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The Duchy of Styria (German: Herzogtum Steiermark; Slovene: Vojvodina Štajerska) was a duchy located in modern-day southern Austria and northern Slovenia. It was a part of the Holy Roman Empire until its dissolution in 1806 and a crownland of Austria-Hungary until its dissolution in 1918. It was created by Frederick Barbarossa in 1180 when he raised Ottokar IV of the March of Styria to the rank of Duke after the fall of Henry the Lion earlier that year. Ottokar was the first and last duke of the ancient Otakar dynasty.
With the death of Ottokar in 1192, the region fell to the Babenberg family, rulers of Austria, as stipulated in the Georgenberg Pact. After their extinction, it passed quickly through the hands of the kingdom of Hungary (1254–60), Ottokar II of Bohemia (1260–76), and the Habsburgs, who provided it with dukes of their own lineage for the years 1379–1439 and 1564–1619.
At the time of the Ottoman invasions in the 16th and 17th centuries, the land suffered severely and was depopulated. The Turks made incursions into Styria nearly twenty times; churches, monasteries, cities, and villages were destroyed and plundered, while the population was either killed or carried away into slavery.
On the collapse of Austria-Hungary in the aftermath of World War I, the rump state of German Austria claimed all of Cisleithania. With the Treaty of St Germain, Austria-Hungary was partitioned broadly along ethnic lines, with most of Styria (Upper Styria, retaining the ducal capital of Graz) remaining with the First Austrian Republic, and the southern third (Lower Styria, with its capital in Maribor) passing to the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, eventually becoming a part of modern Slovenia.
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