Mozart's nationality

The two main labels that have been used to describe the nationality of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart are “Austrian” and “German”. However, in Mozart’s own life, those terms were used differently from the way they are used today, because the modern nation states of Austria and Germany did not yet exist. Any decision to label Mozart as “Austrian” or “German” (or neither) involves political boundaries, history, language, culture, and Mozart’s own views. Editors of modern encyclopedias and other reference sources differ in how they assign a nationality to Mozart (if any) in light of conflicting criteria. Salzburg Mozart was born in Salzburg, which was then the capital of the Prince-Archbishopric of Salzburg, a small, quasi-sovereign state in the Holy Roman Empire. Thus in one sense Mozart’s nationality could be said to be “Salzburgian”, though English-language biographers do not generally use this term to designate his nationality. Holy Roman Empire The Archbishopric of Salzburg was but one of more than 300 similarly quasi-independent states in the part of Europe that was populated by German speakers. Most of these states, Salzburg included, were included in a larger political entity, the Ho