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From pandemic to monarchy – everyone can now read digitally what the oldest daily newspaper in the world still in existence around 300 years ago: Austrian scientists have numerous historical editions of Vienna[n]full text of the diaries are made available online. Today the sheet is known under the name “Wiener Zeitung”.
Since the invention of book printing, the formats of the early print media had developed steadily – in 1703 this development led to a printing work of a special kind: On August 8, the first edition of a daily newspaper appeared, which continued to report from then until today – that Vienna[n]eric diarium. In 1780 the sheet finally got the name Wiener Zeitung, which it still bears today.
Digital scrolling in time documents
The fact that all editions have been preserved since its foundation makes the Wiener Zeitung a historical source of particular value. Many historical events and people are mentioned and the changes in language and the development of journalism are also reflected in the historical editions. This makes the document collection an important source of information for numerous questions in the humanities.
For this reason, researchers at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) have set themselves the goal of making the texts easier to read and accessible to the general public. For three years, Claudia Resch and Anna Mader-Kratky from the ÖAW have dedicated themselves to the digital transformation of the wealth of data. They have now digitized, scientifically developed and more than 300 editions from the 18th century made researchable online. When digitizing the newspapers, a self-learning, so-called “handwritten text recognition” technology was used, which captured the content of the originals. The process achieved a text accuracy of 99.7 percent, reports the ÖAW.
Examples related to the Corona crisis
When browsing through the diarium digitally, you can see that the range of topics was comparable to that of today’s newspapers. On the occasion of the Corona crisis, the ÖAW is highlighting the reporting on pandemics. For example, in an early 18th century edition it says: “Because of the plague raging in France / neither people / cattle / nor goods / from there” are allowed to enter. At another point it is said that “no one will be admitted to Frembder / without a secure passport / because of the other bad epidemic that is swinging”.
These measures seem familiar to us in an eerie way today. Around 300 years ago, pandemics with the generic term plague became regular and often in the how[n]The Austrian Academy writes that the diarium is mentioned. The reports from different regions and times thus provide insights into how pandemics were dealt with at the time.
Medium of the Habsburg monarchy
But the How also focused on many other topics[n]Erischer Diariums – because it was the most important medium of the Habsburg monarchy, the experts explain. For example, the progress of the construction of the Vienna Hofburg can be tracked in the mirror of reporting over the decades, as well as the change in the design of advertisements and the journalistic style. To explore this variety of topics, anyone interested can search the digitized editions of the daily newspaper in the web application for any terms, such as historical events, people or locations.
Finally, the ÖAW reports – again with a view to the Corona crisis – of an encouraging announcement from the diarium about the end of a pandemic in 1722. On November 11th it was read: “that the epidemic in all places of Provence and Languedoc completely stopped / and […] that the city / in which it is so raged / now beef it beeyet of it. “
Source: Austrian Academy of Sciences
DIGITARIUM – the digital edition of the historical newspaper Wien[n]eric diarium