Manor House (Austria)
The mansion was the upper house of the Austrian Imperial Council consisting of representatives of the nobility , the clergy and particularly deserving citizens .
It was created as the first chamber of the legislature on the basis of the constitution for the Austrian Empire issued by Franz Joseph I , which went down in Austrian constitutional history as the February patent after its date of February 26, 1861 . It existed until the end of the First World War , when the Provisional National Assembly for German Austria declared the manor house to be abolished on November 12, 1918 . In accordance with the Federal Constitutional Law of 1920, today's Austrian Parliament again consists of two chambers; now the National Council, directly elected by the people, is the first, the Federal Council, indirectly elected by the state parliaments, the second.
history
creation
In the October diploma of 1860, the emperor , who had ruled absolutist up until then , and his chairman of the conference of ministers, Count Bernhard von Rechberg , tried to introduce an almost exclusively advisory, 100-member Reichsrat with severely restricted powers. The resistance against this policy, especially from the liberal upper class was so strong that in 1861 the creation of a bicameral parliament as a legislature , which was prepared by Anton von Schmerling , became inevitable .
The mansion was created similar to the British House of Lords as an almost equal counterweight to the elected House of Representatives , the lower house. The mansion, which was not elected but was appointed by birth, status and appointment, accompanied the transition from feudalism to a constitutional monarchy that was to include the (male) bourgeoisie and, ultimately, the workers . Its existence was supposed to make it easier for the stratum that had previously ruled alone to cope with their loss of power.
The mansion met for the first time on April 29, 1861. It met provisionally until 1883 in the meeting room of the Lower Austrian Parliament in the Landhaus in Vienna's Herrengasse (see chapter Seat).
Cisleithania
The negotiations conducted by the imperial government without a mandate from parliament to settle with Hungary in 1867 were controversial in the manor house in June 1867. For the second legislative period or fourth session, which began on May 20, 1867, only the previous Imperial Council, without members from the countries of the Hungarian crown , was invited, without corresponding constitutional provisions. The Reichsrat was now de facto and half a year later also de jure responsible only for the countries on this side of the Leitha , soon unofficially called the Austrian half of the empire ; This and a strengthening of the House of Representatives were laid down in the December 1867 constitution.
Delegations, deputations
The common matters (foreign policy, military and their financing), which still bound Austria and Hungary, were dealt with in parliament by the so-called delegations , each comprising 60 parliamentarians. In Cisleithanien, the manor house had to elect 20 of the 60 delegation members and ten substitute members for the annual delegation sessions (the 50th session was the last), most recently on October 31, 1917. The manor house was also represented with five of 15 members in the Austrian deputation who had to negotiate at longer intervals with her Hungarian counterpart about the cost sharing of common matters; the last election of its members for the 17th deputation session took place in the manor on November 29, 1917.
Important meetings
On December 4, 1883 (as in the House of Representatives) the first meeting of the mansion took place in the newly built imperial council building . The hall was destroyed by bombs in 1945; Today in its place is the post-war meeting room of the Austrian National Council (see chapter Seat).
In December 1906, the manor house opposed the general, equal male suffrage that the House of Representatives had adopted, which was in line with the growing social democracy that it had called for in large-scale demonstrations. Kk Prime Minister Baron Max Wladimir von Beck threatened the manor house with a pair push from the emperor if the bill was not accepted. The emperor sent his two chief stewards, the princes Rudolf von Liechtenstein and Alfred von Montenuovo , to parliament to speak for the electoral reform there; it was ultimately adopted by the manor house and used in the (last two) Reichsrat elections in 1907 and 1911 .
End of the manor
The penultimate meeting of the manor house with a discussion on the Manifesto of Emperor Karl I issued on October 16, 1918, took place on October 24, 1918.
