Why Was the Habsburg Princess Granted the Right to Rule the Kingdom of Croatia in 1712?

Abstract

This article presents an overview of the new interpretations presented in the Croatian historiography on the so called Croatian Pragmatic Sanction or article 7:1712, made by the Sabor in March 1712. The Sabor's decision gave the Habsburg female line the succession right in the Kingdom of Croatia. The interpretative focus of this article is answering the question why this decision was made in 1712, instead using the interpretations created by the national narrative historiography. The general interpretative context of this article is determined by facing two political trends present in the Habsburg Monarchy and the Kingdom of Croatia at the beginning of the 18th Century: the early modern state-building process and the preservation of power of the Sabor elite.