Bohemian Landtag

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Session of the Bohemian Landtag in 1564 under Maximilian II.

The Bohemian Landtag , official name: Landtag of the Kingdom of Bohemia (Czech: Sněm království Českého , or Český zemský sněm ) in Prague was the political representative of the Kingdom of Bohemia for several centuries until 1913 .

Estates and absolutism

The old boardroom in Prague Castle

The estates of Bohemia elected the Polish Jagiellonian Vladislav II as king in 1471. In 1500, the Vladislav regional order, named after the king, was passed in the regional parliament. It secured the Bohemian lords and knights extensive political say and is considered the oldest written constitution in Bohemia. The chairman of the state parliament was the Oberstburggraf . He ran the business with eight assessors nominated by the state parliament, two from each class.

After the defeat of the Bohemian estates in the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, Ferdinand II issued the Renewed State Order , in which the monopoly position of the estates was shifted in favor of regional rule. Despite these limitations, the parliament remained with its committees, especially the acting executive body National Committee , an effective means of political co-decision. In the meetings, which usually take place annually, the states could confront the sovereign about the right to tax sovereignty. All direct and indirect taxes, with the exception of customs revenue, remained in the tax power of the estates.

The Landtag was therefore more of a relic of the corporate state than an instrument of absolutist rule. As early as the 1630s, the Landtag was once again a platform for organizing the opposition to the monarch and a place for political disputes.

Only under the reign of Maria Theresa was the co-rule of the estates permanently restricted, as the ruler set about creating central offices in Vienna for matters that affected all of her domains. However, with the exception of the years 1784–1788 under Joseph II , the estates were held until 1848 without interruption.

The state parliament met at Prague Castle until 1801 . From 1801 he had his seat in the Palais Thun on Prague's Lesser Town . This meeting place remained the same until 1913. Today the palace is the seat of the Czech House of Representatives .

Attempt of an elected state parliament of the Bohemian countries in 1848

Seat of the state parliament 1801–1913: Palais Thun

In 1848 the estates had 214 members. The March Revolution also reached Bohemia and culminated in the Whitsun Uprising in Prague . On March 11, 1848, a petition was handed over to the imperial governor, which also called for the convening and reform of the state parliament. This should be elected and also represent Moravia and Austrian Silesia . In the course of the revolution, the National Committee of 1848 was formed , which saw itself as a provisional representative body. The opening of the estates planned for March 30, 1848 did not take place. Instead, the stands were adjourned indefinitely.

The struggle for democratic renewal was already overshadowed by the nationality conflict. The National Committee was primarily a representative of the Czech-speaking population. 28 German-dominated Bohemian cities protested in writing to the emperor and rejected the formation of a Bohemian state parliament.

With the “highest cabinet letter” of April 8, 1848, the emperor gave in to the demands for a freely elected state parliament. The city of Prague should elect 12 MPs, cities with more than 8,000 inhabitants per two and cities with more than 4,000 inhabitants per one. The rural population should elect two deputies per vicariate . In addition, the members of the previous estates as well as the rector and the four deans of the faculties of the University of Prague and a representative of the Technical University of Prague were to come. Every taxable citizen should have the right to vote. The state parliament should have the right to “discuss and decide on all state affairs”.

Leo von Thun-Hohenstein , the imperial governor in Bohemia, received no instructions from Vienna and decided to hold state elections for May 17th and 18th. However, the election could not be carried out as planned. While the election was rejected, especially in Prague, because the right to vote did not remove the old privileges, the conservative forces hoped for a return to the old conditions.

On April 25, 1848, the constitutional charter of the Austrian imperial state , also valid in Bohemia, was issued with the highest patent . It announced the change to the previous rules for state parliaments.

On August 26, the National Committee was banned. The election and the meeting of a Landtag of the Bohemian countries failed, the old Estates Landtag was dissolved by the Emperor as the last relic of Bohemian self-determination. The elected Bohemian representatives participated in the Reichstag in Vienna, but could not prevent the failure of the 1848 revolution.

