Historical surveys

The first attempt to present a survey of Galician-Ukrainian history occurred already in 1792, when Johann Christian von Engel (1770-1814) published his History of Galicia-Volhynia.

His history of Galicia presented the Austrian, or more properly, the imperial Austro-Hungarian interpretation of that region’s past. In essence, his work was basically a history of the Hungarians in Galicia. Engel distinguished four periods: 980-1130, which began with Hungary’s initial interest in the area and ended with the unification of Galicia and Volhynia under one prince; 1130-1230, the height of the Galician-Volhynian state under princes Andräs II and his son Kälmän; 1230-1572, the period of Polish-Lithuanian struggle for the region; and 1572­1772, the era of Polish domination until Galicia’s ‘ ‘reunification’ ’ with Hungary. This Austro-Hungarian view, which started from the premise that Galicia was most naturally a part of Hungary and that it was only temporarily separated from that country, remained for some years the accepted interpretation as revealed in the entry on Galicia in the first Austrian national encyclopedia (1835) and in an essay (1863) by Hermann Bidermann, at the time Austria’s leading scholar on nationality problems, who had reacted to Polish and Russian claims upon the area’s historical past and political future.^[105] The interpretation first put forth by Engel did not, however, enter the framework of the late nineteenth-century encyclopedia of Austria-Hungary begun under the auspices of Crown Prince Rudolf; instead, Polish and Ukrainian scholars were invited to present their views in the large volume treating all aspects of Galicia.^[106]

The Austro-Hungarian interpretation had been already challenged in the eqrly nineteenth century, first by Greek Catholic clergymen like Mykhailo Harasevych, who wanted to justify his church’s status by revealing its long-standing historico- legal position, then by secular writers like Denys Zubryts’kyi, lakiv Holovats’kyi, and Izydor Sharanevych, who were anxious to depict the independent status of the medieval Galician-Volhynian Rus’ state and its integral relationship to other eastern Slavic developments.^[107]

Reacting both to the Austro-Hungarian and eastern orientations, Polish writ­ers, especially during the revolutionary upheavals of 1848, argued that all of Galicia had always been an integral part of Polish cultural and historical develop­ment.

In contrast to the Austro-Hungarian and Polish views on eastern Galicia are the writings of Old Ruthenians, Russians, and Ukrainians. Although there are differ­ences of emphasis and interpretation between each of these three groups, they all agree with the premise, first elaborated by Zubryts’kyi, that eastern Galicia is historically and culturally part of an eastern Slavic world that traces its roots back to medieval Kievan Rus’. Further, they all agree that the region’s apogee was reached during the period of the Galician-Volhynian principality, when Galicia was politically independent but culturally integrated with other eastern Rus’ lands. They disagree, however, about the fate of the area under subsequent Polish and Austrian rule and about its specific relationship with eastern Slavdom.

The Old Ruthenian position was expressed by natives of eastern Galicia or northern Bukovina, who consider these lands to be eastern Slavic, but who basically accept Austrian rule as a positive phenomenon.

The Russian position is represented by writers from the former Russian Empire as well as by Russophile Galicians who identified nationally and culturally with Russia. Basically they consider that eastern Galicia is a “Russian” land, and that its unity with Kievan “Russia” in the medieval period had only been interrupted temporarily by Polish and Austrian occupation until its eventual “reunification” with “mother Russia” would take place.

These views were put forth already in 1860 in a French essay by Prince Aleksander Trubetskoi, and later in historical surveys by the Galician Russophiles Osyp Monchalovs’kyi, Dmytro Markov, Dmitrii Vergun, and Adriian Kopys- tians’kyi.³⁷ The first years of the twentieth century brought increased tension between the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, and Russian publicists pro­duced a spate of general histories and descriptions about “Russian” Galicia as background information for the Russian public (and in some cases for the military itself), especially after the tsarist army’s occupation of the area in late 1914 and early 1915.³⁸

36 Gregor Kupczanko, Die Schicksale der Ruthenen (Leipzig: Wilhelm Friedrich 1887). The forgoing is less favorable to Austrian rule than Hryhorii Kupchanko, Nasha rodyna: ylliustrovannyi sbornyk dlia prostonarodnoho chytan’ia (Vienna: p.a. 1897; reprinted New York and Berlin: Minkus 1924); F.I.R. [Fedir I. Ripets’kyi], Yliustrovannaia narodnaia ystoriia Rusy bt nachala do nainoviishykh vremen, 2nd rev. ed. (L’viv: S.A. Duda 1905).

