PRINCE K.L.W. METTERNICH (1773-1859): PORTRAIT OF A STATESMAN AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF THE EPOCH

The article discusses the activities of the Austrian statesman Prince K.L.W. Metternich, who led the foreign and domestic policy of the Austrian Empire for many decades, created the so-called «Metternich system», which had a great impact on the processes both within Austrian society and on international affairs in Europe in the era after the Napoleonic wars to the era of the bourgeois- democratic revolutions of 1848-1849. This article is devoted to its essence, consequences for Europe and the Austrian Empire, as well as an analysis of the causes of the collapse of the «Metternich system».