Elected state parliament 1861–1913

Gable of the Thun Palace with the Bohemian coat of arms

The October diploma issued in 1860 had promised the Crown Lands diets, the introduction of which was regulated in detail in the February Constitution of February 28, 1861: Each crown land, including Bohemia, had its own provisions.

Due to their office, the Archbishop of Prague , the Bishops of Leitmeritz , Königgrätz and Budweis and the Rector of Prague University (from 1882: both rectors of Prague universities) were members of the state parliament without election for the duration of their function.

The other 236 members were elected into three curiae:

While a census was to be dispensed with in 1848, a census was now planned. The right to vote, intended only for men, required an annual tax payment of 10 guilders ; this excluded the poorer classes as well as all women from political participation.

Based on these requirements, the Bohemian Landtag was elected for the first time in 1861. The democratization of the Bohemian electoral law, which succeeded at national level through the electoral reform of 1906/1907 carried out by the Imperial and Royal Prime Minister Max Wladimir von Beck with the backing of the Emperor, did not materialize in the monarchy because the German elites feared the majority of the Czech people.

The Palais Thun-Hohenstein , where the state parliament had its seat since 1801, was adapted for the state parliament elected according to curia in 1861.

Since the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, Bohemia belonged to the cisleithan part of the dual monarchy, for which the so-called December constitution was enacted in 1867 , which was valid until 1918. The Czechs felt themselves classified as a nation of inferior rank as a result of the settlement, as the Magyars had won statehood for the Kingdom of Hungary ( impaired by a real union with Austria), but the Czechs could not enforce their wish for a government of the Bohemian countries in Prague.

After 1867, the Czechs and Germans used the state parliament as well as the Vienna Reichsrat to put obstacles in each other's way. In 1871 the Landtag decided, under boycott of the German MPs, to create an autonomous constitution ("Fundamental Article") to protect the equal rights of Bohemian and German nationality in the Kingdom of Bohemia . The project did not materialize due to a lack of support from the monarch.

The Austrian Prime Minister Eduard Taaffe issued language ordinances on April 19, 1880. They said that Czech became the official language in addition to German in those territories where the majority of the population was German. In addition, Taaffe persuaded the Reichsrat to expand the right to vote. The minimum tax payment ("census") that men had to prove in order to have the right to vote was reduced from ten to five guilders (in 1901 it was reduced to the equivalent of four guilders, now 8 kroner ). This gave the Czechs the first majority in the state parliament in 1883. Any attempt by a Viennese government to provide the Czechs with more political justice in general met with furious resistance from the Germans of the monarchy, who defended their privileges.

From the 1880s onwards, a new generation grew up on the Czech and German sides, which was not afraid of confrontation. The Young Czechs (Mladočeši), founded in 1874, achieved a majority in the state elections in 1889 and 1891. Their voters wanted the country to be as independent as possible and no longer strived for a German-Czech compromise , as the conservative old Czechs attempted. In 1893 there was nationalistic violence in Prague, the state parliament was closed and governor Franz von Thun and Hohenstein declared a state of emergency for the city on September 12, 1893 .

Numerous bills with a national political content were submitted to the state parliament and occupied it for years without ever having any tangible result. Resolutions of the Czech majority, such as the address draft submitted by Karel Kramář in 1900 with the demand for the indisputable right of the kingdom to independent legislation and administration , had little effect in reality. Due to the obstruction of the German MPs, the state parliament in 1903/1904 was just as incapable of acting as the Reichsrat. Unable to come to an agreement on national issues, important economic and social laws were prevented.

The Bohemian Landtag existed since 1882, since after the national division of Prague University there were now two Prague University Rectors who were ex officio members of the Landtag, with 242 members; it was one of the few parliaments of the monarchy that did not bring about an electoral reform to introduce a general electoral class until 1914 .

