K.K.

K.K. or k.k., abbreviations for kaiserlich-königlich applied to all Austrian institutions and officials up to the Ausgleich of 1867. From 1867 to 1918 it was used only for purely Austrian (i.e. non-Hungarian) authorities and officials. K. u. k. (kaiserlich und königlich) was devised in 1867 and applied to the few extremely important institutions that were common to the Empire of Austria and the Kingdom of Hungary, of which the most obvious were the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the regular army. The Austrian Landwehr (second-line troops) were purely Austrian and therefore remained k.k. Its Hungarian equivalent was the Königlich ungarisches Honvéd. K.k. provided R. Musil with an ironical name for Austria-Hungary, ‘Kakanien’ (see Mann ohne Eigenschaften, Der).