Talk:United States of Greater Austria

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I have heard about the archduke reforming the empire, however I have never heard of him renaming it the "United States of Great Austria", how was it supposed to be called in German? Gryffindor 14:16, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

remove "great"? 900 google hits. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 06:17, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

This is still odd though. I have never heard of such a name. The websites (now taking away the 'blogs') talk about a "concept" or "something like" the United States of (Great)er) Austria. I would say maybe combine the ideas of the archduke with his article? Gryffindor 22:21, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
Although the article is interesting, I have to point out that the Archduke thought of a concept of a "United States of Austria", but I have not found any evidence that he or anyone ever thought about seriously renaming the empire as such. Therefore naming the article is quite misleading. I therefore propose that the article (or parts of it) be merged with that of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. Anyone who objects obviously please feel free to say so. Gryffindor 13:59, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Some information on the United States of Great Austria in First World War doccumentary episode "To Arms" they show a map drawn by order of the Archduke calling the empire "Die Vereinigten Staaten von Gross-Österreich".Renato Rocha 17:54, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
Ok, what I have found is a book published by the Romanian Aurel Popovici, which he did in 1906, explaining the concept of a "Vereinigten Staaten von Groß-Österreich" [1], [2]. This would translate as "United States of Greater Austria" I think. Does anyone know the difference between "Great (country)" and "Greater (country)"? Because I get more hits on google if I type in "United States of Greater Austria", which would make more sense. However, the references so far seem to point at Popovici, maybe he picked it up from the Archduke? So this is confusing, there seem to be at least two creators of this idea? The German Wikipedia makes some references to this: [3], [4]. Also maybe the article should be renamed in this case?

Google hits "United States of Great Austria": 14 [5]

Google hits "United States of Greater Austria": 49 [6]

Google hits "Vereinigte Staaten von Groß-Österreich": 231 [7]

any suggestions? Gryffindor 12:08, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

I've heard of this concept, and moved it to its correct name (Vereinigte Staaten von Groß-Österreich in German, United States of Greater Austria in English). I'm against a merge; if you think the article is too short, I'll try to find some comprehensive information at the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek on the issue. ナイトスタリオン ✉ 08:31, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Added some information. What do you think? ナイトスタリオン ✉ 08:54, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
I was going to change the tag to a rename-tag anyways, I would have preferred if we had a discussion about a renaming first, because I am not sure how to translate "Groß" in this case, both "Great" and "Greater" work such as "Great Britain" but "Greater Serbia" for example, both "Groß (Name)" in German language. I think it probably is "Greater" in this case, but I would like to hear some more opinions first. In any case, yes it looks much better, cheers. I will add some information as well, especially expand on the ideas of Popovic, they seem to be in synch with those of the archduke, not 100% sure though.. Gryffindor 10:17, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Sorry for being too bold; however, it was rather clear to me in this case, as all other concepts of a Großreich use "Greater" AFAIK (cf. Greater Romania, Greater Albania, Greater Serbia, Greater Poland, Greater Germany, ...), and since I personally have only encountered "Greater Austria" in English usage. According to the sources I've read, it seems as if Franz Ferdinand had a group of councillors around him who helped him flesh out this concept, and Popovic was the most productive and well-known one; I'll research a bit more, though. ナイトスタリオン ✉ 10:50, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Oh, and I moved your note to the bottom and reverted your addition of "(speaking)" to Austria, since - as little as I personally think of the idea of Austrians supposedly being of German ethnicity - it was Deutsch-Österreich in German, not Deutschsprachiges Österreich. 's that okay? ナイトスタリオン ✉ 10:51, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Gryffindor sought my input on the translation of Groß-Österreich. I think Nightstallion's reasoning above is correct and Greater Austria is the better translation. (The "great" in Great Britain has a slightly different meaning - i.e. it is as opposed to "Little Britain" i.e. Brittany - than the "greater" in the examples quoted above). Valiantis 14:18, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for your input. Well I am not arguing about the name itself, I just want to make sure that we have all the information correct considering Wikipedia has been under attack for not being accurate enough sometimes. Alright, so I think we can settle the name question. Nighstallion, the changes are good too, I think the Note part would still better above the listing. I have read user comments who get confused with the difference between "German" as a nationality and as a language, therefore I was stressing the language part, if it's ok I'll change it to this compromise. Is that ok? Gryffindor 15:20, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
I changed the formatting a little to look less ugly, but in principle - yeah, why not. ナイトスタリオン ✉ 22:42, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Map

