Crown land

Crown land. Administrative-territorial unit of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, determined by historical rather than ethnic considerations. A crown land enjoyed internal autonomy and had its own appointed and elected political-administrative agencies: a vicegerent, a diet (see Diet, provincial), and an executive. The Ukrainian lands under Austria were part of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria from 1774 to 1849 and then of the Crown land of Galicia or the new crown land—the Duchy of Bukovyna. Galicia included both Ukrainian and Polish ethnic territories, while Bukovyna included both Ukrainian and Romanian ethnic territories. For this reason the Ukrainians of Galicia demanded as early as 1848 that the crown land be divided into separate Ukrainian and Polish lands and that a separate crown land consisting of the Ukrainian part of Galicia, Bukovyna, and Transcarpathia be established. Under Polish influence the Austrian government refused to implement this plan. Only in 1918 did the Austrian government, in a supplement to the Peace Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, promise the Ukrainian National Republic to create a separate crown land consisting of Ukrainian Galicia and Bukovyna, but it soon annulled this treaty.