Lands of the Bohemian Crown (1867–1918)

Lands of the Bohemian Crown
*Länder der Böhmischen Krone* (German)
*Země Koruny české* (Czech)
*Corona regni Bohemiae* (Latin)
Lands of the Bohemian Crown Länder der Böhmischen Krone (German); Země Koruny české (Czech); Corona regni Bohemiae (Latin)
1867–1918; (historical period);
	Flag Coat of arms ; (drawn by H. G. Ströhl)
	The Lands of the Bohemian Crown at 1891
Status	Crown lands of the Cisleithanian part of Austria-Hungary (1867–1918)
Capital	Prague
Common languages	Czech, German, Latin
Religion	Roman Catholicism (official); Protestantism ; Judaism (Jews)
Government	Constitutional monarchy
King
History
• Austro-Hungarian Compromise	1867
• Dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire	1918
Preceded by	Succeeded by
	Lands of the Bohemian Crown (1648–1867)
First Czechoslovak Republic
Czechoslovak Provisional Government
Today part of	Austria ; Czech Republic ; Germany ; Poland ;

Last updated April 12, 2024

The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 established the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary (also known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire).

Overview of political dynamics 1867–1918

The two parts of the empire were united by a common ruler, by a joint foreign policy, and, to some extent, by shared finances. Otherwise, Austria and Hungary were virtually independent states, each having its own parliament, government, administration, and judicial system.

Despite a series of crises, this dual system survived until 1918. It made permanent the dominant positions of the Hungarians in Hungary and of the Germans in the Austrian parts of the monarchy. Although both halves of the empire had parliamentary systems, in the Austrian half a series of franchise reforms, culminating in universal manhood suffrage in 1907, allowed the Czechs to play an increasingly active role in the political life of Austria. In the last decades before 1914 a succession of governments included a number of non-German ministers and even one Polish Minister-President, but Austria's Germans dominated political power at the imperial level until the end of the state.

At the local level, the various nationalities gained a great deal of control over provincial and municipal affairs after a series of reforms in local government in the 1860s and 1870s. The monarchy's inability or unwillingness to come to terms with its nationalities problems weakened the parliamentary system at a time of escalating international crises.

Negotiations on Bohemian autonomy (1867–1877)

In Austria, German liberals held political power in parliament from 1867 to 1879. They were determined to maintain German dominance in the Austrian part of the empire. The Czech leaders, subsequently labeled Old Czechs, favored alliance with the conservative and largely Germanized Bohemian nobility and advocated the restoration of traditional Bohemian autonomy. In essence, they wanted a reconstituted Bohemian Kingdom (including Moravia and Silesia) with a constitutional arrangement similar to Hungary's. In 1871 the Old Czechs seemed to have succeeded, because the government agreed to the Fundamental Articles, which would have reinstated the historic rights of the Bohemian Kingdom. Violent protests from both German and Hungarian liberals ensued, however, and the articles were never adopted.

History of Bohemia during the Old Czech era (1878–1891)

Objecting to an increase of Slavs in the empire, the German liberals opposed the 1878 Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The emperor, stung by the rejection of his foreign policy, dismissed the liberal government and turned to Count Eduard Taaffe's conservative "Iron Ring" cabinet (1879–1883). The Taaffe government took the Slavic element into greater account than the liberals had, and in turn was supported by the Old Czechs. Czech cooperation with Taaffe led to several important gains. A language decree promulgated in 1880 put Czech on an equal footing with German in the Bohemian "outer service" (the language government officials spoke to the public) and law.^[1] This law applied to all 216 judicial districts of Bohemia including 77 judicial districts without any significant presence of Czech-speakers.^[2] In 1882 Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague was divided into two separate institutions: one Czech and the other German. These concessions, however, seemed insufficient to a newly developing Czech commercial and industrial bourgeoisie. Intense conflict ensued as Czechs and Germans attempted to control local administration and education. German Bohemians held that in the closed^{[ clarification needed ]} German-speaking part of Bohemia, only German should be an official language, and objected to the language regulations as being motivated by the Czech "state rights" ideology.^[2] When some of the Old Czechs attempted to work out a compromise with the Bohemian Germans in 1890, they were denounced by a younger and more radical intelligentsia. The next year the Old Czechs were soundly defeated by the Young Czechs, ending a period of attempted compromises.

