This paper attempts to answer the question concerning the degree to which the position of serfs changed after the abolition of serfdom in Austria. Were the people in fact free as has been stated time and again in the history books and textbooks? Research into two Liechtenstein estates – the South Moravian domain of Břeclav/Lundenburg and the Lower Austrian estate of Wilfersdorf was used to analyse the factors behind personal freedom of movement after the abolition of serfdom. Could former serfs travel freely to other estates or abroad? This narrow study showed that this was not the case until the end of the pre-March period, i.e. after the end of patrimonial administration. These findings go against traditional interpretations. The abolition of serfdom was undoubtedly a step towards a modern society, but its implementation did not result in the end of control mechanisms, as they were replaced by others, and not only in the developing legal system. A lesser-known new factor from the period was the restriction of demesnial jurisdiction, which was placed under the control of the regional authorities. However, the period of reform did usher in a new phenomenon: the legal right of former serfs to protection against seignorial powers.
This study examines the question of the beginnings of modern conservative thought and politics in the Austrian monarchy at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. The author calls this period a "prelude" to conservatism and explains this as a largely natural response to the dynamic reforms during the reign of Joseph II, which virtually replaced revolution in the Austrian setting. She focuses first on the actual term "conservatism" and then considers the role of the monarch, the church and Romantic nationalism.
This study attempts to analyse the basic tendency of the Austrian state to regulate and control the move of inhabitants. After fading of population theories that saw state wealth in the population growth, therefore supporting immigration, the period of the Napoleonic wars came that became catalyser of a rapid legal development in the field of immigration. Entirely unprepared Austria specialised its basic strategies in respect of foreigners and of the population move control. The attitude of the state to foreigners determines their "utility for the state", which finally results in the establishment of categories of foreigners: privileged, facultative, and undesirable. Applying practical examples, the study specifies such classification of foreigners and of their destinies within the Austrian state. The privileged: The Netherlands textile specialists in the fine cloth factory in Náměšť near Brno; Turkish merchants and subjects of the High Porte of the Jewish religion; the facultative: the Netherlands state officers who, due to their loyalty to Austria, had to leave their homeland after the occupation of the Austrian Netherlands (later Belgium) by the French Republic; the undesirable: The French who were potentially suspected of propagation of revolution ideas or of espionage; here examples of the high French nobility have been specified, i.e. of the de Bombelles family and of dismissed highranking officers of the elite Prince de Condé Regiment (then in active service of Russia)., Zdeňka Stoklásková., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy