Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

AUSTRIANS

"AUSTRIANS" is a plural of: austrian.

Date "AUSTRIANS" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1776. (references)

 

Specialty Definition: Austria

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The Republic of Austria is a landlocked country in Central Europe, a federation of 9 states.
Austria is bordered by Liechtenstein and Switzerland in the west, Italy and Slovenia in the south, Hungary and Slovakia in the east, and Germany and the Czech Republic in the north.

Republik Österreich
(In Detail) (Full size)
''National motto: None''
Official language German
Capital Vienna
President Thomas Klestil
Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel
Area
 - Total
 - % water		 Ranked 112nd
83,858 km²
1.3%
Population
 - Total (2000)
 - Density		 Ranked 86th
8,150,835
97/km²
Independence
 - Date 		July 27, 1955
Currency Euro¹, Austrian euro coins
Time zone UTC +1
National anthem Land der Berge, Land am Strome
Internet TLD .AT
Calling Code 43
(1) Prior to 1999: Austrian schilling

History

Main article: History of Austria

After being conquered by the Romans, Huns, Lombards, Ostrogoths, Bavarians and Franks, Austria came under the rule of the Babenbergs from the 10th to the 13th century, which were succeeded by the Habsburgs. The line of this family continued to govern Austria until the 20th century.

After the abolition of the Holy Roman Empire, Austria became part of the double-monarchy Austria-Hungary in 1867. This nation was split up after being on the losing side of World War I, forming Austria as it is today. Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938 (the "Anschluss").

The Allies occupied Austria at the end of World War II until 1955, when the country again became fully independent under the condition that it remained neutral. However, after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, Austria became increasingly involved in European affairs, and in 1995, Austria joined the European Union, and the euro monetary system in 1999.

Politics

Main article: Politics of Austria

Head of state is the president, who is elected every 6 years by popular vote. The president chooses the chancellor, traditionally the leader of the largest party in the elections for parliament. The Austrian parliament consists of two chambers, the Bundesrat (federal council), which consists of 64 representatives of the states, based on population, and the Nationalrat (national council), which has 183 directly elected members.

After three decades of social-democratic majority (SPÖ) a right-wing coalition was formed in 2000, consisting of the conservative People's Party (ÖVP) and the right-wing Freedom Party (FPÖ). However, after some turmoil within the FPÖ concerning party policy and leadership, Federal Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel (ÖVP) announced on September 9, 2002 that general elections would be held prematurely at the end of November. In the elections of November 24, 2002, the ÖVP won a landslide victory (42.3% of the vote), whereas the FPÖ was reduced to a mere 10.1%.

The new Austrian parliament (Nationalrat, 183 seats) will be made up as follows:

On February 28, 2003, the coalition between the ÖVP and the FPÖ has been continued, again with Wolfgang Schüssel (ÖVP) as Federal Chancellor. His Vice Chancellor was Herbert Haupt (FPÖ) until replaced by Hubert Gorbach (FPÖ) on October 20, 2003. Prior to that, long-lasting "probing talks" ("Sondierungsgespräche") took place between the ÖVP and the other major parties FPÖ, SPÖ and the Green Party.

States

Main article: States of Austria

Map

A federal republic, Austria is divided into nine states, or Bundesländer. These are:

Geography

Main article: Geography of Austria

Being situated in the Alps, Austria's west and south are mountainous making Austria a well-known winter sports destination. The highest mountain is the Grossglockner, at 3,798 m. The north and east of the country are mostly rolling terrain. The climate is temperate, with cold winters and cool summers.

The main cities are capital Vienna, situated on the Danube, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Graz and Linz.

Economy

Main article: Economy of Austria

Austria, with its well-developed market economy and high standard of living, is closely tied to other European Union economies, especially Germany's. Membership in the EU has drawn an influx of foreign investors attracted by Austria's access to the single European market and proximity to EU aspirant economies. Slowing growth in Germany and elsewhere in the world slowed the economy to only 1.2% growth in 2001. To meet increased competition from both EU and Central European countries, Austria will need to emphasize knowledge-based sectors of the economy, continue to deregulate the service sector, and lower its tax burden.


An Austrian town (Kaprun, 786 metres, 2580 feet) in the state of Salzburg
Larger version

Demographics

Main article: Demographics of Austria

About ten percent of the Austrians are of non-Austrian descent, many from surrounding countries, especially from the former East Bloc nations. Over 50,000 indigenous Slovenians live in the Austrian provinces of Carinthia and Styria. A large group of labour immigrants is also present. The official language, German, is spoken by everybody; the dialect is similar to that spoken in southern Germany.

