Austria, they were supported by higher social circles and had a broadly positive response in the society of that time. This project will show the concrete ties and cultural exchanges between the American and Austrian environments in the 1830s and 1840s connected with the person of the missionary John Nepomucene Neumann. Neumann maintained a vast network of relations, which were retrospectively reflected in the Austrian environment, preparing for his missionary vocation and its actual implementation in the USA.