Michal Chvojka

Between Conspiracy and Revolution Genesis and Consequences of the 1846 Revolution in Cracow und Galicia

Perception und Range of Action of the Habsburg Police

The essay is concerned with the genesis and the consequences of the revolution in Cracow and Galicia in 1846 and with the reflections and counteractions of the Habsburg state police. Based on archive materials from Brno and Vienna, the author analyzes both the police precautions against the revolutionary propaganda and activities in the Polish parts of the Habsburg Monarchy as well as the responsibilities of the Police Court Office in Vienna with respect to the revolutionary outbreak of 1846.

After the revolution of 1830/31 in the Russian parts of Poland (the so-called “Congress Poland”) had been suppressed, Polish emigrants (especially in France and Belgium) developed a very intense activity to reestablish the former Polish Kingdom by sending emissaries, publishing pamphlets, manifestos and appeals, and especially by the means of secret societies and associations. During the 1830s, however, the Habsburg police authorities (the Police Directorate in Lemberg/Lwiw and the Police Court Office in Vienna) managed to control and neutralize such underground activities thanks to the persistent confidential network of Baron Leopold Sacher-Masoch, and possessed extensive information about the character, range and leaders of the impending revolutionary outbreak. Rising numbers of imprisoned revolutionaries and legal proceedings against them as well as the successful elimination of the Przemyśl conspiracy at the beginning of 1840s confirm this assertion. On the other side, Austrian police had not been able to prevent new and new emissaries from entering Galicia and to forestall the forbidden revolutionary prints to be smuggled there. Moreover, especially in military and security matters, there were striking differences between the Civil and Military Governor, archduke Ferdinand, and police chiefs Sacher-Masoch in Lemberg and Count Sedlnitzky in Vienna, which made an efficient upheaval prevention far more difficult.

Post-revolutionary actions and measures of the Habsburg authorities demonstrate their clear inability to champion substantial reforms (especially the removal of corvées), despite tendencies to restrict the judicial powers of local landlords through establishing imperial districts as institutions of first judicial instance in Galicia. The Police took both preventive (strict passport and foreigner control) as well as repressive (imprisonment of revolutionaries and passing of trials) measures, while Count Sedlnitzky’s attempts to establish a gendarmerie in Galicia had been delayed by administrative reforms. On such a basis, and especially after receiving reports on a widespread dissatisfaction among peasants and noblemen alike, the desired long-term safeguarding of order and security could not be established.

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