There is, however, a separate standard for Austrian German with differences to the German spoken in Germany.

More than three-quarters of Austrians are Roman Catholic. Other important religions are Islam and Protestantism.

Culture

Main article: Culture of Austria

Austria has been the birthplace for several famous composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Strauss, Sr & Johann Strauss, Jr and Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Alban Berg (last 3 were in the famous Second Viennese School). Other famous Austrians include physicists Ludwig Boltzmann and Erwin Schrödinger as well as philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and Kurt Goedel, psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, poet Peter Rosegger (see Music of Austria), and painter Gustav Klimt.

Being situated in the Alps, Austria has been the homeland of many great alpine skiers, such as Toni Sailer, Hermann Maier, Annemarie Moser-Pröll and Anita Wachter.

Holidays
DateEnglish Name Local NameRemarks
January 1New Year's DayNeujahr 
January 6EpiphanyEpiphanieHeilige Drei Könige
MoveableEaster SundayOstersonntagGood Friday work-free for Protestants
MoveableEaster MondayOstermontag 
May 1 Staatsfeiertagalso, Labour day
MoveableAscensionChristi HimmelfahrtThursday 40 days after Easter
MoveablePentecostPfingstsonntag 
MoveableWhit MondayPfingstmontag 
MoveableCorpus ChristiFronleichnamThursday 11 days after Pentecost
August 15Assumption of MaryMariae Himmelfahrt 
October 26National dayNationalfeiertagLaw on neutrality passed in 1955
November 1All SaintsAllerheiligen 
December 8Immaculate ConceptionMariae Empfängnis 
December 25ChristmasChristtag, Weihnachten 
December 26Boxing DayStephanitag 

Miscellaneous topics

Much of the material in these articles comes from the CIA World Factbook 2000 and the 2003 U.S. Department of State website.

External links

European Union:
Austria  |  Belgium  |  Denmark  |  Finland  |  France  |  Germany  |  Greece  |  Ireland
Italy  |  Luxembourg  |  Netherlands  |  Portugal  |  Spain  |  Sweden  |  United Kingdom

Countries acceding to membership on May 1, 2004:
Cyprus  |  Czech Republic  |  Estonia  |  Hungary  |  Latvia  |  Lithuania  |  Malta  |  Poland  |  Slovakia  |  Slovenia

Countries of the world  |  Europe  |  Council of Europe

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Austria."

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Austria-Hungary

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)


Flag of Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary was a loose federation (1867-1918) in which the kingdom of Hungary enjoyed self-government and proportional representation in joint affairs (principally foreign relations and defence) with the western and northern lands of the Austrian Empire under the Emperors (who were also Kings of Hungary) of the Habsburg dynasty.

The non-Hungarian part is often referred to as Cisleithania because most of its territory lay west (or to "this" side, from an Austrian perspective) of the Leithe river (though Galicia to the north-east was also a part), but in official Austrian parlance its constituent provinces were known collectively as "the lands represented in the Reichsrat (the Imperial council)", Cisleithania's parliament.

The Ausgleich ("compromise") of February 1867 which inaugurated the Empire's dualist structure in place of the former unitary Austrian Empire (1804-1867) was a result of the latter's declining strength and loss of power in Italy (war of 1859) and Germany (Austro-Prussian War, 1866) and continued Hungarian dissatisfaction with rule from Vienna following Austria's suppression (with Russian support) of the Hungarian revolution of 1848-1849.

In particular, Hungarian leaders demanded and received the Emperor's coronation as King of Hungary as a reaffirmation of Hungary's historic privileges, and the establishment of a separate parliament at Budapest with the powers to enact laws for the historic lands of the Hungarian crown, though on a basis which would preserve the political dominance of ethnic Hungarians (more specifically of the country's large nobility and educated elite) and the exclusion from effective power of the country's large Romanian and Slav minorities.

Relations over the next half-century between the two halves of the Empire (in fact the Cisleithan part contained about 57% of the combined realm's population and a rather larger share of its economic resources) were punctuated by repeated disputes over shared external tariff arrangements and the financial contribution of each government to the common treasury. Under the terms of the Ausgleich, these matters were determined by an agreement which was to be renegotiated every ten years, which created political turmoil each time the agreement was up for renewal. The disputes between the halves of the empire culminated in the mid-1900s in a prolonged constitutional crisis triggered by disagreement over the language of command in Hungarian army units, and deepened by the advent to power in Budapest (April 1906) of a Hungarian nationalist coalition. The common arrangements were renewed provisionally (October 1907, November 1917) on an "as is" basis.

