STURGKH, KARL, COUNT (GRAF) VON

born Oct. 30, 1859, Graz, Austria died Oct. 21, 1916, Vienna Austrian prime minister (191116) whose authoritarian regime was ended by his assassination. An ultraconservative and clericalist member of the Reichsrat (legislature), Strgkh strongly opposed the Austrian suffrage reforms of 1907. He was minister of education from 1908 until November 1911, when, amid continuing parliamentary turmoil between Czech and German nationalists, he was appointed Austrian prime minister. Despite his initial success in securing passage of a new military program (191213), his relations with the Reichsrat progressively deteriorated. Having dissolved the Bohemian Landtag (provincial assembly) in 1913, he adjourned the Austrian Reichsrat in March 1914 and governed henceforth by decree, until he was shot by the left-wing socialist Friedrich Adler in October 1916 during World War I.