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| Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1914 |
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Garda Lake and environs, 1898
Monday, May 12, 2008
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Austria-Hungary (German: Österreich-Ungarn, Hungarian: Osztrák-Magyar Monarchia), also known as the Dual monarchy or as the k.u.k. monarchy, was a dualistic state (1867 –1918) in which the Kingdom of Hungary enjoyed self-government and representation in joint affairs (principally foreign relations and defence) with the western and northern lands of the Austrian Empire under the Austrian Emperors (who also reigned as Kings of Hungary) of the Habsburg dynasty. The federation bore the full name of "The Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of St. Stephen".
Austria-Hungary originated in 1867 in a compromise between the Hungarian nobility and the Habsburg monarchy in an attempt to maintain the old Austrian Empire of 1804. As a multi-national empire in an era of national awakening, it found its political life dominated by disputes among the eleven principal national groups. Although quarrelling among the groups frequently afflicted the Empire, the fifty years of its existence saw rapid economic growth and modernization, as well as many liberal reforms.
Many texts refer to the non-Hungarian ("Austrian") half part of Austria-Hungary as Cisleithania -- because most of its territory lay west (or to "this" side, from an Austrian perspective) of the Leitha river (although Galicia to the north-east also counted as "Austrian"). This region (consisting of more than simply Austria) strictly speaking had no collective official name prior to 1915, and hence official sources referred to the "Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council". (The Imperial Council (Reichsrat) functioned as Cisleithania's parliament.) Similarly, the Transleithanian ("Hungarian") half also consisted of more than simply Hungary, and bore the official designation of the "Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of [Saint] Stephen" -- a reference to the canonised first Christian king of Hungary.
The "Kingdoms and Lands" of the Cisleithanian half of the Empire:
- the Kingdom of Bohemia
- the Kingdom of Dalmatia
- the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria
- the Archduchy of Austria (as Upper Austria and Lower Austria)
- the Duchy of Bukowina
- the Duchy of Carinthia
- the Duchy of Carniola
- the Duchy of Salzburg
- the Duchy of Upper Silesia and Lower Silesia
- the Duchy of Styria
- the Margravate of Moravia
- the Princely County of Tyrol (including the Land of Vorarlberg),
- the Küstenland ("Coastal Land", including the Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca, the City of Trieste and the Margravate of Istria).
The "Lands" of the Transleithanian half of the Empire:
- the Kingdom of Hungary- including Transylvania and Vojvodina
- the Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia
- the City of Fiume.
Bosnia-Herzegovina formed a separate part of the Empire, jointly administered by both halves.
Czechs (the majority in the Czech lands, i.e.Bohemia, Moravia and Austrian Silesia), Poles and Ukrainians (in Galicia), Slovenes (in Carniola, Carinthia and southern Styria, mostly today's Slovenia) and Croats, Italians and Slovenes in Istria each sought a greater say in Cisleithan affairs.
At the same time, Magyar dominance faced challenges from the local majorities of Romanians in Transylvania and in the eastern Banat, of Slovaks in today's Slovakia, of Croats and Serbs in the crownlands of Croatia and of Dalmatia (today's Croatia), in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the provinces known as the Vojvodina (today's northern Serbia). The Romanians and the Serbs also looked to union with their fellow-nationalists in the newly-founded states of Romania (1859 - 1878) and Serbia.
Though Hungary's leaders showed on the whole less willingness than their German Austrian counterparts to share power with their subject minorities, they granted (it is argued) a large measure of autonomy to the kingdom of Croatia in 1868, parallelling to some extent their own accommodation within the Empire the previous year.
Language was one of the most contentious questions in Austro-Hungarian politics. All governments faced difficult and divisive hurdles in sorting out the languages of government and of instruction. Minorities wanted to ensure the widest possibility for education in their own language as well as in the "dominant" languages of Hungarian and German. On one notable occasion, that of the so-called "ordinance of April 5, 1897", the Austrian Prime Minister Kasimir Felix Graf Badeni gave Czech equal standing with German in the internal government of Bohemia, leading to a crisis because of nationalist German agitation throughout the Empire. In the end Badeni was dismissed. On another occasion, the Czechs lost the privilege of using their own language in everyday life, including newspapers and in the workplace: Czechs had to use German. This caused general chaos.
From January 1907 all the public and private schools in Slovak part (aprox. 3 mil. people) of Hungary were forced to teach in Hungarian language only, burning Slovak books and newspapers. This led to wide criticism by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson among others.
It was not rare for the two kingdoms to divide spheres of influence. According to Misha Glenny (The Balkans, 1804-1999), the Austrians responded to Hungarian badgering of Czechs by supporting the Croatian national movement in Zagreb. (Croatia, in spite of nominal autonomy, was in fact an economic and administrative arm of Hungary; this the Croats resented.)
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