Die Protokolle des cisleithanischen Ministerrates 1867–1918, Band I: 1867

With the Minutes of the Cisleithanian Cabinet 1867–1918, the Institute of Modern and Contemporary History is continuing the edition series Minutes of the Austrian Cabinet 1848–1867. These minutes were relating to the “Kingdoms and Lands represented within the Reichsrat”, aka Cisleithania, a new political entity which had been the result of the 1867 Austro-Hungarian compromise (Ausgleich). The first of the new volumes also introduces revised editing guidelines, in response to the bad condition of the sources (burned files, Brandakten). In January 1867, the negotiations of the imperial government with the representatives of the Hungarian parliament about a compromise had reached their final stage. On February 17, count Andrássy was appointed Hungarian prime minister. The Ausgleich, including the coronation of Francis Joseph as King of Hungary, was now under way. For the Austrian (Cisleithanian) Prime Minister Beust, this meant that he had to induce the Cisleithanian political actors to accept the Ausgleich. He had to discipline the opposing diets and to win over the German-liberal Verfassungspartei in the Reichsrat. The Emperor had to pay a price by granting the Cisleithanian state several fundamental rights: ministerial accountability, a limitation to emergency decrees, the freedom of association and freedom of assembly and finally the December Constitution. The present volume provides important, scientifically edited, documents of the transition from the Austrian Empire to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy to researchers and teachers in the academic field of history.