conservative Polish aristocrat and statesman who as Austria's minister of the interior (or minister of state; August 1859–December 1860) was one of the principal authors of the “October diploma” of 1860, which granted diets to the Habsburg lands and made the empire into a federal state.

Having served in the Galician (Galicia) provisional administration, Gołuchowski was governor of Galicia from 1849 to 1859. Then, as minister of the interior, he secured unprecedented autonomy for Galicia (Austrian Poland) and introduced Polish as an official language in the empire. His support of the “October diploma” reflected his federalist views. As governor of Galicia again (1866–68 and 1871–75), he successfully turned the Poles' revolutionary spirit into one of cooperation with the Habsburg dynasty in return for concessions to Polish nationalism.

foreign minister of Austria (1895–1906) who negotiated the Austro-Russian agreement of 1897, which became the basis for a decade-long détente between the two powers.

Gołuchowski, the son of the governor of Galicia, Count Agenor Gołuchowski, was a longtime member of the Austrian diplomatic service. He significantly eased European tensions with his Austro-Russian agreement of 1897 and with the Austro-Russian Mürzsteg Pact of 1903 concerning a joint policy toward Turkey. Gołuchowski nevertheless remained loyal to Austria's principal ally, Germany. During the first Moroccan crisis (1905) between France and Germany, his role as mediator earned him the praise of the German emperor William II. Gołuchowski, a Pole, fell when the Hungarians suspected him of opposing the use of Hungarian as a command language in the Austro-Hungarian army. At the same time the heir presumptive Archduke Francis Ferdinand blamed him for being too subservient to Hungarian demands.