In the 18th century, Queen Maria Theresa of the Habsburgs was a conservative Catholic, but under the influence of the wave of the European Enlightenment at that time, the absolutist monarchs of the Habsburgs still passively accepted the emerging ideas, and when Maria Theresa died, her son Joseph II was finally able to implement reforms on the land of the empire, leading the empire to a period of reform in modern history......
Queen Maria Theresa
Enlightened monarch Joseph II
Joseph II (13 March 1741 – 20 February 1790) was Archduke of Austria, King of the Roman People (reigned 27 March 1764 – 20 February 1790), Emperor of the Habsburg-Lorraine Dynasty of the Holy Roman Empire (18 August 1765 – 20 February 1790), and King of Hungary and Bohemia.
Joseph II
Joseph II, the eldest son of Queen Maria Theresa and Franz I, was known for his enlightened autocracy. After his reign, he implemented a series of radical reforms in the country, including the abolition of serfdom, the establishment of a unified state institution, the deprivation of the secular powers of the Catholic bishops in the empire, and the prevention of pope intervention in the affairs of the empire, which had an important impact on the modernization of the Habsburg Empire.
As a young man, Joseph II received a well-rounded, strict and conservative imperial education: he studied classical literature, ancient history, theology, he was impulsive, willful and somewhat cruel. And when his first wife, his favorite Isabella, miscarried, he married a second wife: Maria Josefa of Bavaria, in consideration of political marriage.
Isabella
However, he did not like the wife of the political marriage, so he mentally abused Maria Josepha until her death in 1767. In the later years of Queen Maria Theresa, Joseph had already ruled the empire with his mother, and when he was appointed to the Council of Governors, he showed great intellect and political interest.
Maria Josefa
Joseph became King of Germany in 1764, and after his father's death in 1765, he was crowned Holy Roman Emperor, ruling with his mother. However, all major decisions were interfered with by his mother, Queen Teresa. It was only after his mother's death that he was finally able to free himself up and start radical reforms, but he ignored the complexity of the internal contradictions of the Habsburg Empire, and his reform measures were strongly opposed, and he eventually died of hatred......
The reforms of Joseph II
Maria Theresa died in 1780 and her son, Joseph II, ruled alone, serving as King of Hungary and King of Bohemia. After coming to power, he fully pursued and developed Maria Theresa's reforms, and worked to establish a centralized and unified German-speaking state supported by the army and officials. His ideas and policies are known as Josephism.
Young Joseph
But unlike his mother, Joseph II alienated himself from his mother's conservatism by introducing reforms that regulated many areas of imperial life. For example, the 1781 Permit of Tolerance (the Decree of Tolerance) granted religious freedom to Protestants, Orthodox Christians, and Jews, thereby lifting restrictions on Protestantism that had existed in Bohemia since the White Mountain in 1620.
Lutherans, Calvinists, and others were free to own landed property, hold positions in government and the military, run schools, and enter previously forbidden trades. However, Catholicism remained the only openly operating faith, and other houses of worship were forbidden to have entrances, spires, or other architectural or design elements that marked their religious purpose.
In 1784, Joseph II ordered the closure of several churches, monasteries, and convents, using the property as support for education and relief for the poor. Although full legal emancipation would not come until the 19th century, Joseph II's decree of tolerance expanded economic and career opportunities for Jews.
Joseph II
and as a means of increasing their value to the state and making them loyal to the Habsburgs, although the ownership of landed property remained a circumvented right. Educational opportunities grew as universities accepted Jewish students and the Jewish communities in Bohemia and Moravia received government support to open state-run schools or send children to German-Jewish primary schools in areas where investment in education was difficult.
However, the government's policy on language use prevented Jews from keeping records of commerce and gatherings in Hebrew or Yiddish. As Jewish citizens gained personal freedom, modernization brought about greater civil social integration in the Habsburg realm, but it also eroded the traditional autonomy of the Jewish community in different areas of local governance and culture.