History of Moravia (1867–1918)

While relations between Czechs and Germans worsened in Bohemia, they remained relatively tranquil in Moravia. Although the separate administrative status of Moravia had been abolished in the 18th century, the area was reconstituted as a separate crown land in 1849. In Moravia, unlike in Bohemia, a compromise was reached by Karel Emanuel v. Zierotin, in 1905, between the Czech majority and the German minority. Although the German language retained a slight predominance, the preservation of Czech language and culture was legally guaranteed. The compromise seemed to work reasonably well until the end of Habsburg rule in 1918.

Young Czech and Czech Progressive Party era (1891–1914)

During the final decade of the empire, obstructionism by both Czechs and Germans rendered parliamentary politics ineffectual, and governments rose and fell with great frequency. The importance of the Young Czech Party waned as Czech politics changed orientation. Political parties advocating democracy and socialism emerged. In 1900 Tomáš Masaryk, a university professor and former Young Czech deputy who was to become president of the Czechoslovak Republic, founded the Czech Progressive Party. Basing its struggle for national autonomy on the principle of popular sovereignty, the Czech Progressive Party supported parliamentary politics, advocated universal suffrage, and rejected radicalism.

At the turn of the century, the idea of a "Czechoslovak" entity began to be advocated by some Czech and Slovak leaders.

World War I

In the first months of World War I, the response of the Czech soldiers and civilians to the war and mobilisation were highly enthusiastic; however later it turned into apathy.^[3] The cause of Czech self-government was greatly advanced by the war, during which, in 1917, the Manifesto of Czech writers, signed by over two hundred leading Czechs, was published. This favoured the concept of Czech autonomy.^[4]

Related Research Articles

Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire or the Dual Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. Austria-Hungary was a military and diplomatic alliance of two sovereign states with a single monarch who was titled both emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. Austria-Hungary constituted the last phase in the constitutional evolution of the Habsburg monarchy: it was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 in the aftermath of the Austro-Prussian War and was dissolved shortly after Hungary terminated the union with Austria on 31 October 1918.

Bohemia is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohemian kings, including Moravia and Czech Silesia, in which case the smaller region is referred to as Bohemia proper as a means of distinction.

The history of the Czech lands – an area roughly corresponding to the present-day Czech Republic – starts approximately 800,000 years BCE. A simple chopper from that age was discovered at the Red Hill archeological site in Brno. Many different primitive cultures left their traces throughout the Stone Age, which lasted approximately until 2000 BCE. The most widely known culture present in the Czech lands during the pre-historical era is the Únětice Culture, leaving traces for about five centuries from the end of the Stone Age to the start of the Bronze Age. Celts – who came during the 5th century BCE – are the first people known by name. One of the Celtic tribes were the Boii (plural), who gave the Czech lands their first name Boiohaemum – Latin for the Land of Boii. Before the beginning of the Common Era the Celts were mostly pushed out by Germanic tribes. The most notable of those tribes were the Marcomanni and traces of their wars with the Roman Empire were left in south Moravia.

The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 established the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary, which was a military and diplomatic alliance of two sovereign states. The Compromise only partially re-established the former pre-1848 sovereignty and status of the Kingdom of Hungary, being separate from, and no longer subject to, the Austrian Empire. The compromise put an end to the 18-year-long military dictatorship and absolutist rule over Hungary which Emperor Franz Joseph had instituted after the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. The territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Hungary was restored. The agreement also restored the old historic constitution of the Kingdom of Hungary.

