The Cultural and Human Values and Rights of Their Citizens and Subjects - Essay Example

?Topic: Rise of Modern in Europe, Under International Relations Introduction The Austrian Empire which lasted during the span of 1804 to 1867 did not have an official name and was generally called Austria or Austria – Hungary. “In 1555-6 Charles V finally gives up his long struggle to govern the largest western empire since Roman times. During the space of a year he abdicates in all his territories, before retiring to live near a Spanish monastery”(History World,2007).During 1556, the king Charles handed over his crown to his son Phillip and this kingdom included Spain, Spanish monastery and Spanish America. These were the days of feudal system, wherein the royals were more indulged in trading wars and least attention was given to the poor and under-privileged class of the kingdom. In those times, the subjects of the monarchial kingdoms where less happy with their quality of life and yearned for the abolishment of unjust royal anarchy prevailed. During the 18th century, war broke out among various kings in European domains and all worked towards building of their own strong kingdoms. These fights also brought about a major change in the ruling structure of the European domain. Gradually, the Austria – Hungary monarchy also known as “dual monarchy”, soon reached to a compromising stage to gain a separate entity for each other. Apparently, during World War II the dual monarchy ceased to exist and a distinct Austrian empire came in to power under the kingship of emperor Habsburg. During later years, in the struggle to strengthen the Austrian Empire, the royals approached Hungary to negotiate for political stability. However, these times of royal ruling witnessed a long and hard suffering among much of the minorities existed in the country. Minorities in Austrian Empire The Austrian Kingdom during the 18th century faced numerous problems due to its wide territory and ethnic groups. According to(Propoganda,2007) “The Austrian Empire consisted of five principal components: The Hereditary lands, the Lands of the Hungarian Crown, the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, Galacia, Lombardy and Venetia in Italy. The Empire was ruled by Emperor Francis I. The Empire was difficult to manage because it was large and unwieldy, and it was difficult to treat each group fairly. Another problem was the problem of minorities”. Metternich the rule of that time of Austria experienced many problems in administrating the kingdom and the problem with minorities was the most crucial concern of all. The successful administration of the kingdom was an aspect of major dilemma and controlling all ethnic groups were far from reality. In order to get a hold on the minority issues, the ruler Metternich introduced the concept of local diets to promote the idea of provincial institutions. Additionally, he also encouraged the ethnic minorities to follow local traditions, cultural activities, history, language and literature. However, he was completely strong against any formulation of localized government or liberalization of minorities. However, encouragement in cultural identity gave much confidence to various ethnic groups and their started considering themselves as separate from German groups. The ironical part is that this transition initialized by the ruler. Metternich gave way to a major realization among the ethnic towards the importance of their culture and history. Eventually, different minorities with diverse cultural identity and ethnical values came forward for their liberalization and political freedom to form their own strong foundation. Treatment of Minorities in Austrian Empire The Austrian empire has a large constitution of minorities and the German was the main language of these groups. The empire consisted of a sect called Czech extremist too which was aiming for liberalization and integral freedom .“When a new law was passed requiring that all civil servants in the Czech lands be bilingual after 1901, the Germans in the Vienna parliament forced out the ministry, while Czech extremists began to talk ominously about a future Russian-led Slavic showdown with the Germans. No Austrian parliament could stay in session, and government had to be conducted by decree”(Big Site, 2011). After a prolonged bargain and stressful agitation the Francis Joseph then current ruler was influenced enough to allot franchisee for the Russian constitutionalism. In the year 1907, all the male population of Austrian land was given the right to vote for their own national deputies. This resulted in a major triumph among the Czech population in comparison to other minorities existed in Austrian empire. The minority population of Austria consisted of Italians, Slovene, Croat and Serbs. However, the Italians had a better hold than other minor groups and they were more anxious to break out of the Habsburg monarchy during the year 1910.