Revolutionary years, 1848-1849

Of the many works devoted to political history during the last seventy years of Austrian rule, the revolutionary period, 1848-1849, has received the most atten­tion. During this period Ukrainians in Galicia entered the modern political sphere for the first time and their activity was played out in three places: in Galicia itself, at the Slav Congress in Prague, and at the newly elected Reichstag, which carried on its short-lived parliamentary career in Vienna and then in the Moravian town of KromSrii (Kremsier).

In Galicia itself, the enterprising governor Count Franz Stadion,( 1806-1853) tried to stay on top of the revolutionary situation. He pushed through an important decree on April 22, 1848, liberating the serfs (actually months ahead of lands in the rest of the empire), and in early May encouraged a group of Ukrainian Greek Catholic clergy centered around the St George Cathedral (from which the term sviatoiurtsi-St George Circle-derives) to form a political organization, the Central Ruthenian Council (Holovna Rus’ka Rada). The latter development gave rise immediately to Polish accusations that Stadion had created the Ruthenian problem, and consequently the Poles set up a rival Ruthenian Council (Rus’kyi Sobor) composed of “Ruthenians of the Polish nation” (gente Rutheni natione Poloni). During 1848, the Ukrainians also established their first newspapers -Zoria Halytska and Dnewnyk ruski; their first cultural societies-the Congress of Rusyn Scholars (Sobor Rus’kykh Uchenykh) and the Galician-Rus’ Matytsia (Halytsko-russka Matytsia); and their first military units-a peasant frontier de­fense organization, a national guard, and a sharpshooter division.

Outside Galicia, two rival delegations of Ukrainians-one representing the Central Ruthenian Council, the other the pro-Polish Ruthenian Council-jour­neyed to Prague in June, where they and other national leaders put forth cultural and political demands at the first international Slavic Congress.

The many-sided activity of Galician Ukrainians in 1848 -1849 is described in a few documentary collections and general histories of the period. The documen­tary collections concern the peasantry and political movements throughout eastern Galicia;²³ the creation of local affiliates of the L’viv-based Supreme Ruthenian Council;²⁴ the debates in the Ruthenian-Polish section at the Slav Congress in Prague;²⁵ and relations with Czech leaders, who did much to defend Ukrainian interests against Polish encroachments.²⁶ Also, the problem of the constitutional status of Galicia, its possible partition, and the views of Ukrainian and Polish deputies to the Austrian Reichstag are revealed in the published verbatim debates and protocols.²⁷ Finally, there are several political pamphlets from the era-both those that defend the idea of a distinct Ukrainian nationality with the right to political and cultural independence from the Poles,²⁸ and those that argue that

23 See the more than 100 documents from 1848-1849 in Klasova borot’ba selianstva skhidnol

Halychyny (1772-1849): dokumenty i materialy (Kiev: Naukova dumka 1974), pp. 376-529. See also the description of the March days in L'viv from the diary of Ivan Fedorovych in Ivan Franko, “Prychynky do istorii 1848 r.,” Zapysky NTSh, LXXXVIII (L’viv 1909), pp.

94-117, and documents on the varied reactions of L'viv Greek Catholic seminarians to the 1848 events in lurii Kmit, “1848 rik i L’vivs’ka rus’ka dukhovna seminaryia,” Zapysky NTSh, (L’viv 1901), 10 pp.

24 On the Brody affiliate, see Ivan Sozans’kyi, “Kil’ka dokumentiv do istorii 1848-1849 rr.,” Zapysky NTSh, XC (L’viv 1909), pp. 158-165; on the Berezhany affiliate, see F.I.

25 W.T. Wistocki, “Kongres slowianski w roku 1848 i sprawa polska,” Rocznik Zakladu Narodowego imienia Ossolinskich, I—II (L’viv 1927-28), pp. 517-731.

26 Ivan Bryk, Materiialy do istorii ukrains’ ko-ches’ kykh vzaiemyn v pershii polovyni XIX st., in Ukrains’ ko-rus’ kyi arkhiv, vol. XV (L’viv 1921).

