Vienna is not just a city of live theatre tradition; it is also a centre for academic research in theatre history, with a number of important collections.

THEATRE STUDIES IN THE UNIVERSITY

Theatre history as a separate academic discipline is relatively young; the oldest specialized societies and collections in German-speaking Europe date back only to the beginning of the twentieth century. The early development of the discipline is charted in a survey by Helmar Klier, ‘Theaterwissenschaft und Universität. Zur Geschichte des Fachs im deutschsprachigen Raum’, in Helmar Klier (ed.), Theaterwissenschaft im deutschsprachigen Raum. Texte zum Selbstverständnis (Wege der Forschung, 548), Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1981, pp. 327-43. The Institut fur Theaterwissenschaft in the University of Vienna was founded in 1943, the first holder of the chair being Heinz Kindermann; he was reinstated in 1954. The Institute is accommodated in the former Imperial Palace, overlooking the Michaelerplatz. By the end of the 1970s it offered the most comprehensive course of study in German-speaking Europe. Since 1955 the journal Maske und Kothurn has been edited within the Institute; and its research productivity is well exemplified in the Bibliography to this book, both in the many dissertations listed and also in the publications of its staff. These include notably four current holders of professorial chairs, Wolfgang Greisenegger, Hilde Haider-Pregler, Johann Huttner, and Ulf Birbaumer.