Count Kasimir Felix Badeni (German: ''Kasimir Felix Graf von Badeni'', Polish: ''Kazimierz Feliks hrabia Badeni''; 14 October 1846 – 9 July 1909), a member of the
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
noble
House of Badeni
The House of Badeni is the name of a Polish aristocratic family. The dynasty became important in the 19th century in partitioned Poland as one of the wealthiest and most influential families in Galicia.
History
The dynasty originated from the bou ...
, was an
Austrian
Austrian may refer to:
* Austrians, someone from Austria or of Austrian descent
** Someone who is considered an Austrian citizen, see Austrian nationality law
* Austrian German dialect
* Something associated with the country Austria, for example: ...
statesman, who served as
Minister-President of
Cisleithania
Cisleithania, also ''Zisleithanien'' sl, Cislajtanija hu, Ciszlajtánia cs, Předlitavsko sk, Predlitavsko pl, Przedlitawia sh-Cyrl-Latn, Цислајтанија, Cislajtanija ro, Cisleithania uk, Цислейтанія, Tsysleitaniia it, Cislei ...
from 1895 until 1897. Many people in Austria, especially Emperor
Franz Joseph, had placed great hope in Badeni's efforts to reform the electoral system and the
language legislation in order to solve some fundamental problems of the
multinational state, which eventually failed.
Biography
Kasimir Felix Badeni was born in
Surochów
Surochów ( uk, Сурохів, ''Surokhiv'', initially uk, Сухорів Sukhoriv''Hrytsak E.'' (1936) Peremyshl` 100 ago. Перемишль: накладом товариства "Стривігор", друкарня А. Блюя; - С. 28) ...
near
Jarosław (''Jaroslau'') in the Austrian
Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, the son of Count Ladislaus (Władysław) Badeni (1819–1888) and his wife Cecylia. Badeni studied law at the
Jagiellonian University
The Jagiellonian University (Polish: ''Uniwersytet Jagielloński'', UJ) is a public research university in Kraków, Poland. Founded in 1364 by King Casimir III the Great, it is the oldest university in Poland and the 13th oldest university in ...
in
Kraków and joined the Austrian civil service in 1866, serving in the
Ministry of the Interior and in the Ministry of Agriculture. In 1871 he was appointed district commissioner (''Bezirkshauptmann'') in
Żółkiew
Zhovkva ( uk, Жовква ; pl, Żółkiew; yi, זאָלקוואַ, translit=Zolkva; russian: Жо́лква, 1951–1992: ''Nesterov'') is a city in Lviv Raion, Lviv Oblast (region) of western Ukraine. Zhovkva hosts the administration of Zho ...
, later in
Rzeszów. From 1879 he worked as court councillor and delegate of the Galician
stadtholder
In the Low Countries, ''stadtholder'' ( nl, stadhouder ) was an office of steward, designated a medieval official and then a national leader. The ''stadtholder'' was the replacement of the duke or count of a province during the Burgundian and H ...
in Kraków.
Badeni retired to his country estates in 1866, nevertheless two years later he was appointed
k.k. stadtholder of Galicia by Emperor Franz Joseph. During his tenure, he played a key role in the rapprochement between the Polish elite and the
Ruthenians that came to be known as the "New Era". He was devoted to the Habsburg Monarchy and the
Emperor as a firm conservative, which combined with his successes in Galicia impressed Franz Joseph.
His son Ludwik Józef Władysław Badeni was married to Alice Elisabeth, née Ankarcrona (1889-1985), a daughter of the Swedish noble
Oscar Carl Gustav Ankarcrona. After Badeni's death, she secondly married
Archduke Karl Albrecht of Austria.
Presidency
Badeni came to power in Austria after the failure of Minister-President
Alfred III zu Windisch-Grätz's coalition ministry of conservative and
liberals. Keenly aware of the growing tensions within the Empire due to ethnic rivalries and the political agitation of socialists and nationalists, Badeni expressed doubt as to the ability of Austria-Hungary to wage war effectively. He claimed "a state of nationalities cannot wage war without danger to itself."
Electoral reform
In 1896 he succeeded in implementing a form of
universal male suffrage but made it palatable to the ruling interests of the Empire. To the previous four classes of voters, which depended on the amount of taxes each individual paid, his reform added a fifth class to include every adult male below the five-guilder threshold set for the fourth class in the 1882
Taaffe Taaffe can refer to:
*Viscount Taaffe (title and family)
*Theobald Taaffe, 1st Earl of Carlingford (died 1677), Irish-born courtier and soldier in England
*Francis Taaffe, 3rd Earl of Carlingford (died 1704), Irish-born courtier and soldier in Lorr ...
reform.