The dominant ethnic group in each part of the Empire constituted a minority in the area which it controlled: Germans numbered only some 36% of Cisleithania's population, and Magyars slightly under a half of Hungary's.

Czechs (the majority in the Austrian crownlands of Bohemia, Moravia and Austrian Silesia), Poles and Ukrainians (in Galicia), Slovenes (in Carniola, Carinthia and southern Styria, mostly today's Slovenia) and Croats, Italians and Slovenes in Istria each sought a greater say in Cisleithan affairs.

The ethnic distribution of Austria-Hungary
German24%
Hungarian20%
Czech13%
Polish10%
Ruthenian8%
Romanian6%
Croat5%
Slovak4%
Serb4%
Slovene3%
Italian3%

At the same time, Magyar dominance was contested by the majorities of Romanians in Transylvania and eastern Banat, Slovaks in today's Slovakia, Croats and Serbs in crownlands Croatia and Dalmatia (today's Croatia), Bosnia and Herzegovina and provinces known as Vojvodina (today's northern Serbia). The Romanians and the Serbs were looking also to union with their fellows in the newly-founded kingdoms of Romania and Serbia, respectively.

Though Hungary's leaders were on the whole less willing than their German Austrian counterparts to share power with their subject minorities, they granted a large measure of autonomy to the kingdom of Croatia in 1868, parallelling to some extent their own accommodation within the Empire the previous year.

The Imperial (Austrian) and Royal (Hungarian) governments differed also to some extent in their attitude toward the Empire's common foreign policy, leaders in Budapest fearing particularly annexations of territory which would add to the kingdom's non-Hungarian populations, though the Empire's alliance with Germany against Russia from October 1879 (see Dual Alliance, 1879) commanded general acceptance, the latter power being seen as the principal external military threat to both parts.

The territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, occupied by Austro-Hungarian forces since August 1878 under the Treaty of Berlin was annexed in October 1908 as a common holding under the control of the finance ministry rather than being attached to either government, an anomalous situation which led some in Vienna to contemplate its combination with Croatia in a third component of the Empire combining its southern Slav regions under the domination of Croat leaders who might be more sympathetic to Vienna than Budapest.


Coat of Arms of Austria-Hungary

On June 28, 1914, Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, heir to his childless uncle the Emperor Franz Josef, visited the Bosnian capital Sarajevo where he was assassinated by Bosnian Serb militants of the nationalist group Black Hand.

The Empire had previously lost ethnically Italian areas to Piedmont due to nationalist movements sweeping through Italy, and the threat of losing the southern territories inhabited by Slavs to Serbia was rather imminent. The leadership of the country, backed by its ally Germany, decided to confront Serbia militarily before it could incite a revolt: using the assassination as an excuse, they presented a list of demands they knew Serbia would never entirely accept and declared war when one of them was turned down.

These events brought the Empire into conflict with Serbia and over the course of July and August 1914, caused the start of the World War I, as Austria-Hungary and Germany sided against Russia and France, soon pulling in the United Kingdom, Italy and a number of other countries.

Austro-Hungarian troops initially defended the routes into Hungary and repulsed Italian advances in Gorizia. The army suffered very serious casualties throughout the war, especially in 1914. However, they were relatively successful (albeit with German aid and direction) even advancing into enemy territory following German-led victories in Galicia (May 1915) and at Caporetto (October 1917). Throughout the war, the Austro-Hungarian war effort had become more and more subordinate to the direction of German planners. Supply shortages, low morale, and the high casualty rate began to seriously affect the operational abilities of the army by the last years of the war.

The strain of war, enemy blockade and increasing anti-war agitation among socialists and national minorities intent on taking power, led to the Empire's disintegration in October-December 1918. The war officially concluded for Austria-Hungary when it entered an armistice with the Allies on November 3, 1918.

The Czechs first proclaimed independence on October 28. Hungary followed shortly thereafter, although Transylvania's majority joined Romania, taking with them a large Hungarian minority. The south Slavs formed the State of the Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, soon united with Serbia and Montenegro as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

Both Austria and Hungary became republics, exiling the Habsburg family in perpetuity. A pro-monarchist revival in Hungary after the communist revolution and Romanian intervention of 1919 led to the country's formal reversion to a kingdom (March 1920), but with the throne vacant. Attempts by the last Emperor, Charles I, to regain power in Budapest (March, October 1921) ended in his deportation to Madeira, where he died the following year.