“Following World War I, the League of Nations promoted a liberal system of minority rights conceived on the basis of individual rights and designed to provide human rights protection against discrimination”(Salzborne,2009).At the same time, the Croats and Serbs in Austria were also getting divided and few chose for autonomy within the land of Austria and desired to join with south slave territory.Nonethless, Austria during 1848, did recognize the Hungarian country as their junior ally and transformed the Austrian empire in to Austro – Hungarian empire. The Austro – Hungarian Empire The Austro – Hungarian empire formerly comprised of large number of states and covered an immense geographical area with complex ethnical groups and minorities. “The territories under the Hungarian authority were populated by Croats, Romanian, Slovaks and Ukrainians. Following World War I, it had to hand over more than two – thirds of its territory to these (new) nations”(Slomp,2005).Collectively speaking, the prime problem faced by the Austro- Hungarian Empire was the issue of ethnic minorities and their will for ethnic regionalism. The ethnic minorities being self recognized demanded for independence and wanted command over their own ethnicity which was a big hindrance to the dual monarchy. The system of Dual monarchy worked efficiently till 1918, after which the tensions started arising between Hungary and Austria. Previously there had been a row between Hungary and Austria as the former demanded for control over their army units. The Hungarians wanted to use German as the commanding language in their army units which the Austria was is denial of. Since this dual monarchy had many ethnic groups like Czechs, Rumanians, Italians, Croats, Germans and many more , the equality and justice quotient was considerably at low -level. The Revolutionary Phase of Minorities in Austro – Hungarian Empire “The major cause of difficulty for the Austrian half of the empire was relations between the Czechs and the Germans in Bohemia. The industrialized and prosperous Czechs resented German domination, e.g. in the area of language. They hoped to see their position elevated to equality with that of the Germans and the Hungarians. They demanded the creation of a Triple Monarchy”(History Home, 2011). The main problem here for the government was that, whenever they attempted to give rights to certain minorities, they faced an immense threat from the German sects existed in the empire. There was also some political movement among Germans to establish a territory called Greater Germany. Simultaneously, there was also tension rising between slovens and Germans resulting in major disputes and meanwhile the Italian minorities desired to join Italy to form their own ethnical alliance. Thus, various minorities in the empire experienced the strong unity among Austria – Hungary as a major threat for their liberalization and aimed at their destruction. As per , (Scheleiger,1920),Finally the collapse of the Austro – Hungarian monarchy amid violence and anarchy was followed after the disintegration of the joint currency”. Gradually in short span of time, the Germans saw a considerable political success which led to their supremacy amongst other minorities. Obviously, we could trace from all the above instances that the inequalities among ethnical minorities led to the collapse of the Austrian – Hungarian empire. Conclusion The ethnicity of people play an important role in the establishment of a nation and existence of complex ethnical groups and minorities can indefinitely lead to chaos and instability in any form of government. “Ethno-cultural diversity has been with us a long time. History shows that the divisions it creates have initiated violent conflicts and protracted discrimination around the world. It is ‘learning to live with the public expression and institutionalization of ethno-cultural diversity’ through the realization of minority rights that is necessary in order to live peacefully”(Porter,2003).“ However, the Austria in the current era is sharing boundaries with countries which were once was part of its Austrian - Hungarian empire. Any country or empire with large multi- ethnical value must regard the pride and honor of specific minorities to create a balance and integrity .When there is racism and intolerance among the subjects, there can be a lot of conflict and clashes between the interests and values of the subjects. “Present day Austria is surrounded by countries whose territories in pars or in toto once belonged to the Austrian Empire. The policy of the Austrian government for many years favored an integrative educational system. However, toward the end of the empire, the government began to support and finance bilingual education” (SunTzu,2011) T his proves that to succeed as a government and as a nation, the political authorities sure must give attention to the cultural and human values and rights of their citizens and subjects. Bibliography Big Site of History. (2011). History of civilization. Retrieved from http://bigsite ofhistory.com/ the-nationality- question-in-austria-the-modernization-of-nations. History World. (2011). History of the austrian empire . Retrieved from http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ab39 History Home .(2011). European history. Retrieved from http://www.historyhome.co.uk/ europe/aus-hun.html. Propoganda. (2007). Metternich and the austrian empire. Retrieved from http:// www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?groupid=1635&HistoryID=ab39>rack=pthc Porter, Kirsten. (2003). The realisation of national minority rights. Macquarie Law Journal, 4(3), 51-60. Slomp, Hans. (2005). European politics into the twenty-first century: integration and division . West Port: Praeger Publishers Salzborn, Samuel. (2009). The concept of ethnic minorities. international law and the german-austrian response. Oldenbourge, 2(3), 63-79. Scheleiger, Karl, .(1920). The disintegration of austro-hungarian currency. The Economic Journal, 30(117), 26-38. Tzu, Sun. (2011). Trans-temporal cognitive matching . 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