The last session, the 40th of the XXII. Session of the XII. The legislative period took place on October 30, 1918 from 5:05 p.m. to 5:10 p.m. Since kk Prime Minister Lammasch himself, like Prince Albert III. to Windisch-Graetz as President of the House, unable to make a statement for his newly appointed cabinet, which the media referred to as the Ministry of Liquidation , the meeting was closed after five minutes; the President announced that the next meeting would be announced in writing. Parallel to this manor house meeting in the parliament building, the 2nd meeting of the provisional national assembly for German Austria took place from 3:05 to 8:05 p.m. in the Lower Austrian country house , at which a council of state was elected as the executive body. On the same day, the Council of State appointed the first government of German Austria , the Renner I state government .
functionality
According to the constitution, the mansion was on an equal footing with the House of Representatives in the legislature; a law had to get the approval of both houses and the emperor. If, however, no agreement was reached between the two houses of the Reichsrat in a finance law or in the recruiting law on the amount of the contingent to be levied, the lower number was considered approved according to § 13 of the Basic Law on Reich Representation of 1867 . Like the government, both chambers had the right to initiate bills.
Permanent organ
In contrast to the House of Representatives, which has been elected (at least) every six years since 1873, the mansion was created as a permanent representation; its members, with the exception of permanent bishops, were called by law or appointment for life. However, the legislative periods and in these the sessions of the manor house were linked to those of the House of Representatives. If this was postponed or dissolved for the purpose of new elections, the mansion did not meet again until the House of Representatives met again. The president and the two vice-presidents of the manor were newly appointed by the emperor for each session.
Before attending meetings for the first time, each member of the manor house had to give the emperor an oath of obedience (obedience = obedience); those who failed to do so were not allowed to take part in the deliberations. The oath was originally taken in the house, later before entering the house. The Imperial and Royal Ministry of the Interior then had to inform the manor house president which new members had taken the oath and were therefore to be invited to the meetings.
Legislative terms and sessions
The manor house experienced twelve legislative periods (LP) from 1861 to 1918 , which correlated with the Reichsrat elections carried out for the House of Representatives. During these legislative periods, the House held sessions which, when parliamentary problems were unsolvable and the Imperial and Royal Government believed that it could only get ahead through imperial decrees, were ended by adjournments by the Imperial Council; This was last the case in the spring of 1914. The 22 sessions were numbered from 1861 to 1918. The V. LP (1873–1879), the VI. LP (1879–1885), the VII. LP (1885–1891), the VIII. LP (1891–1897) and the X. LP (1901–1907). They face very short legislative periods (e.g. III. LP, 1870/1871) and the IX. Legislative period that split into five sessions due to four adjournments of the Reichsrat in the three years 1897-1900.
Bureau
The manor's presidium consisted of the man's president and his two deputies. The President and Vice-Presidents were appointed by the Emperor with Most High handwritten letters from the center of the House. According to an unwritten rule, the appointed persons were always members of the nobility. The members of the Presidium took turns leading the manor house meetings; only at very important meetings did the President actually chair for the entire duration of the meeting.
The President had house rights in the manor house on behalf of the Emperor. He made the most important personnel decisions in the manor administration. All papers and bills addressed to the manor were formally addressed to him. He represented the manor to the outside world and, as far as the hierarchy at court was concerned, stood in front of the President of the House of Representatives in terms of protocol.
The last president of the mansion (previously vice-president since 1892) was Prince Alfred III since March 25, 1897 (last appointed by handwriting on May 21, 1917) . zu Windisch-Grätz , the last vice-presidents were Prince Max Egon II. zu Fürstenberg (since May 21, 1917), Prince Alois von Schönburg-Hartenstein (since May 21, 1917) and Ferdinand Prince Lobkowitz (on October 12, 1917 after his resignation appointed by Count Ernst von Silva-Tarouca ).
Members
→ See also: List of members of the Austrian manor house
The mansion consisted of the following categories of members:
- from the appointed princes of the imperial house (i.e. the archdukes of legal age)
- from the archbishops and those bishops who had princely rank
- from members of the "wealthy local nobility" (i.e. the heads of those noble families to whom the emperor had bestowed the "hereditary imperial council dignity")
- from Austrian citizens who were appointed by the emperor for service to the state or church, science or art for life (in 1907 it was legally stipulated that this category had to include at least 150 and a maximum of 170 members; no minimum or maximum number had previously been determined since 1861 ).