Cisleithania, officially The Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council, was the northern and western part of Austria-Hungary, the Dual Monarchy created in the Compromise of 1867—as distinguished from Transleithania. This name for the region was a common, but unofficial one.

The creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918 was the culmination of the long struggle of the Czechs against their Austrian rulers and of the Slovaks against Magyarization and their Hungarian rulers.

The Czech lands, then also known as Lands of the Bohemian Crown, were largely subject to the Habsburgs from the end of the Thirty Years' War in 1648 until the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867. There were invasions by the Turks early in the period, and by the Prussians in the next century. The Habsburgs consolidated their rule and under Maria Theresa (1740–1780) adopted enlightened absolutism, with distinct institutions of the Bohemian Kingdom absorbed into centralized structures. After the Napoleonic Wars and the establishment of the Austrian Empire, a Czech National Revival began as a scholarly trend among educated Czechs, led by figures such as František Palacký. Czech nationalism took a more politically active form during the 1848 revolution, and began to come into conflict not only with the Habsburgs but with emerging German nationalism.

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German Bohemians, later known as Sudeten Germans, were ethnic Germans living in the Czech lands of the Bohemian Crown, which later became an integral part of Czechoslovakia. Before 1945, over three million German Bohemians constituted about 23% of the population of the whole country and about 29.5% of the population of Bohemia and Moravia. Ethnic Germans migrated into the Kingdom of Bohemia, an electoral territory of the Holy Roman Empire, from the 11th century, mostly in the border regions of what was later called the "Sudetenland", which was named after the Sudeten Mountains.

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Austrian Silesia, officially the Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia, was an autonomous region of the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Habsburg monarchy. It is largely coterminous with the present-day region of Czech Silesia and was, historically, part of the larger Silesia region.

Count Karl Sigmund von Hohenwart was an Austrian politician who served as Minister-President of Austria in 1871. Hohenwart’s government attempted to implement a Federalist agreement between Bohemia and the governing Austro-Hungarian Empire. This attempt to conciliate the Bohemian Czechs caused massive criticism, and led to the fall of the Hohenwart government only months after it assumed office.

The Fundamental Articles of 1871 were a set of proposed changes to the Austro-Hungarian constitution regarding the status of the Bohemian Crownlands. Their rejection was largely responsible for the downfall of the Hohenwart cabinet.

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The Young Czech Party was formed in the Bohemian crown land of Austria-Hungary in 1874. It initiated the democratization of Czech political parties and led to the establishment of the political base of Czechoslovakia.

The history of Czechoslovak nationality involves the rise and fall of national feeling among Czechs and Slovaks. Once forming a rather unified group, they were historically separated, unified under a democratic system, separated during threat of war, and reunified under a socialist authoritarian regime. However, a democratization process has led to a definition of separate statehood for the majority of Czechs and Slovaks.

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References

↑ Crankshaw, Edward (1963). The fall of the House of Habsburg. New York: Penguin. p. 274. ISBN 0140064591. OCLC 8806740.
1 2 Jörg K. Hoensch. Geschichte Böhmens. C.H. Beck. p. 368.
↑ John Richard Schindler (1995). A Hopeless Struggle: The Austro-Hungarian Army and Total War, 1914-1918. McMaster University. p. 50. ISBN 9780612058668.
↑ J. Poláček, Manifest českých spisovatelů (2007)

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[1] Crankshaw, Edward (1963). The fall of the House of Habsburg. New York: Penguin. p. 274. ISBN 0140064591. OCLC 8806740.

[Hoensch-2] 1 2 Jörg K. Hoensch. Geschichte Böhmens. C.H. Beck. p. 368.

[3] John Richard Schindler (1995). A Hopeless Struggle: The Austro-Hungarian Army and Total War, 1914-1918. McMaster University. p. 50. ISBN 9780612058668.

[4] J. Poláček, Manifest českých spisovatelů (2007)

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