| Sumario: | This article explores some historical and ideological conditions of possibility underpinning the two most widely debated and strongly politicized topics in Austrian public discourse over recent years: in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, an "anti-vaxxer" sub-culture, which is less internally coherent than one may assume; and prominent, if controversial positions vis-à-vis Russia. My focus leads to the extrapolation of a common denominator that I locate in the longue durée legacy of romantic and neo-romantic ideas. Following an initial contextualization, a methodological rationale, and summary of existing literature on the history of (neo-)romantic thought on the territories of present-day Austria, the crux of the argument is that a cultural-cum-political pessimism, often articulated through (inadvertent and selective) neo-romantic tropes and topoi, constitutes the shared argumentative terrain between the two thematic clusters in question (i.e. the Querdenker phenomenon and Russophile positions). In a more tentatively formulated vein that awaits sustained empirical exploration, I also suggest that while this (neo-)romantic pessimism is particularly pronounced on the (far)right end of the spectrum, some of its elements cut across political divides in Austria today.
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