Number of annual
sessions / meetings 		opening Enough resolution Mandates from Czech parties Mandates from German parties
National Party (Old Czech) Liberal Party (Young Czechs) Agrarian German Liberal Progressive Party German National - German People's Party Agrarian German
radical party
5/183 Apr 6, 1861 Dec 21, 1866                
1/7 Feb. 18, 1867 Feb. 27, 1867 Feb. 26, 1867              
3/47 Apr 6, 1867 Oct. 30, 1869 July 29, 1870              
2/18 Aug 30, 1870 Nov 8, 1871 March 13, 1872              
6/125 Apr 24, 1872 Apr 21, 1877                
4/74 Sep 24 1878 Oct 23, 1882 May 17, 1883 69 14th   83      
6/158 July 5, 1883 Jan. 19, 1889   79 13   37 36    
6/185 Oct 10, 1889 Feb 16, 1895   58 39   34 35    
5/147 Dec 28, 1895 June 7, 1901 Aug 8, 1901 3 90 2 54 13    
2/103 December 28, 1901 Sep 10 1907   6th 66 21st 26th 14th 3 25th
2/23 Sep 15 1907 March 10, 1911 July 26, 1913 4th 38 43 19th 8th 15th 15th
Proportion of the Czech and German parliamentary groups in the state parliament
Legislature Czech MPs German MPs
number % number %
1878-1882 83 50.0% 83 50.0%
1883-1889 92 55.8% 73 44.2%
1889-1895 97 58.4% 69 41.6%
1895-1901 95 58.6% 67 41.4%
1901-1907 93 57.8% 68 42.2%
1907-1913 85 59.9% 57 40.1%

Dissolution in 1913

The 11th Landtag, elected in 1908, was in conflict from the outset over electoral reform and the equalization of Germans and Czechs. The German parliamentarians boycotted the state parliament in 1909 and 1910, so that meaningful work was not possible. At the same time, the Czechs boycotted the Imperial Council.

In 1911 the newly appointed governor Franz von Thun and Hohenstein tried to get the parties to work together. Meetings have now taken place, but the parliamentary work has still not produced any results. Because of the incapacity of the state parliament and because the finances were heading towards a catastrophe, Prime Minister Karl Stürgkh proposed to the emperor that the state parliament be dissolved and that Oberstlandmarschall Ferdinand von Lobkowitz be removed.

With an imperial patent of July 26, 1913, the state parliament was dissolved and the establishment of a state administrative commission to be appointed by the emperor was legally defined instead of the previously inoperative state committee. This commission consisted of five Czech and three German members, chaired by Count Adalbert Schönborn . The imperial patent only spoke indirectly of the election of the new Landtag; no election date has been announced.

The history of the Bohemian Landtag ended with this dissolution. After the establishment of Czechoslovakia from which it was Czechoslovak National Committee emerged National Assembly succeeded him as Bohemian (and Moravian) parliament.

State Committee and Oberstland Marshals

The state committee consisting of members of the state parliament was the state government of Bohemia. At the head of the state committee was the Oberstlandmarschall appointed by the emperor, also a member of the state parliament. In addition to this, his deputy and eight members elected by the state parliament (two each from each curia and two from the state parliament as a whole) formed the state committee.

Oberstlandmarschall Term of office from Term of office until
Albert Count Nostitz-Rieneck March 31, 1861 July 31, 1863
Karl Graf Rothkirch-Panthen November 9, 1863 September 30, 1866
Albert Count Nostitz-Rieneck October 4, 1866 February 27, 1867
Edmund Graf Hartig April 4, 1867 August 3, 1867
Adolph Prince Auersperg 4th August 1867 March 31, 1870
Albert Count Nostitz-Rieneck August 26, 1870 December 23, 1870
Georg Prince Lobkowitz September 11, 1871 April 23, 1872
Prince Karl Auersperg April 23, 1872 May 31, 1883
Georg Prince Lobkowitz 4th July 1887 December 10, 1907
Ferdinand Prince Lobkowitz August 28, 1908 July 26, 1913

