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Show ROSE FROM THE RANKS When Count Berchtold resigned . as minister of foreign affairs for Aus- fimmmmm... tria-Hungary and It was announced 1 4( that Baron Stephen Burian de Rajecz if " - had been appointed to the position, j j $ there was a hurried search through '. books of reference for facts concern- hvX 1 J ing this man who was to guide the "Slf-. ,54'68, &i destinies of a great empire at a most ?l"l'j v l ' y critical time. The search was almost ESk W' in vain, for he had been practically jT,Isi$ "SX, i unknown to the world at large. He Vs! f 4 s an example of the possibility of L rising from the ranks to the highest j y position in the state merely by doing i y ' his full duty wherever he was placed. f 'MSfewSfe'' Baron Burian was born in Stomfa, Ponsony county, Hungary, in 1851. He i "j?Sw did not inherit the title of a baron at f V W r his birth. His father was a member of v fsf- A the nobility, but did not belong to the ir iv i aristocracy. ' " r -W" " f ?- Stephen Burian selected a career fei ? 5 bc ? tiS In the consular service and received lEefcfgMir?1 1 itli ifflml his education in the Oriental academy of Vienna, the training school for that service. He held his first official positions in Alexandria, Egypt, and served then as vice-consul in Bucharest, Roumania and Belgrade, Serbia. His next post was in Sofia, Bulgaria, and by this time he was promoted consul general. It was then that he was transferred trans-ferred from the consular to the diplomatic service and appointed minister to Athens, Gree". Burian's diplomatic career ended when he was appointed minister of finance for the joint affairs of Austria and Hungary, which department had supreme control of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the two Turkish provinces which had been intrusted by the congress of Berlin of 1878 to Austro-Hungarian administration. Burian played a very important role in the marvelous industrial in-dustrial and commercial development of the two provinces. |