Országgyűlés

An assembly of the Hungarian estates of the realm and royal free cities (szabad királyi város) had convened at Bratislava (Pozsony) since the late Middle Ages; however, it never achieved extended legislative rights in the centralised Habsburg monarchy and the succeeding Austrian Empire.

In the course of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 a national assembly was called at Pest that was dismissed by decree of Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria in October; the next year a Hungarian assembly met at the Protestant Great Church of Debrecen, which declared the new Emperor Franz Joseph deposed and elected Lajos Kossuth regent-president.

The revolution was finally suppressed by Austrian troops under General Julius Jacob von Haynau and the assembly dissolved.

In 1860 Emperor Franz Joseph issued the October Diploma, which provided a national Reichsrat assembly formed by delegates deputed by the Landtage diets of the Austrian crown lands, followed by the February Patent of 1861, promising the implementation of a bicameral legislature.

Finally in the course of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, the emperor appointed Gyula Andrássy Hungarian minister-president and the re-established national assembly convened on 27 February.