Sejm of the Estates

[1] Soon afterward, in 1817, Francis I of Austria called for a new sejm, now named the Estates of Galicia (Polish: Stany Galicyjskie), which met again in Lviv.

[9] Excepting the establishment of the Ossolineum as a center for Polish cultural study, the Sejm reflected the conservative attitudes of the body's unelected members from the nobility.

From the late 1830s an influx of new members, such as Leon Sapieha, Władysław Badeni, and Governor Wacław Michał Zaleski, Agenor Gołuchowski made the body more progressive and representative.

[11] The Estates last met in 1845, when they voted, 116 to 10, on the proposal to abolish serfdom; however they lacked the power to implement it and had to wait for the Emperor's decision.

[12] The Estates were disbanded following the Kraków Uprising of 1846, a mostly peasant rebellion aimed, ironically, at many of the nobles who were supportive of the abolition of serfdom.

[1][10] They were composed of clergy, nobility (either titled or above a certain, relatively high, income level), two deputies from the city of Lviv representing the burghers and later, Chancellor of the University of Lwów.

[9] Polish 19th-century historian, Henryk Schmitt, wrote that the role of the Estates was to listen to the government decisions, and file petitions, which often waited for the royal reply for several years; he thus notes that the Estates were powerless, a "comedy", their only purpose being to fulfill the Congress of Vienna requirement of having some form of "national representation" on the lands of the Austrian partition.