The Diet of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, and of the Grand Duchy of Cracow was the regional assembly of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, a crown land of the Austrian Empire, and later Austria-Hungary. In the history of the Polish parliaments, it is considered the successor of the former sejm walny, or general sejm of the Kingdom of Poland and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and also of the sejmik, or local councils, in the territories of the Austrian Partition. It existed from 1861 until the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918.
Name
The multi-ethnic nature of the Kingdom resulted in the diet having multiple different names. In German, the lingua franca of Cisleithania (north-western part of the monarchy), it was called Landtag von Galizien und Lodomerien, meaning 'Diet of Galicia and Lodomeria'. In Polish, it was called either Sejm krajowy, meaning 'Sejm of the Land', or sejm lwowski, meaning 'Lwów Sejm'. In Ukrainian, it was called Га́лицький крайови́й сейм, transcribed Hálytsʹkyy krayovýy seym, meaning 'Sejm of Galicia'.
Landtag is a German word that means 'regional assembly', or 'diet'. In Polish and Ukrainian, the word used was Sejm (the latter also used version Sojm).
History
Parts of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth Lesser Poland territories were included in the Austrian partition as early as the First Partition of Poland in 1772. From about 1775 to 1848, with several gaps, the crown land of Galicia had a relatively powerless parliamentary body, known originally as the Postulate Sejm (), and from 1817, as Estates of Galicia (). The Diet of Galicia and Lodomeria, which was formed in 1861 following the promulgation of the October Diploma by Emperor Franz Joseph I, had more real power than its predecessors. In Polish parliamentary tradition, it is considered to have continued the history of the general sejm and regional sejmiks on the lands of Lesser Poland and Ruthenia.
The Diet was initially dominated by Polish nobles, but in time, it saw the emergence of a strong peasant faction. Another notable change over time included the emergence of a Ruthenian (modern Ukrainian) bloc, changing the balance of power within the body. Overall, the Diet preserved the Polish parliamentary tradition during a time in which it waned in the Prussian Partition and the Russian Partition, and saw the emergence of the major political parties and groupings that were to dominate the political life of the Second Polish Republic after World War I. The leader of the Polish peasant movement in the Second Polish Republic, Wincenty Witos, gained his experience in the Diet, elected for the first time in 1908. Similarly, the National Democrats, and the Polish socialists, had their political blocs in the diet around that time.
Composition and organization
As established by the February Patent of 1861, the Diet was unicameral, and was made up of 150 deputies. All but nine were elected by four different "Curiae", or assemblies of the social classes. An electoral system based on curiae was also used in the Imperial Council of Cisleithania, until 1907.