!!!Nationalitätenfrage

Nationality Question, one of the main problems within the 
multicultural Habsburg empire of the 19%%sup th/%  century, which 
became especially apparent in the crownlands in 1848 ( Revolution of 
1848) and persisted until 1918. The Austrian  Kremsier, Reichstag of 
1848/49 discussed the possibility of subdividing the Empire into 
homogeneous districts according to nationalities (Austria and other 
German speaking ethnic groups - then collectively called "Germans" -, 
Hungarians, Czechs, Slovenes, Croats, Poles, Rumanians, Slovakes, 
Serbs, Ukrainians, Italians). The resolutions of the Reichstag were 
never put into practice ( Neo-absolutism), nor did later attempts, 
such as  Federalism and "Trialism", solve the problem. After the  
Compromise, Austro-Hungarian 1867 with Hungary ( Dualism), the Slavic 
peoples demanded similar privileges. The Czechs offered the most 
determined resistance to German-directed centralism and demanded the 
re-establishment of the indivisibility of the Bohemian lands as a 
separate historical body under the Austrian crown and autonomy of the 
lands of the Bohemian Crown. Emperor Franz Joseph rejected a "Bohemian 
Compromise" in 1871 and turned down a Polish draft outlining 
Galicia´s autonomy. However, a major part of Poland´s 
demands was complied with later on. The South Slavic peoples also 
vainly demanded a territory of their own. From the late 1870s the 
desire for far-reaching autonomy waned and the basic constitutional 
regulations were accepted. Nevertheless, the "fight of the nations for 
the state" was replaced by "the fight of the nations against the 
state". This showed first in the legislation regarding language use, 
reaching a climax in the language ordinances of K.  Badeni for Bohemia 
and Moravia, which finally led to his dismissal. National conflict 
escalated because it was no longer a conflict about equality of 
language use in the authorities, schools and in court, but 
increasingly about the differences in importance and positions of the 
various nations within the order of the Habsburg empire. The demands 
of national autonomy and suggestions of partial solutions (Moravian 
Compromise 1905) supported the isolation and separation of the 
nations. The manifesto of Emperor Karl I of October 1918, in which he 
announced his intention to turn the Monarchy into a federation of 
national member states, came too late to stop the disintegration 
process which resulted in individual nation states.

!Literature
R. Springer (pseudonym of Karl Renner), Der Kampf der 
oesterreichischen Nationen um den Staat, 1902; A. Popovici, Die 
Vereinigten Staaten von Gross-Oesterreich, 1906; O. Bauer, Die 
Nationalitaetenfrage und die Sozialdemokratie, 1907; P. Geist, Die 
Nationalitaetenprobleme auf dem Reichstag zu Kremsier 1848/49, 1920; 
H. Hantsch, Die Nationalitaetenfrage im alten Oesterreich, 1953; 
R. A. Kann, Das Nationalitaetenproblem der Habsburgermonarchie, 2 
vols., 1964; A. Wandruszka and P. Urbanitsch (eds.), Die 
Habsburgermonarchie 1848-1918, vol. III/1, 2: Die Voelker des Reiches, 
1980; G. Stourzh, Die Gleichberechtigung der Nationalitaeten in der 
Verfassung und Verwaltung Oesterreichs 1848-1918, 1985.


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