Aristocrats of the Hungarian half of the empire had their seat in the Magnatenhaus , the upper house of the Hungarian Reichstag , and had not been represented as Hungarian citizens in the Austrian manor house since 1867. Previously, many of them had boycotted the mansion.
Although nobles who were not members of the manor house could run for election from the beginning, members of the manor house were allowed to run for the house of representatives since 1907; if they were elected, their membership in the manor was suspended for the duration of their parliamentary activities. However, members of the manor house could resign at their own request, i.e. submit their resignation.
In 1911 there were 291 members in the individual categories: 14 archdukes, 18 (arch) bishops (namely 5 prince-archbishops, 5 other archbishops, 8 prince-bishops), 90 members of the wealthy rural nobility, 169 members appointed for life. They were all men.
In 1917/1918 the house comprised a total of 306 members and ten others whose membership was suspended or not established due to a lack of commitment. 90 of these members, including 17 hereditary and three church princes , had been newly appointed to the manor by the emperor; from the end of the XXI. Session on July 25, 1914 until the end of the XXII. (last) session on November 12, 1918 compared to 72 deaths among members. The last new member came to the manor house on July 16, 1918 with the approval of Emperor Jaroslav von Thun and Hohenstein (1864–1929, brother-in-law of Archduke heir to the throne Franz Ferdinand † ) to take over the mandate inherited in his family.
Spiritual members
Section 4 of the Basic Law on Reich Representation, announced as an annex to the February patent 1861, contained the relevant provisions. In the announcement of the amended law on December 21, 1867, they remained unchanged. Paragraph 4 stipulated that the manor house should by law include all archbishops of Cisleithania and those bishops who have princely rank (each for a period of office). The law did not distinguish between Christian denominations; it didn't even name her. It referred to Catholic and Orthodox officials; There were no archbishops or bishops with princely rank in the Protestant churches of Cisleithania.
When a bishop newly appointed by the Pope or the competent Orthodox body to whom the law applied had taken the prescribed oath of office in the hands of the emperor, the president of the manor would invite the prince of the church to swear and take his seat in the manor.
The spiritual members included the Roman Catholic prince archbishops of Vienna , Prague , Salzburg , Gorizia and Olomouc as well as a prince archbishop without a diocese, the Roman Catholic, the Greek Catholic and the Armenian Catholic archbishop of Lemberg , the Roman Catholic archbishop of Zara and the Greek-Oriental Archbishop of Chernivtsi and the Roman Catholic Prince-Bishops of Brixen , Breslau , Krakow , Seckau , Trient , Laibach , Lavant and Gurk . The Bishop of Breslau, like his residence city, belonged to the German Empire, but was entitled to participate due to the fact that about a tenth of his diocese consisted of Austrian Silesia . The Archbishop of Zara and the Prince-Bishop of Brixen were in the last two sessions, the XXI. and the XXII., not sworn in and therefore did not belong to the manor house.
Hereditary members
106 families had hereditary membership in the manor. This stand was made up of the following families:
- three sovereign houses: Liechtenstein , Saxony-Coburg and Gotha , Schaumburg-Lippe .
- 16 mediatized princely houses, in order of priority: Lobkowitz , Dietrichstein , Auersperg , Fürstenberg , Schwarzenberg , Thurn und Taxis , Colloredo , Khevenhüller , Hohenlohe-Langenburg , Starhemberg , Salm-Raitz , Orsini-Rosenberg , Schönburg-Hartenstein , Metternich , Windisch-Graetz , Trauttmansdorff .
- 16 other royal houses, in order of priority: Dietrichstein , Lubomirski , Porcia , Lamberg , Kinsky , Clary , Paar , Czartoryski , Sanguszko , Rohan , Windisch-Graetz , Collalto , Sapieha , Montenuovo , Beaufort , Thun .
