Cultural history: background
The establishment of Austrian rule in Galicia initially brought several advantages in the cultural sphere to the Ukrainian population, although many of these lost their effectiveness in the early decades of the nineteenth century.
In their efforts to strengthen the internal structure of the Habsburg realm, Maria Theresa and Joseph II established a network of schools, and while the activity of the monasteries was curtailed, the status of the Uniate church (renamed the Greek Catholic church in 1774) was raised; it was made the legal and social equal of the predominant Roman Catholic church. Although supported by the state, educational advances for Ukrainians in Galicia were closely linked to the Greek Catholic church. To ensure that the Greek Catholic church would be able to fulfill its new role, cadres of priests had to be educated, and for that purpose theological seminaries were established in Vienna (the Barbareum, 1775-1784)andL’viv(1783). Also, at the University of L’viv (est. 1784), a special collegium, the Studium Ruthenum (1787-1809), was set up to instruct Ukrainians who were still unable to understand Latin. Finally, the prestige of the Greek Catholic church was raised substantially when the Galician metropolitanate was restored in 1808, with its seat in L’viv and dioceses in L’viv and Przemysl. The result of these developments was the creation of a Galician-Ukrainian intelligentsia, albeit mostly clergymen, trained in a western-oriented educational tradition.By the early nineteenth century, however, the Barbareum and Studium Ruth- enum had ceased functioning, the University of L’viv (from 1817) offered instruction only in German, and the network of elementary schools offered instruction for the most part only in Polish. As a result, the younger generations were becoming rapidly polonized, while the older leaders were left to argue among themselves as to how best to maintain their recently obtained social status, even if that meant assimilation to Polish culture.
On the other hand, if some kind of local patriotism was being espoused, it usually got no further than discussions concerning the problem of which literary language should be used for Galician-Ukrainian cultural affairs. The few attempts at establishing cultural societies had failed, there were no newspapers or journals in the native tongue, and very few books were published. This situation changed only slightly when a group of three seminary students, known later as the Rusyn Triad (Ruska triitsa), published the first book in the vernacular-Zfwjfi/to dmstrovaia (1837). This stimulated the appearance of a few more literary works and grammars in the 1840s. A Galician- Ukrainian cultural revival had begun.Because this revival is looked to as the source for more intense cultural developments in the second half of the nineteenth century, the pre-1848 years, especially the 1830s and 1940s when the Rusyn Triad was active, have received extensive treatment in secondary literature. These writings may be divided into general cultural histories of the whole period and studies focusing on education, the church, literature, individual writers, and contacts with intellectual currents abroad.