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Cisleithania, officially The Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council (), was the northern and western part of Austria-Hungary, the Dual Monarchy created in the Compromise of 1867—as distinguished from Transleithania (i.e., the Hungarian Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen east of "beyond" the Leitha River). This name for the region was a common, but unofficial one.
The Cisleithanian capital was Vienna, the residence of the Emperor of Austria. The territory had a population of 28,571,900 in 1910. It reached from Vorarlberg in the west to the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria and the Duchy of Bukovina (today part of Ukraine and Romania) in the east, as well as from the Kingdom of Bohemia in the north to the Kingdom of Dalmatia (today part of Croatia and Montenegro) in the south. It comprised the current States of Austria (except for Burgenland), as well as most of the territories of the Czech Republic and Slovenia (except for Prekmurje), southern Poland, parts of Italy (Trieste, Gorizia, Tarvisio, Trentino, and South Tyrol), Croatia (Istria, Dalmatia), Montenegro (Kotor Bay), Romania (Southern Bukovina), and Ukraine (Northern Bukovina and Galicia).
After the constitutional changes of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, the Cisleithanian crown lands ( Kronländer) continued to constitute the Austrian Empire, but the latter term was rarely used to avoid confusion with the era before 1867, when the Kingdom of Hungary had been a constituent part of that empire. The somewhat cumbersome official name was Die im Reichsrat vertretenen Königreiche und Länder ("The Kingdoms and Lands represented in the Imperial Council"). The phrase was used by politicians and bureaucrats, but it had no official status until 1915; the press and the general public seldom used it and then with a derogatory connotation. In general, the lands were just called Austria, but the term "Austrian lands" ( Österreichische Länder) originally did not apply to the Lands of the Bohemian Crown (i.e., Bohemia proper, the Margraviate of Moravia and Austrian Silesia) or to the territories annexed in the 18th-century Partitions of Poland (Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria) or the former Venetian Dalmatia (Kingdom of Dalmatia).
From 1867, the Kingdom of Hungary, the Kingdom of Croatia, the Kingdom of Slavonia and the Principality of Transylvania were no longer "Austrian" crown lands. Rather, they constituted an autonomous state, officially called the "Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of St Stephen" ( or A Magyar Szent Korona Országai, ) and commonly known as Transleithania or just Hungary. The Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina, occupied in 1878, formed a separate part. Both the "Austrian" and "Hungarian" lands of the Dual Monarchy had large Slavic peoples-settled territories in the north (Czechs, Slovaks, Polish people and Ruthenians) as well as in the south (Slovenes, Croats and Serbs).
Each crown land had a regional assembly, the Landtag, which enacted laws ( Landesgesetze) on matters of regional and mostly minor importance. Until 1848, the Landtage had been traditional diets (assemblies of the estates of the realm). They were disbanded after the Revolutions of 1848 and reformed after 1860. Some members held their position as ex officio members (e.g., bishops), while others were elected. There was no universal and equal suffrage, but a mixture of privilege and limited franchise. The executive committee of a Landtag was called Landesausschuss and headed by a Landeshauptmann, being president of the Landtag as well.
From 1868 onwards Emperor Franz Joseph himself (in his function as monarch of a crown land, being king, archduke, grandduke, duke or count) and his Imperial–Royal ( k.k.) government headed by the Minister-President of Austria were represented at the capital cities of the crown lands—except for Vorarlberg which was administered with Tyrol, and Istria and Gorizia-Gradisca which were administered together with Trieste under the common name of Austro-Illyrian Littoral— by a stadtholder ( Statthalter), in few crown lands called Landespräsident, who acted as chief executive.
After 1893, no k.k. government was able to rely on a parliamentary majority. Nevertheless, Polish members of parliament and politicians like Count Kasimir Felix Badeni achieved some success involving Galician Poles by special regulations for this "developing country"; thence the Polenklub played a constructive role most of the time. Politics were frequently paralysed because of the tensions between different nationalities. When Czech obstruction at the Reichsrat prevented the parliament from working, the emperor went on to rule autocratically through imperial decrees ( Kaiserliche Verordnungen) submitted by his government. The Reichsrat was prorogued in March 1914 at the behest of Minister-President Count Karl von Stürgkh, it did not meet during the July Crisis and was not reconvened until May 1917, after the accession of Emperor Karl in 1916.
For representation in matters relevant to the whole real union of Austria-Hungary (foreign affairs, defence, and the financing thereof) the Reichsrat appointed delegations of 60 members to discuss these matters parallel to Hungarian delegations of the same size and to come, in separate votes, to the same conclusion on the recommendation of the responsible common ministry. In Cisleithania, the 60 delegates consisted of 40 elected members of the House of Representatives ( Abgeordnetenhaus) and 20 members of the Upper House ( Herrenhaus). The delegations convened simultaneously, both either in Vienna or in Budapest, though spatially divided. In case of not getting the same decision in three attempts, the law permitted the summoning of a common session of both delegations and the eventual counting of the votes in total, but the Hungarians, who averted any Imperial "roof" over their part of the dual monarchy, as well as the common ministers, carefully avoided reaching this situation. Austria-Hungary as a common entity did not have its own jurisdiction and legislative power, which was shaped by the fact that there was no common parliament. The common diplomatic and military affairs were managed by delegations from the Imperial Council and the Hungarian parliament. According to the compromise, the members of the delegates from the two parliaments had no right to debate, they had no right to introduce new perspectives and own ideas during the meetings, they were nothing more than the extended arms of their own parliaments. All decisions had to be ratified by the Imperial council in Vienna and by the Hungarian parliament in Budapest. Without the Austrian and Hungarian parliamentary ratifications, the decisions of the delegates were not valid in Austria or in Kingdom of Hungary.
| + Ethnic composition of the Cisleithanian population (1910) ! Ethnicity!! % of total population | |
| 33% | |
| 22% | |
| 15% | |
| 12% | |
| 5% | |
| 3% | |
| 3% | |
| 7% | |
| Source: Allgemeines Verzeichnis der Ortsgemeinden und Ortschaften Österreichs nach den Ergebnissen der Volkszählung vom 31. Dezember 1910 (ed. by K.K. Statistische Zentralkommission, Vienna, 1915) (the latest Austrian gazetteer, register of political communities, giving the results of the 1910 census) | |
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