Yiddish
Joseph II also established German settlement areas in Galicia, Bukovina, Hungary and West Benbürgen, rewarded the development of German aristocratic estates and German capital in dependent areas, gave priority to the employment of Germans as civil and military officials, implemented a protective tariff policy, rewarded the development of industry and commerce, and increased fiscal revenues.
Of course, Joseph II's most radical reforms were embodied in the serf charter of 1781: in 1781-1782 he issued an edict abolishing the personal dependency of peasants in hereditary domains, effectively abolishing serfdom. Individual serfdom was abolished and peasants were granted freedom to marry, travel, pursue education, participate in trade, or resettle without the permission of the landlord.
Joseph II
The vast majority of peasants were also granted the right to lodge complaints and lawsuits against landlords, although the concession did not abolish labour or financial responsibilities to landlords and the State within the scope of robota. In the late eighteenth century, he also re-established a more equitable and state-regulated system of tax distribution, from which the peasants benefited, and the resulting land could be used to compensate the landlords in cash.
But the reforms did not eliminate the financial problems of the peasants or give them ownership of the land, but they did provide an opportunity for emancipation, education and improvement of the lives of the peasants. However, after the death of Joseph II, the resolute opposition of the aristocracy led to the abolition of serf charters and the reversal of new policies.
It is worth mentioning that Joseph II donated the huge inheritance he inherited from his father to the state, thus making the empire's finances even balanced. Later, in 1789, he decreed that peasants must be paid instead of compulsory labor, but these policies were strongly opposed by the aristocracy.
In addition, Josephus's further reforms eased restrictions on publication and publications, and lifted the church's oversight of censorship and banned book "bibliographies." The promulgation of the Uniform Code of Criminal Law placed all citizens on an equal legal footing and abolished the executions, punishments and tortures that had long been used as legitimate scrutiny.
Joseph
As German became the official language of administration and higher education in the Habsburg multi-ethnic lands, language became a tool for the unity of administration and education. In 1784, the University of Prague officially replaced Latin with German as the language of instruction.
In the struggle against the Catholic Church, he established the National Academy for the Training of Priests, deprived bishops of their rights, and restricted their communication with the Pope. He dissolved 700 monasteries that did not practice education or medicine, and forced 36,000 monks to leave the monasteries.
Pope Pius VI came to Vienna in March 1782 for this purpose, but Joseph refused to budge, so the Pope stopped calling him "a son of the Church." In 1786 he promulgated the Civil Code, establishing the equality of religion before the law. He also established a police organization and abolished the death penalty in 1787.
Pope Pius VI
Joseph II also forced his subjects to adopt a new way of life, and in order to improve the literacy of all citizens, primary education was compulsory for all boys and girls, and higher education was chosen by a few. Joseph II also provided scholarships to poor students who were gifted, and allowed the establishment of a small number of schools for Jews and people of other religions. After the establishment of the educational system, he tried his best to recruit the best scholars and scientists for the University of Vienna.
Leopold II's history goes backwards
By 1789, Joseph II was in extremely poor health and had suffered a heavy blow from the setbacks of his policies and the resistance to his reforms and centralization, especially among the rebellious aristocracy, peasants, and Hungarian intellectuals.
Joseph II
When the Russian Empress Catherine declared war on Selim III of the Ottoman Empire, Joseph II raised 250,000 troops to join the war, but at this time the Austrian Netherlands rebelled and he had to return to Vienna, but found that he had rebelled and was forced to cancel some of the reforms, and all his efforts for the freedom and welfare of his subjects seemed to be in vain, and he was severely struck and fell ill.
Selim III
When Joseph II died on February 20, 1790, he had no wife, no children, and no mistress, and he was a reformer who dedicated his life to the country. He was succeeded by his younger brother Leopold II (r. 1790-1792), who succeeded in resolving outstanding diplomatic crises and working to restore stability in Habsburg territory.