Cool. It would be nice if we could add a map somehow of this idea, however I'm not big in the drawing department.... any ideas, does anyone know anyone who does that kind of a thing? Gryffindor 10:47, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I'll try asking Morwen; it's mainly a question of trying to find the correct borders from current maps (i.e. which regions of Poland, Romania, ... belonged to A-H) and then creating a map from that information, based on the link at the bottom of the page. ナイトスタリオン ✉ 11:24, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

User Nightstallion just asked me could I draw a map of this idea. Yes I can, but there is one problem with those maps from the external links (I added one more external link there):

It is very likely that the second map is based one the first one, but there is a question is the first map based on the original proposal of Popovici, or it is a modern interpretation of Popovici's proposal made by Thomas Graz? Could somebody to help me with this? I have reason to believe that a map made by Thomas Graz is not completelly correct. Here is why I believe this: he draw two more maps of Austria-Hungary (ethnographic and religious one):

Since I think that Thomas Graz used those two to draw the map of the United States of Greater Austria, I nocited one mistake on the map of the religious denominations:

The mistake is that the region of Srem/Srijem is drawn here as a land mainly inhabited by Catholic Croats, but it was mainly inhabited by Orthodox Serbs. The demographics for this region according to the 1910 census could be seen here: Szerém (former county). So, since Thomas Graz mistaked here, it is not surprise that the region of Srem was included into Croatia and not in Vojvodina in this map:

So, since I do not know what was the original proposal of Popovici, does anybody know was Srem region part of Croatia or Vojvodina according to Popovici? If the map made by Thomas Graz is same as the Popovici's proposal, then we have to accept it as valid, because then Popovici was the one who did not know the ethnographic composition of the Srem region, but we cannot change his proposal because of this. However, if the Thomas Graz is the one who mistaked here, then it should be corrected. Is there some other external link with Popovici's proposal describing the borders of proposed regions? PANONIAN (talk) 14:33, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

One more thing, here is some brief mention of Popovici's proposal describing which region is formed for which nationality (that could be included into article):

Quote: "Az Ausztriában élő román Aurel C. Popovici könyvében ("Die Vereinigte Staaten von Gross- Österreich", 1906) összegzi álláspontját a Monarchia etnikai alapú demokratikus föderatív átalakulásáról. Eszerint a birodalom 15 etnikai alapú politikai egysége Német-Ausztria, Német-Csehország és Német-Morvaország, Csehország, Szlovákia, Nyugat- Galícia (lengyel), Kelet-Galícia (rutén), Magyarország, Horvátország, Erdély (román), Székely Terület, Vojvodina (szerb), Kraina (szlovén), Trentino (olasz) és Trieszt (olasz). A német kisebbségek 12 autonóm területet alkotnak (elsősorban Magyarországon)."