27 Verhandlungen des osterreichischen Reichstages nach der stenographischen Aufnahme, 5 vols (Vienna: K.K. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei 18?-?); Protokolle über die Sitzungen des osterreichischen Reichstages (Vienna: K.K. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei 1852); Anton Springer, ed., Protokolle des Verfassungs-Ausschusses im osterreichischen Reichstage 1848-1849 (Leipzig 1885).

28 [Teodor Rozheiovs’kyi], An die Russinen: mit kurzen historisch-politischen und statistischen Notizen (L’viv 1848); Denkschrift der ruthenischen Nation in Galizien zur Aufklärung ihrer Verhältnisse (L’viv 1848); Antoni Pietruszewicz [Antin Petrushevych], Siow kilka napisanych w obronie ruskiej narodowosci (L’viv 1848); I. Koiosowicz [Evstakhii Prokopchyts’], Die ruthenische Frage in Galizien von Anton Dqbczanski, Landrath zu Lemberg (L’viv 1849), second edition published under the cryptonym Eine Russinen, Die ruthenische Frage in Galizien von Anton Dqbczahski (L’viv 1850); W. Podolinski, Slowo przestrogi (Sanok: Karol Ukrainianism (that is, Ruthenianism) is a dangerously divisive creation of Austri­an political circles who are trying to counterbalance Polish influence in the province.^{[385] [386]}

With regard to general histories of the period, the best is by the Polish scholar Jan Kozik, who, on the basis of a wide variety of archival data, describes in great detail all aspects of Ukrainian activity, even though he is critical of what he considers the anti-Polish and pro-Austrian conservative tendencies of the Su­preme Ruthenian Council.^[387] Such views are also expressed in surveys of the period by the Soviet writer Evdokiia Kosachevskaia and the Slovak Michal Danilak, whose book is the only work to compare developments during these years in northern Bukovina and northeastern Hungary (Subcarpathian Rus’) as well as in eastern Galicia.^[388] More favorably inclined to the Supreme Ruthenian Council and to Ukrainian achievements in general is the shorter survey by Marta Bohache vsky-Chomiak.^[389]

There are also several solid studies devoted to specific aspects of the Galician- Ukrainian experience during 1848-1849. With regard to developments within the province itself, studies by the Ukrainian historian Ivan Krevets’kyi cover a variety of topics during the revolutionary years: the government-organized elections in May 1848,^[390] the last days of serfdom followed by agrarian strikes and boycotts calling for greater economic freedom,³⁴ the psychological atmosphere in 1848,³⁵ the political struggle led by the Supreme Ruthenian Council for the division of Galicia,³⁶ and the establishment of a Rusyn national guard, a Rusyn peasant frontier defense organization, and a Rusyn sharpshooter’s battalion, all supported by the imperial government in its effort to contain the Hungarian revolution from spreading to Galicia and involving Polish revolutionaries.³⁷ Other studies dealing with military and revolutionary activity focus on the Hutsul uprising and the imperial army’s bombardment of L’viv in November 1848, which resulted in the return of strict Austrian control over the provincial capital.³⁸ More recently, Marxist historians in both the Soviet Ukraine and Poland have focused on the activity of the peasantry in Galicia during the rapidly changing events of 1848— 1849.³⁹ As for cultural work, the importance of the first Ukrainian cultural organization, the Galician Rus’ Matytsia, is seen in a collection of speeches and other documents by participants dating from the initial years of the Matytsia’s

34 Ivan Krevets’kyi, “Tsutsylivs’ka trivoha v 1848 r.: prychynky do istorii ostannikh dniv panshchyny v Halychyni,” in Naukovyi zbirnyk prys'viachenyi prof.

35 Ivan Krevets’kyi, “Do psykhol’ogii 1848 roku (sprava St. Hoshovs’koho),” Zapysky NTSh, XC (L’viv 1909), pp. 137-157.

36 Ivan Krevets’kyi, “Sprava podilu Halychyny v rr. 1846-1850,” Zapysky NTSh, XCIII (L’viv

1910), pp. 54-69; XCIV (1910), pp. 58-83; XCV (1910), pp. 54-82; XCVI (1910), pp. 94-115; XCVII (1910), pp. 105-154.

