Szilveszter Dékány

Visualizing Empire’s End: American Representations of the Habsburg World examines how the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy was represented in American visual and audiovisual media, including illustrated newspapers, press photography, rotogravure supplements, and early film. The project analyzes how American media transformed imperial dissolution into visual narratives of fragmentation, transition, national self-determination, and postwar reordering, with particular attention to the representation of Hungary, Austria, and the wider Habsburg world. By studying these images in their original media contexts—through layout, captioning, sequencing, circulation, and reproduction—the project explores the broader visual afterlife of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in the American public imagination.