Leopold II
On the whole, Joseph II was a democratic-minded monarch, for example, when he turned the large meadows and forests near the Viennese court into parks for people to explore. It was also commanded that no one should show special respect in the presence of the emperor and the royal family, and he forbade curtsy and hand kisses in front of him.
Privately, Joseph II was fond of music and was a patron of a number of artists, known as the "Musical King", who helped Mozart secure a musical position during his reign. During military exercises, he had cordial conversations with officers and soldiers. He abolished the privileges of the nobility, abolished the hierarchical schools, and abolished the death penalty and torture. Regarded as an enlightened emperor, he founded Austria's modern army and loyal bureaucracy.
Unfortunately, his successor, his younger brother Leopold II, reversed many of his brother's policies in the process of negotiating concessions for various political groups, so Leopold II's brief reign (1790-1792) turned back the clock on Joseph II's reforms.
In addition to being the Archduke of Austria, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary and Bohemia, Leopold II was also the Grand Duke of Tuscany (known as "Leopold I") of Italy under the Archduchy of Austria.
利奥波德二世 (Leopold II)
Also influenced by the Enlightenment, Leopold II was determined to establish an effective state apparatus, so in the Italian Duchy of Tuscany he abolished torture and the death penalty, balanced taxes and tried to weaken the power of the Church, and encouraged representative institutions. So for 25 years, he was the most enlightened ruler of the Italian peninsula.
But Leopold II's enlightened rule only applied to a small duchy like Tuscany, and when his eldest brother Joseph II died, he inherited the vast Habsburg possessions, and then found that his brother's radical reforms had caused many dangerous domestic and foreign strife, and the complex contradictions within the empire forced Leopold II to choose compromise.
Leopold II
The Habsburgs were at war with Turkey, Belgium was about to rebel, the Hungarian nobility was planning to break away from Austrian rule, Prussia was supporting the Habsburgs' enemies, and Leopold II was trying to salvage the diplomatic crisis and stabilize the domestic situation.
In order not to shake the Habsburg rule in the Netherlands, Hungary, and Bohemia, Leopold II was gracious enough to cancel some of his brother's radical reforms, end the dispute with Prussia, force Belgium to accept the peace treaty, and annul the treaty of alliance between Austria and Russia despite the opposition of the Russian Empress Catherine II, negotiate peace with Turkey, and pacify the Hungarian nobility.
Catherine II
He was crowned King of Bohemia in Prague in 1790, and he became the last King of Bohemia to be crowned. However, Leopold II, although crowned, returned the crown of St. Wenceslas from Vienna, a symbol of power to rule Bohemia, and it was not until he later advanced positive relations with the Czechs that he regained the crown on 6 September 1791.
On the other hand, Leopold II, although deeply influenced by the Enlightenment, was the most diehard opponent of the French Revolution. In 1791, Leopold II met with King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia in Pillnitz. They issued the Declaration of Pillnitz, in which they declared to defend the French monarchy by force.
Friedrich Wilhelm II
But in 1792, when Leopold II formally concluded an alliance with Prussia to intervene in France by force, he died suddenly at the age of 45 and was succeeded by his son Franz II, who became the last emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and the first emperor of the Austrian Empire (known as "Franz I").
Franz II
In this way, the Habsburg rule entered a new 19th century, for the Habsburgs, the new century brought new crises and challenges, but for the Czech and Slovak people, who had been ruled by the Habsburgs for centuries, the dark rule of the Habsburgs reached its climax!
Under the influence of the new century and the new ideological wave, the broad masses of the enslaved and ruled Czech and Slovak masses will no longer be satisfied with the so-called "enlightened autocracy" and with painless reform measures, and the broad masses of the people will enter the era of revolution under the wave of national awakening and rejuvenation!
So how did the Czech Republic and Slovakia begin their national awakening and revival? How did they carry out their struggle for national independence? How did the Czech Republic and Slovakia finally get rid of the dark rule of the Habsburgs in the 19th century?
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