Historical views of Austria-Hungary have varied throughout the 20th century:
— Historians in the early part of the century tended to view the Habsburg polity as despotic and obsolete.
— Subsequent experience of the region's inter-war "Balkanization", Soviet domination, and more recent nationality conflicts, coupled with wider efforts at Europeanan federalism, have resulted in a more favourable assessment of Austria-Hungary.
— One controversy among historians remains whether the Empire's collapse was the inevitable result of a decades-long decline or whether it would have survived in some form in the absence of military defeat in World War I.

External links

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Demographics of Austria

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Austrians are a homogeneous people; 92% are native German speakers. Only two numerically significant minority groups exist -- 30,000 Slovenians in Austrian Carinthia (south central Austria) and about 60,000 Croats in Burgenland (on the Hungarian border). The Slovenians form a closely knit community. Their rights as well as those of the Croats are protected by law and generally respected in practice. The present boundaries of Austria, once the center of the Habsburg Empire that constituted the second-largest state in Europe, were established in accordance with the Treaty of St. Germain in 1919. Some Austrians, particularly near Vienna, still have relatives in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. About 78% of all Austrians are Roman Catholic. The church abstains from political activity; however, lay Catholic organizations are aligned with the conservative People's Party. The Social Democratic Party long ago shed its anticlerical stance. Small Lutheran minorities are located mainly in Vienna, Carinthia, and Burgenland.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire played a decisive role in central European history. It occupied strategic territory containing the southeastern routes to western Europe and the north-south routes between Germany and Italy. Although present-day Austria is only a tiny remnant of the old empire, it retains this unique position.

Soon after the Republic of Austria was created at the end of World War I, it faced the strains of catastrophic inflation and of redesigning a government meant to rule a great empire into one that would govern only 6 million citizens. In the early 1930s, worldwide depression and unemployment added to these strains and shattered traditional Austrian society. Resultant economic and political conditions led in 1933 to a dictatorship under Engelbert Dollfuss. In February 1934, civil war broke out, and the Socialist Party was outlawed. In July, a coup d'etat by the National Socialists failed, but Dollfuss was assassinated by Nazis. In March 1938, Austria was incorporated into the German Third Reich, a development commonly known as the "Anschluss" (annexation).

At the Moscow conference in 1943, the Allies declared their intention to liberate Austria and reconstitute it as a free and independent state. In April 1945, both Eastern- and Western-front Allied forces liberated the country. Subsequently, Austria was divided into zones of occupation similar to those in Germany. Under the 1945 Potsdam agreements, the Soviets took control of German assets in their zone of occupation. These included 7% of Austria's manufacturing plants, 95% of its oil resources, and about 80% of its refinery capacity. The properties were returned to Austria under the Austrian State Treaty. This treaty, signed in Vienna on May 15, 1955, came into effect on July 27, and, under its provisions, all occupation forces were withdrawn by October 25, 1955. Austria became free and independent for the first time since 1938.

Population: 8,131,111 (July 2000 est.)

Age structure:
0-14 years: 17% (male 697,283; female 663,459)
15-64 years: 68% (male 2,787,555; female 2,731,446)
65 years and over: 15% (male 474,067; female 777,301) (2000 est.)

Population growth rate: 0.25% (2000 est.)

Birth rate: 9.9 births/1,000 population (2000 est.)

Death rate: 9.91 deaths/1,000 population (2000 est.)

Net migration rate: 2.46 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2000 est.)

Sex ratio:
at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.05 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1.02 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.61 male(s)/female
total population: 0.95 male(s)/female (2000 est.)

Infant mortality rate: 4.5 deaths/1,000 live births (2000 est.)

Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 77.68 years
male: 74.52 years
female: 80.99 years (2000 est.)

Total fertility rate: 1.39 children born/woman (2000 est.)

Nationality:
noun: Austrian(s)
adjective: Austrian

Ethnic groups: German 98%, Croatian, Slovenian, other (includes Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Roma)

Religions: Roman Catholic 78%, Protestant 5%, Muslim and other 17%

Languages: German, Slovenian, Croatian

Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 100%
male: NA%
female: NA%

Reference

Much of the material in this article comes from the CIA World Factbook 2000 and the 2003 U.S. Department of State website.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Demographics of Austria."

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List of Austrians

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

This list is rather generous -- many people on this list can also claim other nationalities; some were born in Austria, but spent the most important part of their lives outside Austria (e.g. Hitler, Schwarzenegger), others were born outside Austria or even outside of Austria-Hungary, but spent the most important part of their lives in Austria (e.g. Beethoven, Elisabeth of Austria).

Famous Austrians include:

See also: List of people by nationality

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "List of Austrians."

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INDEX

1. Definition
2. Bibliography


  

Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.