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United States of Greater Austria

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The United States of Greater Austria (German: Vereinigte Staaten von Groß-Österreich) was an idea created by a group of scholars surrounding the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand that never came to pass. This specific proposal was conceived by Aurel Popovici in 1906.

As the twentieth century started to unfold the greatest problem facing the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary was that it consisted of eleven distinctly different ethnic groupings of which only two, the Germans and Hungarians (who together accounted for about 44% of the total population) wielded any power or control. The other nine groupings (Czechs, Poles, Ruthenians, Romanians, Croats, Slovaks, Serbs, Slovenians and Italians) hardly wielded any power at all. The Dual Monarchy system of Franz Ferdinand's uncle, the Emperor Franz Joseph, had been to split the ancient Austrian Empire into two nations, one Austrian-dominated, the other Hungarian-dominated. However, after various demonstrations, uprisings and acts of terrorism, it became readily apparent that the notion of two ethnic groups dominating the other nine could not realistically survive in perpetuam.

Franz Ferdinand had planned to radically redraw the map of Austria-Hungary creating a number of ethnically and linguistically dominated semi-autonomous "states" who would all be part of a larger confederation renamed the United States of Greater Austria. Under this plan language and cultural identification was encouraged, and the disproportionate balance of power would theoretically be righted somewhat. The idea was set to encounter heavy opposition from the Hungarian part of the Dual Monarchy, since a direct result of the reform would have been a significant territorial loss of Hungary.

Nevertheless, the Archduke was assassinated at Sarajevo in 1914, which led directly to the outbreak of the First World War. Austria-Hungary was defeated and dismantled and several new states were created, as well as various Austro-Hungarian territories ceded to existing neighbouring countries, by the victorious Entente powers.

Proposed states from Aurel Popovici

The idea came from Hungarian revolutionary Lajos Kossuth, who proposed to transform the Habsburg Empire into a so-called "Danubian State", a federal state with autonomous regions. The following territories were supposed to become states of the federation after the reform (note that Deutsch in this case implied German-speaking states, not any link to Germany itself). The majority ethnic group within each territory is also listed.

Proposed map of the United States of Greater Austria, by Popovici, 1906

In addition, a number of mostly German-speaking enclaves in eastern Transylvania and elsewhere were to have limited autonomy.

References

  • Template:De icon Kowalski, Erich (2005). Die Pläne zur Reichsreform der Militärkanzlei des Thronfolgers Franz Ferdinand im Spannungsfeld von Trialismus und Föderalismus. Vienna: Universitätsbibliothek Universität Wien. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |1=, |2=, |3=, |4=, |5=, and |6= (help)
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