See also

literature

  • Stenographic minutes of the meetings (for the years 1861–1889 and 1895–1911 see the digital library of the Czech Parliament)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eila Hassenpflug-Elzholz: Bohemia and the Bohemian Estates in the Time of Beginning Centralism. A structural analysis of the Bohemian aristocratic nation around the middle of the 18th century . Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-486-44491-3 , p. 437.
  2. ↑ Eila Hassenpflug-Elzholz: Bohemia and the Bohemian Estates in the Time of Beginning Centralism. A structural analysis of the Bohemian aristocratic nation around the middle of the 18th century . Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-486-44491-3 , pp. 20 and 41ff.
  3. ↑ Petr Mat'a: The Habsburg Monarchy 1620 to 1740. Achievements and limits of the absolutism paradigm . Verlag Steiner, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-515-08766-4 , p. 320.
  4. ^ Karl Bosl: Bohemia as a parade field of class representation from the 14th to the 17th century . In: Karl Bosl (Ed.): Current research problems around the First Czechoslovak Republic . Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 1969, pp. 9-21.
  5. ↑ Eila Hassenpflug-Elzholz: Bohemia and the Bohemian Estates in the Time of Beginning Centralism. A structural analysis of the Bohemian aristocratic nation around the middle of the 18th century . Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-486-44491-3 , p. 41.
  6. ↑ Political laws and ordinances 1792 to 1848 , No. 49/1848 (= p. 145 ff.)
  7. ↑ a b Otto Urban: The Landtag of the Bohemian Lands: The Bohemian Landtag . In: Helmut Rumpler, Peter Urbanitsch (ed.): The Habsburg Monarchy 1848-1918 . Volume VII: Constitution and parliamentarism , 2nd part: The regional representative bodies . Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-7001-2871-1 , pp. 1991–2055, here pp. 1995ff.
  8. ↑ State order and state parliament election order for the Kingdom of Bohemia , RGBl. No. 20/1861, supplement II, l (= p. 230)
  9. ^ Jörg Konrad Hoensch: History of Bohemia. From the Slavic conquest to the present . Verlag Beck, Munich 1997³, ISBN 3-406-41694-2 , p. 352.
  10. ↑ a b Entry on Bohemia in the Austria Forum  (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon )
  11. ^ Helmut Slapnicka: The powerlessness of parliamentarism. In: Ferdinand Seibt (Ed.): The chance of understanding. Intentions and approaches to supranational cooperation in the Bohemian countries 1848-1918 . Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-486-53971-X , pp. 147-174, here: p. 151.
  12. ^ Helmut Slapnicka: The powerlessness of parliamentarism. In: Ferdinand Seibt (Ed.): The chance of understanding. Intentions and approaches to supranational cooperation in the Bohemian countries 1848-1918 . Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-486-53971-X , pp. 147-174, here: p. 152.
  13. ^ Helmut Slapnicka: The powerlessness of parliamentarism. In: Ferdinand Seibt (Ed.): The chance of understanding. Intentions and approaches to supranational cooperation in the Bohemian countries 1848-1918 . Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-486-53971-X , pp. 147-174, here: p. 162.
  14. ^ Ernst Rutkowski: Letters and documents on the history of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy . Volume 2: The Constitutionally Loyal Large Estate 1900-1904 . Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-486-52611-1 , pp. 332 and 927.
  15. ^ Helmut Slapnicka: The powerlessness of parliamentarism. In: Ferdinand Seibt (Ed.): The chance of understanding. Intentions and approaches to supranational cooperation in the Bohemian countries 1848-1918 . Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-486-53971-X , pp. 147-174, here: p. 173.
  16. ^ Robert R. Luft: The middle party of the Moravian large estates. In: Ferdinand Seibt (Ed.): The chance of understanding. Intentions and approaches to supranational cooperation in the Bohemian countries 1848-1918 . Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-486-53971-X , pp. 187-243, here: p. 193.
  17. ↑ LGBl. For Bohemia No. 36/1913 (= p. 79 ff.), Bilingual
  18. ^ Jörg Konrad Hoensch: History of Bohemia. From the Slavic conquest to the present . Verlag Beck, Munich 1997³, ISBN 3-406-41694-2 , p. 405.
  19. ↑ all information from: Otto Urban: The Landtag of the Bohemian Lands: The Bohemian Landtag . In: Helmut Rumpler, Peter Urbanitsch (ed.): The Habsburg Monarchy 1848-1918 . Volume VII: Constitution and parliamentarism , 2nd part: The regional representative bodies . Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-7001-2871-1 , pp. 1991–2055, here p. 2002.