It is in Hungarian, but the one who knows the Hungarian names for those peoples could understand it. I do not speak Hungarian, but I know few Hungarian words, so I will translate this if somebody do not understand. PANONIAN (talk) 14:53, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't want to show off with my knowledge but I speak Hungarian on a very good level. :-) The sentence says: "Aurel C. Popovici, a Romanian living in Austria summarises his point of view in his book ("Die Vereinigte Staaten von Gross- Österreich", 1906) on the democratic, ethnicity-based restructuring of the Monarchy. According to this, the 15 ethnicity-based political units of the Empire are: German Austria, German Czech Land, German Moravia, Czech Land, Slovakia, West-Galizia (Polish), East-Galizia (Ruten), Hungary, Croatia, Transylvania (Romanian), Szekler Area, Voivodina (Serbian), Kraina (Slovenian), Trentino (Italian), Triest (Italian). The German minorities have 12 autonomus areas (mostly in Hungary)."
The source you quoted lists this as one of the ideas to reform the Monarchy, but it does not mention that this plan was supported by Franz Ferdinand. I hope this helps. Congrats to the map, very interesting. --KIDB 08:22, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I suggest, if you have no other information, that the legend under the map clearly states that it is based on Popovici's ideas, and may only be an illustration of what Franz Ferdinand could have proposed. Eg: A proposal for the autonomous areas within the Monarchy (by Popovici, 1906) --KIDB 08:36, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I will draw a map based on the one from external link for now, but it will be finished after few days (It is not the easy one). PANONIAN (talk) 12:40, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, the map depicted by Thomas Graz is accurate in this point; I'll try to delve deeper into the subject after the holidays, though. Thanks a lot! ナイトスタリオン ✉ 13:17, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, the map is finished. Is it ok? PANONIAN (talk) 17:50, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

The legend could be a bit more readable, but else – great! Thanks a lot! —Nightstallion (?) 19:38, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

A more readable? You mean with larger letters? Well, the legend was written for full size image, thus when somebody download image in full size, he would see legend in normal size (I always download full size versions of Wikipedia images, so, I do not see why other users would not do the same thing). PANONIAN (talk) 22:31, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Problem is that letters of the legend should not be too large on full size images, especially not larger than the letters from the main part of the map. That would be bad for aesthetics. PANONIAN (talk) 22:35, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Mh, fair enough. I just don't really like the dashes between the coloured circles and the legend, and I'd have used "Autonomous enclaves (mostly German)", but those are minor issues. If you've got the time... If not, just as well. Thanks! —Nightstallion (?) 23:24, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

It is changed (no dashes and enclaves are corrected). Now one more thing about this problem with the Srem region. Since I believe that Aurel Popovici had a good knowledge about ethnographic borders, I think that he know for the ethnographic border between Serbs and Croats in Srem (Since he had a good knowledge about ethnographic border between Serbs and Hungarians in Bačka, we can assume that he had a good knowledge about ethnographic border in Srem too). So, what was his intention then? He maybe thought that Croatia should be a state for both: Croats and Serbs who live there, thus, he probably did not cared much to which of those two states (Croatia or Vojvodina) Srem should belong, since both of them were designated for Serbs. I am only assuming this, but can somebody tell me am I correct? Did he designate Croatia state only for Croats, or for both: Croats and Serbs? If somebody know this, it would be very helpful for understanding of his map. PANONIAN (talk) 03:56, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I can try to find out when I'll be getting reference books from the Nationalbibliothek, but I can't promise anything; I s'pose, though, that other people will have asked themselves the same question we did here, so there should be some info on that somewhere. Take care! —Nightstallion (?) 08:34, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Excellent work you two, congratulations. Gryffindor
Thanks! Wish me luck with my research. ;) —Nightstallion (?) 14:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Good luck!-) Gryffindor 17:53, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! ;) —Nightstallion (?) 21:30, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Magyar-German hegemony

I think the way the article is written gives to much credence to the concept that, at this point, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was a German, and, to a lesser extent, Hungarian dominated state. What about all the pan-German and Christian social groups talking about how Germans were feeling threatened by the growing power of the ethnic minorities? Many felt that the Hapsburgs seemed to be bowing down to pressure from them, not the Germans. This was the same milieu in which the basic ideas of Nazism began to take root. I don't defend the Nazis or ethnic nationalism generally, but I can see how it could feel to be in the ethnic Germans position. I have strayed to far from the point - referencing it as basically a German dominated area in the period might not be accurate.--Dudeman5685 04:34, 1 December 2007 (UTC)