Duchy of Styria | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1180–1918 | |||||||||||
 Flag adopted in the19th century | |||||||||||
 Map of the Duchy of Styria from 1850 to 1910 | |||||||||||
| Status | State of theHoly Roman Empire and theAustrian Empire;Kronland ofCisleithanianAustria | ||||||||||
| Capital | Graz | ||||||||||
| Religion | Roman Catholicism | ||||||||||
| Government | Duchy | ||||||||||
| Historical era | Middle Ages | ||||||||||
| 970 | |||||||||||
| 1180 | |||||||||||
| 1192 | |||||||||||
| 1254 | |||||||||||
| 1260 | |||||||||||
| 1276/78 | |||||||||||
| 31 October 1918 | |||||||||||
| 10 September 1919 | |||||||||||
| |||||||||||
| Today part of | Austria Slovenia | ||||||||||
* Transferred by inheritance on the extinction of the ducal line. † Transferred by conquest. | |||||||||||
TheDuchy of Styria (German:Herzogtum Steiermark;Slovene:Vojvodina Štajerska;Latin:Ducatus Styriae) was aduchy located in modern-day southernAustria and northernSlovenia. It was a part of theHoly Roman Empire untilits dissolution in 1806 and aCisleithanian crown land ofAustria-Hungary untilits dissolution in 1918.
It was created by EmperorFrederick Barbarossa in 1180 when he raised theMarch of Styria to a duchy of equal rank with neighbouringCarinthia andBavaria, after the fall of the Bavarian DukeHenry the Lion earlier that year. MargraveOttokar IV thereby became the first duke of Styria and also the last of the ancientOtakar dynasty. As Ottokar had no issue, he in 1186 signed theGeorgenberg Pact with the mightyHouse of Babenberg, rulers ofAustria since 976, after which both duchies should in perpetuity be ruled in personal union. Upon his death in 1192, Styria as stipulated fell to the BabenbergLeopold V, Duke of Austria.
The Austrian Babenbergs became extinct in 1246, when DukeFrederick II was killed in battle against KingBéla IV of Hungary. Styria, a vacant Imperial fief, became a matter of dispute among the neighbouring estates. It passed quickly through the hands ofHungarian kings in 1254, until KingOttokar II of Bohemia conquered it, being victorious at the 1260Battle of Kressenbrunn. As King Ottokar II had married the last duke's sisterMargaret, he laid claim to both Austria and Styria. This met with strong opposition by the newly-elected KingRudolph I of Germany, who claimed the duchies asescheated fiefs. Rudolph finally defeated Ottokar at the 1278Battle on the Marchfeld, seized Austria and Styria and granted them to his sonsAlbert I andRudolf II.
TheHouse of Habsburg provided Styria with dukes of their lineage from that point on. The duchy was, however, separated from Austria by the 1379Treaty of Neuberg, after which Styria, Carinthia, andCarniola formed theInner Austrian territory ruled by the descendants ofLeopold III of theLeopoldian line, who took their residence atGraz. In 1456 they could significantly enlarge the Styrian territory by acquisition and re-acquisition of the comitalCelje estates inLower Styria. Both duchies were again ruled in personal union, when Leopold's grandsonFrederick V inherited Austria in 1457. In 1496 Frederick's sonMaximilian I signed an order expelling allJews from Styria, who were not allowed to return to Graz until 1856. In 1512 the duchy joined the Empire'sAustrian Circle.
A second Inner Austrian cadet branch of the Habsburgs ruled over Styria from 1564. Under ArchdukeCharles II of Inner Austria, Graz became a centre of theCounter-Reformation, expedited by theJesuits at theUniversity of Graz established in 1585 and continued under Charles' son ArchdukeFerdinand II, who became sole rule of all Habsburg hereditary lands andHoly Roman Emperor in 1619. TheProtestant population was expelled, including the astronomerJohannes Kepler in 1600. Meanwhile, at the time of theOttoman invasions in the 16th and 17th centuries after the 1526Battle of Mohács, the land suffered severely and was depopulated. The Turks made incursions into Styria nearly twenty times; churches, monasteries, cities, and villages were destroyed and plundered, while the population was either killed or carried away into slavery.
Styria remained a part of theHabsburg monarchy and from 1804 belonged to theAustrian Empire. The development of the duchy was decisively promoted byArchduke John of Austria, younger brother of EmperorFrancis I, who in 1811 founded theJoanneum, predecessor of theGraz University of Technology, and theUniversity of Leoben in 1840. He also forwarded the construction of theSemmering railway toMürzzuschlag and theAustrian Southern Railway line fromVienna toTrieste completed in 1857, which boosted the Styrian economy. In the course of theAustro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 (Ausgleich), the duchy was assigned as a crown land for theCisleithanian part ofAustria-Hungary, while along with the rise ofnationalism the conflict between theGerman andSlovene population intensified.
On the collapse of Austria-Hungary in the aftermath ofWorld War I, therump state ofGerman Austria claimed all Cisleithanian Austria with a significant German-speaking population including large parts of the Styrian duchy, while the SloveneLower Styrian part joined theState of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. Conflicts arose especially around the majority German-speaking border-town ofMaribor (Marburg an der Drau), where the census in 1900 recorded 83.5% German-speakers, which after a massacre of German protestors awaiting the American delegation, popularly known as "Marburg's Bloody Sunday", although it was actually a Monday, ultimately fell to Yugoslavia. The former duchy was partitioned broadly alongethnic lines, though where mixed, the defeated Austrian side lost the lands to Yugoslavia, such as the majority-German Abstall basin, with only the entirely German-speaking two thirds of its territory (Upper Styria and parts ofCentral Styria [de]) remaining withAustria, and the southern third ofLower Styria withMaribor passing to theKingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, eventually becoming part of modernSlovenia.
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Styria was attested in historical documents in AD 907 asStyria, in 1191 asMarchia Stirensis, and in 1215 asMarchia Styrie.[1] The name is of pre-Romance substrate origin. The German nameSteiermark is a compound; the first element is borrowed from the ancient nameStiria and the second element,Mark, means 'march, border region'. The Slovene nameŠtajerska and the Czech nameŠtýrsko are borrowed and adapted from the German name for the region.[1]
In 1910 the population of Styria included:[2]
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Circles est. 1500:Bavarian,Swabian,Upper Rhenish,Lower Rhenish–Westphalian,Franconian,(Lower) Saxon Circles est. 1512:Austrian,Burgundian,Upper Saxon,Electoral Rhenish · Unencircled territories | ||
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47°04′00″N15°26′00″E / 47.0667°N 15.4333°E /47.0667; 15.4333
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