Baron Richard von Bienerth, after 1915 Count von Bienerth-Schmerling (2 March 1863, in

Verona Verona ( ; ; or ) is a city on the Adige, River Adige in Veneto, Italy, with 255,131 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region, and is the largest city Comune, municipality in the region and in Northeast Italy, nor ...

Austrian Empire The Austrian Empire, officially known as the Empire of Austria, was a Multinational state, multinational European Great Powers, great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the Habsburg monarchy, realms of the Habsburgs. Duri ...

– 3 June 1918, in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

), was an

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

n statesman. He was the son of the Austrian Lieutenant-Field Marshal Karl von Bienerth (1825–1882) and a grandson on his mother's side of the Minister of State and later President of the High Court of Cassation Anton von Schmerling (1805−1893). Richard ''

Freiherr (; male, abbreviated as ), (; his wife, abbreviated as , ) and (, his unmarried daughters and maiden aunts) are designations used as titles of nobility in the German-speaking areas of the Holy Roman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and in ...

'' von Bienerth entered the service of the state in 1884 in the

Styria Styria ( ; ; ; ) is an Austrian Federal states of Austria, state in the southeast of the country. With an area of approximately , Styria is Austria's second largest state, after Lower Austria. It is bordered to the south by Slovenia, and cloc ...

n governorate, embarked on a civil servant's career after 1886 in the education ministry in

, and from 1899 to 1905 was vice-president of the

Lower Austria Lower Austria ( , , abbreviated LA or NÖ) is one of the nine states of Austria, located in the northeastern corner of the country. Major cities are Amstetten, Lower Austria, Amstetten, Krems an der Donau, Wiener Neustadt and Sankt Pölten, which ...

n school inspectorate. He took the reins of the education ministry on 11 September 1905 as section head in the cabinet of Paul Gautsch von Frankenthurn, a position he kept in the short-lived government of Prince Konrad of Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst. In the cabinet of Baron Max Wladimir von Beck he was minister for the interior from 2 June 1906 to 15 November 1908 and worked on the electoral reform project (the introduction of universal male suffrage) of 1907. After Beck's downfall, Emperor

Franz Joseph I Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I ( ; ; 18 August 1830 – 21 November 1916) was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, and the ruler of the Grand title of the emperor of Austria, other states of the Habsburg monarchy from 1848 until his death ...

appointed Bienerth as prime minister, an office he held from 15 November 1908 to 28 June 1911. The government lost its parliamentary majority at the ''Reichsrat'' elections of June 1911, which brought heavy losses for the Christian Social Party and the ''Poland Club'', and Bienerth resigned as prime minister. He was then appointed as governor of

, succeeding Count Erich Kielmansegg. Despite suffering from an incurable disease, he remained in office until 28 November 1915. When he resigned as governor, the Emperor elevated him to the rank of Count.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bienerth, Richard 1863 births 1918 deaths 20th-century minister-presidents of Austria 19th-century Austrian people People from Austria-Hungary Counts of Austria Politicians from Verona Governors of Lower Austria (to 1918)