United States of Greater Austria

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The United States of Greater Austria (also United States of Greater Austria ) was an idea that was never implemented by a group of political masterminds around the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand . It was specifically elaborated by the lawyer and politician Aurel Popovici and published in 1906.

Proposal for the United States of Greater Austria by Popovici, 1906
Distribution of ethnic groups in Austria-Hungary

Nationality conflicts in Austria-Hungary

With the emergence of nation-state thinking in the 19th century, increasing problems arose in the Habsburg monarchy . The borders of the individual crown lands of the monarchy were purely historical and were not based on ethnic or linguistic conditions. A certain relaxation of the nationality problem arose after the compromise of 1867 , in which the Austrian Empire was transformed into the Austro-Hungarian monarchy . In both the Austrian and Hungarian halves of the empire , the two peoples that supported the state, the Germans and the Magyars , were in the minority. The other ethnic groups living in the Danube Monarchy - above all the Czechs , Poles , Ruthenians / Ukrainians , Romanians , Croats , Slovaks , Serbs , Slovenes and Italians - initially had little or no influence on politics.

In the Austrian half of the empire there was an increasing political emancipation of most of the ethnic groups in the years after 1867 , the majority in some parliaments of the crown lands (Poles in Galicia , Czechs in Bohemia and Moravia , Slovenes in Carniola , Croats in Dalmatia ) and a certain amount Cultural autonomy (Polish universities in Krakow and Lviv , Czech university in Prague ). This development was promoted by the introduction of universal suffrage in 1907 in the Austrian half of the empire. In the Kingdom of Hungary , however, there was no universal suffrage until the collapse of the dual monarchy . The Hungarian government pursued a strict policy of Magyarization aimed at the complete assimilation of the non-Magyar national minorities . Within the Hungarian part of the empire, only the Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia , which enjoyed partial autonomy, was excluded.

Reform proposal from Aurel Popovici

The heir to the throne, Franz Ferdinand, saw this problem, which threatened to shatter the state , and tried to find ways of solving it. One consideration was a radical political reorganization through the formation of a number of constituent states on an ethnic-language basis, which should be all parts of the federal state “United States of Greater Austria”. Through this project, the national aspirations of the individual nationalities were to be channeled, the dominance of weaker nationalities existing in the previous state structure should be eliminated by stronger ones and the unbalanced distribution of power in the state as a whole corrected.

In the reform he worked out, Aurel Popovici planned a federal or imperial structure in 15 largely monolingual countries :

  1. German Austria (roughly today's territory of Austria with South Tyrol , the southern Sudetenland and the German-speaking western edge of Hungary (roughly today's Burgenland including Ödenburg and Pressburg ))
  2. German Bohemia (northern part of today's Czech Republic )
  3. German Moravia (northern part of Moravia and Austrian Silesia )
  4. Bohemia (Czech-populated part of Bohemia and Moravia)
  5. West Galicia (Polish-populated part)
  6. Eastern Galicia (Ukrainian / Ruthenian part of Galicia, Carpathian Ukraine and Bukovina )
  7. Transylvania (Romanian-populated part with adjacent Romanian-populated areas of Hungary (such as the Banat ) and Bukovina )
  8. Croatia (approximate national territory of today's Croatia )
  9. Carniola (approximate national territory of today's Slovenia )
  10. Slovakia (approximate territory of today's Slovakia )
  11. Voivodina ( Vojvodina , the Serbian populated area in the south of Hungary)
  12. Hungary (the closed Magyar settled area)
  13. Seklerland ( Szeklerland - the Magyar parts in eastern Transylvania )
  14. Trento ( Trentino , the Italian- populated south of Tyrol)
  15. Trieste (with Italian-speaking surrounding areas)

Bosnia-Herzegovina temporarily retained its previous position as an area of ​​occupation.

These ethno-geographical units would be as homogeneous as few nation-states in Europe; together they should form the Habsburg- ruled federal state of the United States of Greater Austria . There were also some, mostly German-speaking, enclaves in eastern Transylvania and other places in the monarchy that were supposed to have a limited status of autonomy ( national autonomy ).

Assessment in the science of history

Popovici appears as a representative of the interests of the nations without history in the Hungarian half of the empire. But it was precisely the radicalism with which the author crossed the centuries-old crown land borders off the map that made it impossible for conservative sympathizers and reviewers to fully agree. Popovici's dissolution of the old historical-political individualities was simply incompatible with the old principle of indivisibiliter ac inseparabiliter (indivisible and inseparable) of the pragmatic sanction . Greater Austria temporarily became the “slogan of those saber-rattling, romanticizing officers, aristocrats and journalists” who surrounded the heir to the throne, Franz Ferdinand. Above all, they liked one basic intention of the concept: the preservation of the power-political position of the Habsburg Empire in Europe.

Robert A. Kann concludes that the situation since 1867 has certainly been even more unfair than Popovici's program,

“But it is not the same to tread the well-trodden path of traditional deficiencies, which at least in Austria have been somewhat mitigated by administrative practice, than to introduce a new and again imperfect order almost inevitably by unconstitutional means. While the old injustices would be tolerated in the long run by the power of tradition, it was highly unlikely that new, albeit lesser, evils would have been accepted - if at all - without a violent struggle . "

See also

literature

  • Wolfgang Hlousa: The federalization concept by Aurel C. Popovici "The United States of Greater Austria". Unprinted diploma thesis, Vienna 1989.
  • Erich Kowalski: The plans for the imperial reform of the military chancellery of the heir to the throne Franz Ferdinand in the field of tension between trialism and federalism . Unprinted diploma thesis, Vienna 2005.
  • Aurel Popovici: The United States of Greater Austria. Political studies for the solution of national questions and legal crises in Austria-Hungary . Leipzig 1906.
  • Alina Teslaru-Born: Ideas and projects for the federalization of the Habsburg Empire with special consideration of Transylvania 1848–1918. Inaugural dissertation at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main 2005, PDF full text .
  • Franz Wolf: Aurel Constantin Popovici. In: Austria in history and literature; Vol. 8; 1964.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Distribution of Races in Austria-Hungary . In: William R. Shepherd : Historical Atlas . New York 1911.
  2. ^ Aurel Popovici: The United States of Greater Austria. Political studies to solve national questions and state law crises in Austria-Hungary . Leipzig 1906, p. 308 f.
  3. ^ Robert A. Kann : The nationality problem of the Habsburg Monarchy. History and ideas of national endeavors from the Vormärz to the dissolution of the Reich in 1918 . Volume 2: Ideas and Plans for Reich Reform . Graz / Cologne 1964, p. 202.
  4. ^ Theodor Sosnosky: Politics in the Habsburg Empire. Marginal glosses on contemporary history . Volume 2, Berlin 1913, p. 395.
  5. ↑ Wolfgang Hlousa: The federalization concept by Aurel C. Popovici “The United States of Greater Austria” . Unprinted diploma thesis, Vienna 1989, p. 80.
  6. ↑ Max Polatschek: Franz Ferdinand - Europe's lost hope . Verlag Amaltea, Vienna / Munich 1989, ISBN 3-85002-284-6 , p. 231.
  7. ↑ Wolfgang Hlousa: The federalization concept by Aurel C. Popovici “The United States of Greater Austria” . Unprinted diploma thesis, Vienna 1989, p. 81.
  8. ^ Robert A. Kann: The nationality problem of the Habsburg Monarchy. History and ideas of national endeavors from the Vormärz to the dissolution of the Reich in 1918 . Volume 2: Ideas and Plans for Reich Reform . Graz / Cologne 1964, p. 207.

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