- four mediatized count houses, after acquisition of the imperial estate : Schönborn , Wurmbrand , Kuefstein , Harrach .
- 64 counts gender, ranking according to the date of issue of the count's diploma: Schlik , Lodron , Hardegg , Montecuccoli , Thurn and Valsassina , Buquoy , Tarnowski , Althann , Czernin , Waldstein , Thun , Attems , Des Fours , Herberstein , Nostitz , Ungnad von Weißenwolff , Vetter , Traun , Brandis , Trapp , Serényi , Sternberg , Kaunitz , Lamberg , Kolowrat , Hoyos , Kinsky , Falkenhayn , Goëss , Kálnoky , Wratislaw , Zierotin , Podstatzky , Haugwitz , Potocki , Gołuchowski , Lanckoroński , Lewicki , Westphalen , Mensdorff , Miniscalchi , Papafava , Meran , Badeni , Colleoni , Venier , Vrints , Fünfkirchen , Widmann-Sedlnitzky , Dobrženský , Walterskirchen , Gudenus , Sedlnitzky , Ludwigstorff , Wassilko von Serecki .
- Nine baronial families, ranking after attaining the baron status: Walterskirchen (counts since 1907), Locatelli , Dalberg , Kotz , Hackelberg , Gudenus (counts since 1907), Sternbach , Ludwigstorff (counts since 1910), Wassilko von Serecki (counts since 1918).
- three margravial families ( Marchese ): Canossa , Cavriani , Guidi .
Of the 127 callings, 20 " conversions " occurred over time . One conversion was the granting of hereditary imperial council dignity to already appointed lifelong members of the manor house. In the beginning, this happened very rarely and only in individual cases, such as the conversion of the Fürstenberg family (landgraves) in 1868, Liechtenstein-Hollenegg in 1871, Vrints in 1873 and Traun-Maissau in 1873. However, the electoral reform of 1907 came about immediately and then to large pair thrusts.
- 11 appointments of July 14, 1907:
Prince Auersperg , Count Clam-Martinitz , Baron Dalberg , Baron Gudenus , Prince Montenuovo , Count Nostitz , Count Potocki , Count Silva-Tarouca , Baron Sternbach , Count Ungnad von Weißenwolff , Count Vetter .
- 12 appointments of February 26, 1912:
Count Badeni , Count Colloredo-Mansfeld , Count Czernin-Morzin, Count Dobrženský
- an appointment in 1917:
A succession was the succession in the hereditary seats in the event of death. In the course of the history of the manor house there were four cases ( Attems , Salm , Schönborn , Thun-Salm) for three successors, 27 times for two successors, 38 times for one and the remaining 56 had no succession.
Appointed members
Former members of the House of Representatives, dismissed ministers and former governors and state presidents were also appointed to the manor house by the emperor on special merits. For example, this was the case with governor Filip Zaleski and Moritz Kaiserfeld, Edler von Blagatinschegg . The latter was President of the House of Representatives from 1868–1870 and became a member of the manor house in 1871 as Governor of Styria .
Among the mansion members appointed by the emperor were z. E.g. the glass industrialist Ludwig Lobmeyr and the cotton entrepreneur Nikolaus Dumba , both of whom also emerged as patrons of the arts , the beer industrialists Anton Dreher junior and Adolf Ignaz Mautner von Markhof , the industrialist Emil von Škoda as well as the technologist Wilhelm Exner and the chemist Ivan Horbaczewski .
Factions
Without the 20 archdukes who did not participate in parliamentary groups , the members of the manor in the last session were divided into:
- 108 in the group of the "right wing" (including 9 deaths in the session)
- 70 in the group of the " constitutional party " (two deaths)
- 72 in the group of the "middle party" (five deaths)
- 16 in the group of the "Reichspartei"
- 20 not belonging to any group (three deaths)
- 3, whose mandate was suspended because they had been elected to Reichsrat (members of the House of Representatives)
- 7 who did not appear for the swearing-in after their appointment and therefore did not attend the deliberations of the manor (one death).
