Leon Biliński

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Leon (Ritter) von Biliński (born June 15, 1846 in Zaleszczyki , Galicia (now Ukraine ); † June 14, 1923 in Vienna ) was a Polish - Austrian politician, 1895–97 and 1909–11 Austrian finance minister, from 1912 to 1915 Austro-Hungarian joint finance minister of Austria-Hungary and thus also governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina , and after the First World War in 1919, for a short time, Polish finance minister.

Leon von Biliński, photographed by Charles Scolik

Life

Leon von Biliński was born in Zaleszczyki in eastern Galicia. He studied economics at the University of Lviv from 1862–1865 , where in 1871 he also became a professor. After several functions in the university administration, he was finally rector of the University of Lviv in 1878 . From February 1, 1892, he acted as president of the kk general management of the Austrian State Railways and from 1907–1914 as a conservative member of the Reichsrat and from 1900 a lifelong member of the manor house . As finance minister in the Badeni cabinet , he agreed financial equalization with Hungary in 1896 . In 1897 he was one of the five signatories of the Baden language ordinance for Bohemia and Moravia, which triggered major domestic political turbulence . As finance minister in the Bienerth cabinet , he resigned after conflicts with parliament in 1911 and became chairman of the influential Poland Club , the parliamentary group of Polish members of the Reichsrat.

Biliński was awarded the Commander's Cross of the Franz Joseph Order and was a Knight of the Order of the Iron Crown, 1st class . He was a member of the kk Academy of Sciences in Cracow and an honorary citizen of Rzeszów .

Joint Minister of Finance

On February 20, 1912, the emperor appointed Biliński joint finance minister of the monarchy. From the beginning of his activity as governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina , Biliński had major differences with General Oskar Potiorek , the province's military governor. Potiorek was a hardliner who despised the Serbs , while Biliński took a moderate course to win the Serbs of Bosnia over to the monarchy. The civil governor could not prevent the military governor from closing the Bosnian state parliament and dissolving Serbian associations. Nevertheless, Biliński belonged to the war party , the proponents of armed conflict with Serbia, together with the most important exponents of the entire monarchy, such as Prime Minister Karl Stürgkh , Chief of Staff Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf and War Minister Alexander von Krobatin . Together with Foreign Minister Leopold Berchtold , Biliński had already advocated the annexation of Serbia as an equal part of the monarchy to the Council of Ministers on May 2, 1913, during the Skutari crisis.

During the first weeks of the war, Biliński threatened to resign as finance minister if a general governor of Galicia was to become a general. He wanted to issue a call for insurrection on the Poles, which Conrad thought was premature, although he too believed that Congress Poland should fall to the monarchy.

Austropolitan solution

Biliński, was a passionate advocate of the “Austropolian solution” , the annexation of Russian Poland to the Habsburg Empire with extensive autonomy in the form of trialism . At the beginning of August 1914 he wanted to publish a rally approved by Emperor Franz Joseph and Berchtold in the Austro-Polish sense, which provided for a Habsburg Kingdom of Poland consisting of Galicia and Russian Poland, with its own government and parliament. However, this had to remain unpublished because of the veto of the Hungarian Prime Minister István Tisza against trialism. In addition to Tisza's rejection, the resistance of the German ally in particular prevented the publication of the proclamation. Due to Tisza's protest at the joint Council of Ministers on August 22, 1914, Biliński's trialism project fell through and was never brought up for debate again. But although the trialist conception was never again the subject of political disputes in the Council of Ministers, it was talked about until the last weeks of the war.

For the Poles of the monarchy, the development was disappointing, as was shown in a speech by Biliński to his parliamentary group in early October 1915 after his resignation as Finance Minister on February 7, 1915, as the still influential chairman of the Poland Club:

“The heavy charges it contains against the Austro-Hungarian government, its indecisive approach to the Polish question and its indecision towards Germany are, despite the measured manner in which they were brought forward, for the mood that prevailed even among the most conservative Galician politicians , symptomatic. "

In December 1915, Biliński warned Foreign Minister Burián that the establishment of a special German or Ruthenian- administered Austrian province formed from Eastern Galicia would sooner or later lead to another war with Russia . It was therefore astonishing how much the Polish resistance to the division of Galicia in Vienna and Budapest was underestimated.

