In Claudio Magris’s first pioneering study The Habsburg Myth in Modern Austrian Literature published by Einaudi in 1963, the poet of Habsburg legitimacy Franz Grillparzer represents the keystone of the proposed historiographical reconstruction: in particular, Magris recognises the peculiar characters of the myth in Grillparzer’s dramatic works. This article reinterprets the masterpiece of the Austrian playwright entitled Ein Bruderzwist in Habsburg taking its cue from Carl Schmitt, who associated the main character of Grillparzer’s drama with the enigmatical figure of the katechon, i.e. the braking power mentioned in a letter by Paul of Tarsus. From the political-philosophical perspective of the article, the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II is not so much the personification of Magris’s characterization of the “myth” as the holder of a braking power who fails (as his antagonists) because he must act. Therefore, the crucial moment in the genesis of the “Habsburg myth” lies not so much in the protagonist himself as in the construction of the dramatic action.
