Grand Duchy of Cracow

Infobox Former Subdivision
native_name = "Großherzogtum Krakau"
"Wielkie Księstwo Krakowskie"
common_name = Cracow |conventional_long_name = Grand Duchy of Cracow
era = Modern Age
subdivision = Grand Duchy
nation = Austria
year_start = 1846
year_end = 1918
event_pre = Free City
date_pre = May 3, 1815
event_start = Annexed
date_start = November 16
event1 = Ausgleich
date_event1 = 1867
event_end = Collapse of Austria-Hungary
date_end = October 31, 1918
event_post = Treaty of St Germain
date_post = September 10, 1919
p1 = Free City of Kraków
flag_p1 = Flag of Krakow.svg
s1 = Second Polish Republic
flag_s1 = Flag of Poland.svg

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symbol = Symbols of Kraków
capital = Kraków |latd=50 |latm=4 |latNS=N |longd=19 |longm=56 |longEW=E
religion = Roman Catholicism
common_languages = German, Polish
leader1 = Ferdinand I
year_leader1 = 1846–48
leader2 = Franz Joseph I
year_leader2 = 1848–1916
leader3 = Karl I
year_leader3 = 1916–18
title_leader = Grand Duke of Cracow¹
footnotes = ¹ Also the Emperor of Austria.:"For the Grand Duke, overlord of the Polanes, during fragmentation of Poland see Duke of Cracow (1138 - 1320)"

The Grand Duchy of Cracow ( _de. Großherzogtum Krakau, _pl. Wielkie Księstwo Krakowskie) was created after the incorporation of the Free City of Kraków to Austria on November 16, 1846. The title of Grand Duke of Cracow was just a part of the official titulary of the Emperor of Austria in 1846-1918.

The Free City of Kraków, a remnant of the Duchy of Warsaw, had been made a protectorate, however functionally independent, as a result of the Congress of Vienna (1815). It was under Prussian, Austrian, and Russian trilateral influence until, in the aftermath of the unsuccessful Kraków Uprising, it was annexed by the Austrian Empire.

At the same time the official name of the Austrian administrative entity containing approximately Galicia, and some Polish areas west of it, was changed to the "Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, and the Grand Duchy of Cracow with the Duchies of Auschwitz and Zator".

These entities (Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Cracow, Duchy of Auschwitz, and Duchy of Zator) were formally separate; they were listed each in the Austrian emperor's titles, each had its distinct coat of arms and flag. For administrative purposes, however, they formed a single province.

The Duchy had its own local government, Governorate Commission ( _pl. Komisja Gubernialna).

Literature

*Alfred Regele: "Die Einverleibung des Freistaates Krakau 1846". Ungedr.Diss., Wien 1951