37 Prince Alexandre Troubetzkoy, La Russie rouge (Paris: E. Dentu 1860); O.A. Monchalovskii, Sviataia Rus' (L’viv: p.a. 1903); Dmitrij Markow, Die russische und ukrainische Idee in Oesterreich (Vienna and Leipzig: C.W.

38 [Adriian Kopystians’kyi?], Galitskaia Rus’ prezhde ³ ïóïå: istoricheskii ocherk ³ vzgliad na sovremennoe sostoianie ochevidtsa (St Petersburg 1907); M.V. Rapoport, Chervonaia Rus’ (Galitsiia): istoricheskii ocherk (St Petersburg 1912); L. Burchak, Galitsiia: eia proshloe ³ nastoiashchee (Moscow: Chitatel’, 1914)—this work is an exception among others in this note because it argues that eastern Galicia is a Ukrainian land; E. Turaeva-Tserteli, “Galitskaia Rus’ ot drevnosti do nashikh dnei: istoricheskii ocherk,” in Ekskursionyi viestnik, book 4 (St Petersburg 1914), pp. 44-85; Anton larinovich, Galichina v eia proshlom ³ nastoiashchem: ocherk istorii natsional’noi zhizni rusin v Avstro-Vengrii (Moscow: Zadruga 1915); I. Murinov, Istoriia Galitsii (Moscow 1915), 2nd rev. ed. under the title Galichina: istoricheskii ocherk (Moscow 1915); E.F. Turaeva-Tserteli and E.I. de Vitte, Galitskaia Rus’ v ee proshlem ³ nastoiashchem (Moscow 1915); A. Morskoi [V.I. Shtein], Sud’by Galichiny (Petrograd 1918).

There are also several works from the period dealing with all Austria-Hungary’s “Russians” (in eastern Galicia, northern Bukovina, and Hungarian Subcarpathia) and including much information on Galicia: T.D. Florinskii, Zarubezhnaia Rus' ³ eia gor’kaia dolia (Kiev 1900);

The Ukrainian position is represented almost exclusively by natives of the province who consider eastern Galicia to be an integral part of a Ukrainian culture that is distinct from both Russian and Polish cultures. Like the Russian interpreta­tion, Ukrainian writers stress the importance of the medieval Galician-Volhynian state, but they do not reject categorically the historical interdependence of the region with Poland and are generally favorably inclined toward the era of Austrian rule (1772-1918).

In fact, the only extensive histories of Ukrainian Galicia are the popular history of the Ukraine by Oleksander Barvins’kyi, which was written for a Galician audience and hence dwells largely on ‘ ‘local’ ’ developments, and the more recent, popular, and overly patriotic book by Michael Yaremko.^{[113] [114] Galicia’s greatest scholars limited their general histories of the region to brief encyclopedic articles. Among the best of these are a Russian-language encyclopedia on Galicia, Bukovi­na, and Subcarpathian Rus’ prepared by the editors of Ukrainskaia zhizn’ and an article in the first Soviet encyclopedia by Mykhailo Hrushevs’kyi, a native of the Dnieper Ukraine who was the first holder of the chair in Ukrainian history established in 1892 at the University of L’viv.[115]Both of these historical surveys end in 1914. Bohdan Barvins’kyi wrote a brief general history that ends with the German “liberation” in 1941,[116] while several other Galician scholars and nation­al activists-Ivan Kryp”iakevych, Kost’ Levyts’kyi, Ivan Kedryn-Rudnyts’kyi, Mykola Chubatyi, Illia Vytanovych, Stepan Baran, Stepan Vytvyts’kyi, Oleksa Horbach, and Volodymyr Kubiiovych-have contributed to encyclopedic surveys that bring the story closer to more recent times.[117]}

