Imperial Council (Austria) in the context of "Bishop of Vienna"

Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (7 March 1850 – 14 September 1937) was a Czechoslovak statesman, political activist and philosopher who served as the first president of Czechoslovakia from 1918 to 1935. He is regarded as the founding father of Czechoslovakia.

Born in Hodonín, Moravia (then part of the Austrian Empire), Masaryk obtained a doctorate at the University of Vienna and was a professor of philosophy at the Czech Charles-Ferdinand University. He began his political career as a deputy of the Austrian Reichsrat, serving from 1891 to 1893 and from 1907 to 1914. He was an advocate of restructuring the Austro-Hungarian Empire into a federal state, but by the outbreak of the First World War, he had become a supporter of Czech and Slovak independence. He went into exile, and travelled around Europe to organise and promote the Czechoslovak cause. He played a pivotal role in the establishment of the Czechoslovak Legion, which fought against the Central Powers during the war. In 1918, Masaryk, along with his protégés Edvard Beneš and Milan Rastislav Štefánik, travelled to the United States to obtain support from President Woodrow Wilson and Secretary of State Robert Lansing. Their negotiations resulted in the Washington Declaration, which proclaimed the independence of a Czechoslovak state.

The Austrian Parliament Building (German: Parlamentsgebäude, pronounced [paʁlaˈmɛnt͡sɡəˌbɔɪ̯də] colloquially das Parlament) in Vienna is the meeting place of the two houses of the Austrian Parliament. The building is located on the Ringstraße in the first district, Innere Stadt, near Hofburg Palace and the Palace of Justice. It was built to house the two chambers of the Imperial Council (Reichsrat), the bicameral legislature of the Cisleithanian (Austrian) part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Since its construction, the Parliament Building has been the seat of these two houses, and their successors—the National Council (Nationalrat) and the Federal Council (Bundesrat)—of the Austrian legislature.

The foundation stone was laid in 1874; the building was completed in 1883. The architect responsible for its Greek Revival style was Theophil Hansen. He designed the building holistically, aiming to have each element harmonize with all the others, and was also responsible for the interior decoration, such as statues, paintings, furniture, chandeliers, and numerous other elements. Hansen was honored by Emperor Franz Joseph with the title of Freiherr (Baron) after its completion. Following heavy damage and destruction in World War II, most of the interior has been restored to its original splendor.

The Archbishop of Vienna is the prelate of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vienna who is concurrently the metropolitan bishop of its ecclesiastical province which includes the dioceses of Eisenstadt, Linz and St. Pölten.

From 1469 to 1513, bishops from elsewhere were appointed as administrators. The first bishop residing in Vienna was Georg von Slatkonia. From 1861 to 1918, the archbishops, as members of the Herrenhaus, were represented in the Reichsrat of Cisleithania and bore the title of a Prince-Archbishop.

The May Declaration (Slovene: Majniška deklaracija, Croatian: Svibanjska deklaracija, Serbian: Majska deklaracija/Мајска декларација) was a manifesto of political demands for unification of South Slav-inhabited territories within Austria-Hungary put forward to the Imperial Council in Vienna on 30 May 1917. It was authored by Anton Korošec, the leader of the Slovene People's Party. The document was signed by Korošec and thirty-two other council delegates representing South-Slavic lands within the Cisleithanian part of the dual monarchy – the Slovene Lands, the Dalmatia, Istria, and the Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The delegates who signed the declaration were known as the Yugoslav Club.

The May Declaration was generally favourably greeted by Croat politicians in Croatia-Slavonia, but was met with opposition or indifference by the Bosniaks, the Bosnian Serbs, and the Croatian Serbs. The declaration also applied pressure on the government of the Kingdom of Serbia which saw the objectives of the declaration as a threat to fulfilment of its First World War goals in terms of territorial expansion. This led the Kingdom of Serbia government to give priority to the drafting of the Corfu Declaration, with the Yugoslav Committee outlining the principles of unification of a common state for all South Slavs living in Austria-Hungary, Serbia, and Montenegro at the time. The advocation of the May Declaration was banned by Austro-Hungarian authorities in May 1918.

Abstentionism is the political practice of standing for election to a deliberative assembly while refusing to take up any seats won or otherwise participate in the assembly's business. Abstentionism differs from an election boycott in that abstentionists participate in the election itself. Abstentionism has been used by Irish republican political movements in the United Kingdom and Ireland since the early 19th century. It was also used by Hungarian and Czech nationalists in the Austrian Imperial Council in the 1860s.