Stadion, Franz

Stadion, Franz, b 27 July 1806 in Vienna, d 8 June 1853 in Vienna. (Portrait: Franz Stadion.) Austrian count and statesman. He began his career in the Austrian government as a senior civil servant in Stanyslaviv and Rzeszów. In the last years of his life he served as governor of Trieste and Istria (1841–7) and Galicia (1847–8) and as minister of the interior (1848–9). As governor of Galicia, in April 1848, months before the imperial law abolishing serfdom was announced, he abolished serfdom and ‘hereditary tenancy’ in Galicia (see Revolution of 1848–9 in the Habsburg monarchy). An opponent of Polish irredentism and the Polish National Council, he encouraged the creation of the Supreme Ruthenian Council in Lviv and supported the Uniate clergy and the Ukrainians' demands for equal rights with the Poles and official use of the Ukrainian language in the schools and government. The Poles accused him of ‘inventing’ the Ukrainians.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]