37 Ivan Krevets’kyi, “Oboronna organizatsiia rus’kykh selian na halyts’ko-uhors’kim pohranychu v 1848-1849 rr.,” Zapysky NTSh, LXIII-LXIV (L’viv 1905), 58 pp.; idem, “Do istorii organizovannia natsional’nykh gvardii v 1848 r.,” Zapysky NTSh, LXXIII (L’viv 1906), pp. 125-142; idem, "Batalion rus’kykh hirskykh stril’tsiv 1849-1850,” Zapysky NTSh, CVII (L’viv 1912), pp. 52-72; idem, “Proby organizovania rus’kykh natsional’nykh gvardii u Halychyni 1848-1849,” Zapysky NTSh, CXIII (L’viv 1913), pp. 77-146. See also the shorter essay by F.I. Svistun, “Galitsko-russkoe voisko v 1848-1849 godakh,” Zhivoe slovo I (L’viv 1899), pp. 30-39.

38 Ivan Franko, “Lukian Kobylytsia; epizod iz istorii Hutsul’shchyny v pershii polovyni XIX v.,” Zapysky NTSh, XLIX (L’viv 1902), 40 pp., reprinted in his Tvory, vol. XIX (Kiev: Derzhavne vyd-vo khudozhn’oi literatury 1956), pp. 716-752; la. Levyts’kyi, “1 y 2 padolysta 1848 r. v L’vovi,” Zapysky NTSh, XXV (L’viv 1898), pp. 1-43.

39 F.I. Steblii, “Selians’kyi rukh u Skhidnii Halychyni pid chas revoliutsii 1848-1849 rr.,” Ukrai’ns’kyi istorychnyi zhurnal, XVI, 6 (Kiev 1973), pp. 28-38; Jan Kozik, “Kwestia wlosciariska w Galicji Wschodniej w polityce Holownej Rady Ruskiej 1848-1849,” in Prace Historyczne, no. 50, Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu Jagiellonskiego, CCCLXIV (Warsaw and Cracow 1974), pp. 63-93; and Stefan Kieniewicz, Pomiqdzy Stadionem a Goslarern: sprawa wloscianska w Galicji w 1848 r.

Relations between Galicia’s two major nationalities, especially the reaction by Poles to the efforts of Ukrainians to become a distinct national and political force, are discussed in a general survey by Jan Kozik.^[392] More specifically, the activity of the pro-Polish Ruthenian Council (Rus’kyi Sobor) is analyzed by Nina Pashaeva in a factually accurate though critical account, while Marceli Handelsman has dealt with the Ukrainian question in a monograph on Prince Adam Czartoryski (1770-1861), the influential Polish exile in Paris who urged that Galician Poles cooperate with local Ukrainians as part of his larger effort to undermine Russia and restore an independent Polish state.^[393] An insight into Polish-Ukrainian rela­tions is also provided in biographies of Galicia’s governors during the revolution­ary years: the Austrian Franz Stadion, who ostensibly “invented the Ruthen- ians,” and Waclaw Zaleski, the student of Ukrainian folklore and the first Pole to hold the governor’s post.^[394]

Ukrainian activity outside Galicia during 1848-1849 has also been studied extensively. Recent articles by historians in Poland have given particular attention to Ukrainian participation in the parliamentary debates at Vienna and Kromeriz,^[395] while the prewar Ukrainian scholar Ivan Bryk has provided the most detailed account of Galician-Ukrainian participation at the Slav Congress in Prague.^[396] The Czech historians Vladimir Hosticka and Vdclav ZaCek have described Czech-Ukrainian relations at the Slav Congress and in the Reichstag, where Czech leaders opposed the Ukrainian demand to divide Galicia but supported all their efforts for cultural and political autonomy in the face of Polish opposition.^[397]