The electoral reform had far-reaching effects: the newly established fifth class encompassed 72 of the 425 seats in the lower house of the
Imperial Council (''Reichsrat'') and most mandates went to the
Social Democrats, the populist
Christian Social Party, and also to
German nationalists. In a short time, the Imperial Council developed from an
Assembly of Notables
An Assembly of Notables (French: ''Assemblée des notables'') was a group of high-ranking nobles, ecclesiastics, and state functionaries convened by the King of France on extraordinary occasions to consult on matters of state. Assemblymen were p ...
to a gathering of definitive
parliamentary groups
A parliamentary group, parliamentary party, or parliamentary caucus is a group consisting of some members of the same political party or electoral fusion of parties in a legislative assembly such as a parliament or a city council.
Parliamentar ...
with a strong
party discipline.
Language conflict
Badeni courted controversy when, in an attempt to gain the support of the
Young Czech faction in the
Reichsrat, he addressed the language issue in
Bohemia
Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...
. His ordinance of 5 April 1897 declared "that
Czech and
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
should be the languages of the 'inner service' throughout Bohemia." This meant that civil servants in the province would have to know both Czech and German, since government business would be conducted in both languages for internal Bohemian affairs.
Germans in Bohemia were outraged, since this effectively excluded the majority of them from government jobs;
Czechs learned German in school, but Germans had usually little to no knowledge of the Czech language.
Late-19th-century Germans in Austria-Hungary, as a general rule, wanted the Empire to maintain its German character established during the period of
Germanization under
Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor
Joseph II (German: Josef Benedikt Anton Michael Adam; English: ''Joseph Benedict Anthony Michael Adam''; 13 March 1741 – 20 February 1790) was Holy Roman Emperor from August 1765 and sole ruler of the Habsburg lands from November 29, 1780 unt ...
in the late 18th century, so they resisted the demands of the other ethnic groups for linguistic recognition. Badeni's ordinance was seen by Germans as the "last straw" in a series of concessions. Badeni was not prepared for the level of animosity the Germans in Bohemia and elsewhere in the Empire directed at him due to his reform.
The fringe German Nationalist Party, headed by
Georg Schönerer
Georg may refer to:
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*Georg (musical), Estonian musical
* Georg (given name)
* Georg (surname)
* , a Kriegsmarine coastal tanker
See also
* George (disambiguation)
George may refer to:
People
* George (given name)
* ...
, hoping to destabilize the Empire and join the German lands of Austria to the new
German Empire
The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...
, disrupted parliamentary proceedings and instigated violent protests. Although most Germans of Austria had no sympathy for the Nationalist Party's cause, they participated in street protests across the Austro-Hungarian Empire, hoping to have the ordinance repealed. Obstructionism by German nationalists slowed or stopped parliamentary business in the Reichsrat and riots erupted in
Vienna,
Graz
Graz (; sl, Gradec) is the capital city of the Austrian state of Styria and second-largest city in Austria after Vienna. As of 1 January 2021, it had a population of 331,562 (294,236 of whom had principal-residence status). In 2018, the popul ...
,
Salzburg, and the Alpine provinces. Riots took place also in
Prague and martial law was put into effect there.
Resignation
Amidst this political turmoil, in November 1897, Emperor Franz Joseph, frightened by the mass agitation of some of the most important segments of society, dismissed Badeni. His fall, however, did not end the political and ethnic problems within the Empire and for several years, while the Reichsrat met occasionally, the government ruled largely through emergency decree. Badeni's language ordinances were repealed in 1899, disappointing Czechs and failing to appease German nationalists.
Some commentators of the time felt, that Badeni was unaccustomed to the political dynamics of the more-industrialized western part of the Empire; he was used to the provincial social relations of Galicia, where he was a landowner. That was given as an explanation for Badeni's political blunder. In fact Badeni believed that the Czechs were growing as a nation and their national ambitions would sooner or later have to be accommodated within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as the ambitions of the Hungarians had been decades previously. Badeni was one of the few politicians who saw that without rapprochement between different nations within the Austro-Hungarian state, the Empire would fall apart.
Honours
* :
**
Knight of the Iron Crown
The Order of the Iron Crown ( it, link=no, Ordine della Corona Ferrea) was an order of merit that was established on 5 June 1805 in the Kingdom of Italy by Napoleon Bonaparte under his title of Napoleon I, King of Italy.
The order took its name ...
, 3rd Class, ''1882''
** Commander of the
Order of Franz Joseph, with Star, ''1886''
** Grand Cross of the
Imperial Order of Leopold, ''1891''
*
Holy See:
Grand Cross of St. Gregory the Great
* :
Grand Cross of the Star of Romania
* :
Knight of the White Eagle
* :
Grand Cross of the White Eagle
Notes
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Badeni, Kasimir Felix, Hrabia
1846 births
1909 deaths
People from Jarosław County
People from the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria
Kasimir Felix
Counts of Austria
Counts of Poland
Polish Austro-Hungarians
Polish politicians
Ministers-President of Austria
Interior Ministers of Austria
Members of the Austrian House of Deputies (1873–1879)
Governors of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria
19th-century Ministers-President of Austria
Jagiellonian University alumni
Commanders of the Order of Franz Joseph
Recipients of the Order of the White Eagle (Russia)
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Gregory the Great
Grand Crosses of the Order of the Star of Romania