The outbreak of World War I also prompted several general historical essays by Ukrainian authors on the problem of Galicia that were intended primarily for Austrian readers.^[118] Later, the post-war Peace Conference prompted Mykhailo Lozyns’kyi to write memoranda containing general histories of Galicia that praised the region’s rich past and suggested the need for an independent future.^{[119] [120]}

Soviet Marxist writers have set out to revise all previous historiography about Galicia.

The first elaboration of these views was put forth in 1940, just after the Red Army’s occupation of eastern Galicia, in historical surveys by Volodymyr Pi­cheta, Serhii Bielousov, and Oleksander Ohloblyn.⁴³ More recently, a lengthy synthesis on all the western Ukrainian lands has outlined in great detail the present acceptable Soviet Marxist interpretations and periodization for Galician history: the pre-Kievan era; the feudal era (11th century to 1848); the capitalist and imperialist period (1848-1917); the Great October Bolshevik Revolution and its subsequent influence on Galician desires for reunification with the Ukrainian SSR (1917-1939); the reunification (1939-1941); the great patriotic war (1941­1945); and the Soviet era (1945-present).^[121]

Church history

Religious history in Galicia has received much attention through published docu­mentary collections and general histories. The Basilian Order in Rome has spon­sored the publication of a large number of documents from the archives of the Vatican and the Propaganda Fidei (Missionary Congregation). Although dealing with all Ukrainian (and sometimes Belorussian) religious problems, each volume is carefully indexed and contains numerous documents dealing solely with Gali­cia. There exist to date one general series^[122] and eight other specialized series, each multivolumed and some still in the process of completion. The specialized series, all edited by Athanasius Welykyj, contain papal decrees and letters dealing with Ukrainian matters (1075-1953);^[123] papal dispensations and privileges (1650- 1862);^[124] minutes of the Missionary Congregation (1622-1862);^[125] letters and decrees of the Missionary Congregation to Ukrainian bishops (1622-1862);^[126] minutes of special meetings of the Missionary Congregation (1622-1862) ;^[127] episcopal letters sent to Rome (1600-);^[128] diplomatic dispatches of papal emissar­ies (1550-);^[129] and letters of papal nuncios and Ukrainian bishops to the Vatican (1600-1769).^[130] The Soviets have also compiled a collection of documents on the church from earliest times to the present, all of which are designed to reveal the “truth about the union, ’ ’ that is, the supposed negative historical role of the Greek Catholic church in Galicia.^[131]

The earliest history of the Galician church arose at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when local Greek Catholic churchmen were anxious to pro­vide a historical basis for their demands that the Galician metropolitanate be restored. Among these clerical historians was Mykhailo Harasevych, who pro­duced a heavily documented chronological survey of Ruthenian (i.e. Galician and other Rus’ lands in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) church history.^[132] The first scholarly synthesis of Ukrainian church history came in the late 1870s with the appearance of luliian Pelesh’s two-volume history. Although Pelesh dealt with Ukrainian church history as a whole, he was particularly interested in the efforts toward church union that led to the creation of the Greek Catholic church and in particular its development in Galicia.^[133] The evolution of the church in Galicia has also been treated in some detail in more recent general histories of the Greek Catholic church, whether in negative accounts by Soviet authors or in the more sympathetic survey by the German scholar Johannes Maday.^[134] Histories focusing specifically on Galicia have been written by Antin Dobrians’kyi, Ivan Rudovych, and Petro Isai'v from the Greek Catholic perspective and by levhen Vorobkevych from the Orthodox side.^[135] There are also studies on the centuries-long efforts to revive the Galician metropolitanate.^[136]