The groups named here as parties were not political member parties in the narrower sense; the parliamentary groups had their own management committees.
Associations
Members could join associations such as the "German mansion members from Bohemia", "Landowning members of the manor house" or the "Industrial Association of Members of the Manor House of the Reichsrat". These served the members, regardless of their group affiliation, to represent common interests, but also to maintain contacts and the informal exchange of information and news, as well as discussion forums.
Seat
The mansion met provisionally for the first 22 years in the Lower Austrian country house on Herrengasse, while the House of Representatives was located in the so-called Schmerlingtheater on Währinger Strasse . There were plans for both houses to erect representative buildings on Vienna's new Ringstrasse . There were considerations to create separate buildings for the two houses of the Reichsrat; they were discarded in favor of a common building. The architectural competition in 1864 was followed by the construction of the Imperial and Royal Reichsrat building on what was then Franzensring, based on a design by Theophil Hansen , in 1874–1883 .
Boardroom of the manor
The meeting room and other rooms of the manor house were built in the southern half of the Reichsrat building. The mansion's boardroom was the second largest meeting room in the Parliament building after the House of Representatives boardroom, which is located in the northern half of the building.
The semicircular shape of the conference room was modeled on an ancient Greek theater and furnished with rising rows of benches. Around the hall there was a couloir with seven double doors. Inside the hall was arranged in nine rows with 243 seats. The hall was more splendidly furnished and decorated than the hall of the House of Representatives. The color scheme was also different. The hall was illuminated with daylight by a hand-painted, semicircular skylight that encompassed the entire ceiling and illuminated with gas light in the evening.
In the middle of the front side was the podium for the presidium with three seats: for the manor house president (or the incumbent vice president) and for two secretaries; there were also places for the manor's office director and assistants.
The front wall behind the presidium was designed in the manner of an ancient scenario in the Ionic order : six high three-quarter columns with gilded capitals carried a pediment with a tympanum with figural decoration. In the center of the tympanum was a mechanical clock. The acroterion of the gable ridge was in the form of an imperial double eagle in the shield; the three-dimensional coat of arms was crowned by the imperial crown and supported by two griffins . Between the six Ionic columns, the wall surfaces were made of marble stucco, in the niches there were marble sculptures of Greek philosophers and writers. A painted frieze in the fields between the columns ran across the entire front of the hall and depicted scenes from ancient Greece, the motherland of democracy. Behind the presidium bench was a massive double door made of wood and two smaller side entrances on the left and right from the bank.
The lectern was located in front of the presidium podium, which was clearly lower than the presidential seat. Before that, five tables with the necessary armchairs for the imperial and royal ministers were set up in the arc of a circle (mentioned in the shorthand records as a ministerial bank). Between these and the rows of benches for the members of the manor house there was a table for the parliamentary stenographers , who were then used to write the printed stenographic protocol . It should be noted that, as the technology was not yet available, the hall had no sound system to amplify the speaker's voice or to record the speeches.
Galleries on two floors were attached above the couloir, enclosing the hall in a semicircle. On the first gallery, carried by male and female herms and decorated with gilded, carved wooden architecture, was the imperial box in the middle. The second floor was supported by Corinthian columns. As is the rule in the Austrian parliament to this day, visitors were not allowed to express their approval or disapproval, otherwise they could be expelled from the room by the President.
Meeting room of the National Council
In 1920 the hall of the manor house, because it was smaller than the 500-seat hall of the former House of Representatives , was designated as the meeting room of the National Council of the Republic of Austria, which had only 165 or 183 members . As such it was used until March 4, 1933; this was followed by the alleged " self-elimination of parliament ".