At the beginning of 1917, the activist left in Poland under Józef Piłsudski no longer wanted to know anything about the merger with the “corpse” of the Habsburg Monarchy.

Independent Poland

At the end of 1919, Biliński was appointed by Piłsudski as finance minister of the new Polish state to the government of Prime Minister Ignacy Jan Paderewski in Warsaw , but soon retired into private life and became president of the Austro-Polish Bank in Vienna. His remains were transferred to Teplitz-Schönau in Czechoslovakia in 1923 and buried in the cemetery there in the crypt of the family of his wife Josefine, née Seiche-Nordenheim.

Web links

Commons : Leon Biliński  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Rutkowski: Letters and documents on the history of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Volume 1: The Constitutionally Loyal Large Estate 1880-1899. Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-486-51831-3 , p. 379.
  2. ↑ a b c Bilinski (Biliński) Leon von. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 1, Publishing House of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1957, p. 84 f. (Direct links on p. 84 , p. 85 ).
  3. ^ Self-published by the kk Österreichische Staatsbahnen: Almanac for the personnel of the kk Österreichische Staatsbahnen per 1893. Vienna, p. 85.
  4. ↑ William Jannen, Jr: The Austro-Hungarian Decision For War in July 1914 . In: Samuel R. Williamson, Jr, Peter Pastor (Eds.): Essays On World War I: Origins and Prisoners of War. New York 1983, pp. 55-81, here: pp. 56f.
  5. ↑ Ludwig Bittner , Hans Uebersberger : Austria-Hungary's foreign policy from the Bosnian crisis in 1908 to the outbreak of war in 1914. Diplomatic files from the Austro-Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Vienna / Leipzig 1930, Volume 6: April 1 to July 31, 1913. P. 324ff. (No. 6870).
  6. ↑ Miklós Komjáthy (Ed.): Protocols of the Joint Council of Ministers of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (1914–1918) . Budapest 1966, pp. 184ff.
  7. ↑ Field Marshal Conrad: From my service 1906–1918 . Volume 4: June 24, 1914 to September 30, 1914. The political and military events from the murder of the prince in Sarajevo to the conclusion of the first and the beginning of the second offensive against Serbia and Russia . Vienna / Berlin / Leipzig / Munich 1925, p. 184.
  8. ↑ Ottokar Czernin: In the world wars . Berlin / Vienna 1919, pp. 37 and 185.
  9. ^ Heinz Lemke: Alliance and rivalry. The Central Powers and Poland in the First World War . Verlag Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1977, ISBN 3-205-00527-9 , p. 34f.
    Henryk Batowski: Trialism, Subdualism or Personal Union. On the problem of the Austro-Polish solution (1914–1918). In: Studia Austro-Polnica. Warszawa / Kraków 1978, pp. 7–19, here: p. 9.
  10. ↑ Ottokar Czernin: In the world wars. Berlin / Vienna 1919. S. 37 and 185.
    Heinz Lemke: Alliance and rivalry. The Central Powers and Poland in the First World War. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1977, ISBN 3-205-00527-9 , p. 40.
  11. ↑ Alexander Fussek: Austria-Hungary and the Polish question at the beginning of the First World War . In: Austria in History and Literature 11 (1967). Pp. 5-9; here: p. 7.
    Heinz Lemke: Alliance and rivalry. The Central Powers and Poland in the First World War. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1977, ISBN 3-205-00527-9 , p. 280f.
  12. ^ Heinz Lemke: Alliance and rivalry. The Central Powers and Poland in the First World War. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1977, ISBN 3-205-00527-9 , p. 423.
predecessor Office successor
István Burián kuk Finance Minister
Governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Feb. 12, 1912–7. Feb. 1915 		Ernest von Koerber
personal data
SURNAME Bilinski, Leon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bilinski, Leon Ritter von; Bilinsky, Leon Ritter von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish-Austrian politician
DATE OF BIRTH June 15, 1846
PLACE OF BIRTH Zaleszczyki , Galicia
DATE OF DEATH June 14, 1923
Place of death Vienna