The hall was badly damaged during the bombing of Vienna in World War II in 1945. The bombs hit the roof and destroyed the benches, the floor completely collapsed into the rooms below and a fire broke out. The figural decorations and decorations were badly damaged, and moisture could penetrate through the missing roof. The reconstruction in the old style could not be carried out at the time, partly for budgetary reasons. According to plans by the architects Max Fellerer and Eugen Wörle , the hall was restored in 1956 with the help of an acoustic expert in what was then a modern, functional style. The hall has also been modernized technically. The only ornament in the room is the republican coat of arms eagle made of chased steel by Rudolf Hoflehner in the back of the presidium bench. Today the hall has 192 seats.
Federal Council meeting room
In front of the meeting room is the former anteroom of the manor house. It was used as the mansion's meeting place and waiting room. The walls were made of red stuccolustro, a skylight and chandeliers provided lighting for the room. The keyhole covers of the four double-leaf doors were originally decorated with the coats of arms of the 17 kingdoms and countries represented in the Imperial Council or with the emperor's initials, FJI . In 1920 this room was adapted as the meeting room of the Federal Council and used until the civil war in 1934. During the Second World War, the room was also damaged by air raids, but it was restored true to the original, and has since served as the Federal Council meeting room again.
See also
- Reichsrat (Bavaria) , the first chamber of the Bavarian assembly of estates
- Prussian mansion , the first chamber of the Prussian state parliament
- State Council (Russian Empire) , the first chamber in Russia
- House of Lords , first chamber in the United Kingdom
Individual evidence
- ↑ Art. 8, Law of November 12, 1918 on the State and Government Form of German Austria , StGBl. No. 5/1918
- ^ Stenographic minutes of the opening meeting of the Lords House of the Reichsrathes
- ↑ mansion. 3rd session of the 4th session on June 3, 1867
- ↑ Stenographic Protocol. Mansion. 20th meeting of the XXII. session
- ↑ Stenographic Protocol. Mansion. 23rd meeting of the XXII. session
- ↑ Stenographic Protocol. Mansion. 40th meeting of the XXII. session
- ↑ Legislative terms and sessions of the manor house
- ^ Index of the Stenographic Protocols of the Reichsrat, XII. Session, Section VI. Personal details of the manor house of the Reichsrathes
- ↑ Stenographic Protocol. Mansion. 39th meeting of the XXII. session
- ↑ RGBl. No. 16/1907 (= p. 59)
- ↑ mansion. XXII. Session of the XII. Legislative period from May 30, 1917 to November 12, 1918
- ↑ Stenographic Protocol. Mansion. 33rd meeting of the XXII. session
- ^ Stenographic minutes of the meetings of the manor house of the Reichsrat 1911–1914, XXI. Session; Appendix II: Members of the manor house of the Reichsrat (as of the XXI session)
- ↑ Stenographic Protocols. Mansion. 1. (Opening) meeting of the XXII. Session on May 30, 1917, p. 12
- ↑ http://www.coresno.com/standeserhoehungen/164-texte/3459-reichsrat.html
- ↑ Stenographic Protocols. Mansion. VII. Session. Appendix to the index: List of ... members
- ↑ http://www.palais-niederoesterreich.at/index.php?id=90&L=0
- ↑ PDF at www.parlament.gv.at ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ http://www.parlament.gv.at/GEBF/ARGE/PARLINNEN/SaalNationalrat/index.shtml
- ↑ see Alex - Historical legal and legal texts online , website of the Austrian National Library
- ↑ http://www.parlament.gv.at/GEBF/ARGE/Baugeschichte/ZerstoerungWiederaufbau/index.shtml
- ↑ http://www.parlament.gv.at/GEBF/ARGE/PARLINNEN/SaalBundesrat/
literature
- Friedrich Graf Lanjus: The hereditary imperial council dignity in Austria . Self-published, Schloss Haindorf am Kamp, Langenlois 1939.
- Gerald Stourzh : The development of the first chamber in the Austrian constitution with special consideration of the period from 1848–61 . Dissertation, Vienna 1951.
