The Ukrainian National Movement in Austria-Hungary, 1849-1914

The remarkable achievements in Ukrainian cultural, organizational, and political life during the revolutionary period of 1848-1849 came rather suddenly. They were, moreover, in large part initiated from above, by the Austrian imperial gov­ernment in Vienna.

During this period, the Ukrainian national movement, especially in Galicia, went through both the second, organizational stage and the third, political stage of intelligentsia-inspired nationalist movements. Before the movement could pass successfully through these stages, however, it had to have ideological unity, that is, a clear idea of who the East Slavic population living in eastern Galicia, northern Bukovina, and Transcarpathia actually was. It was this struggle to obtain a consen­sus on national identity that marked much of the national movement among the Ukrainians in the Austrian Empire during the second half of the nineteenth century. As long as the movement remained small, the issue of national identity was germane for only a limited number of intellectuals, who in the decades before 1848 confined themselves to arguing about language. But after 1848, when Ukrainians entered political, educational, and organizational life, the stakes rose and the need for a clearer understanding of national self-identity became more pressing than ever before.

In search of a national identity

Most discussions about late nineteenth-century eastern Galicia and, to a lesser degree, Bukovina and Transcarpathia treat the Ukrainian problem as one in which the question of national identity was fought by two opposing factions or orientations - the so-called Russophiles and Ukrainophiles.

The Polonophiles accepted the notion that the East Slavs of Galicia were gente Rutheni, natione Poloni, that is, Ruthenians of the Polish nation. This meant that even though the East Slavic population of Galicia - and, by extension, Ukraine in general - spoke distinct dialects and followed the Eastern Christian rite, their cul­tural and national loyalties were directed toward Poland. According to such a premise, they were similar in essentials to the Mazovians, for example, or to any other regional branch of the Polish nationality. In other words, they were Poles (of the Greco-Byzantine instead of the Latin rite) who spoke Rusyn (Ukrainian) dialects of the Polish language and used literary Polish for intellectual discourse. In stark contrast, the Rus' patriots believed that the spoken language and culture of the East Slavic population were not Polish, but rather integrally related to those of the larger East Slavic world within the Russian Empire. Following the revo­lution of 1848, the polonophile orientation lost its attractiveness among the Galician-Ukrainian educated elite, but the Rus' orientation continued to gather adherents among the ever-growing secular as well as the religious elite. Still unclear, however, was how these Rus' patriots would define their relationship to the larger East Slavic world.

Out of the effort to define that relationship more precisely, three orientations developed during the second half of the nineteenth century: (1) the Old Ruthe- nian, (2) the Ukrainophile, and (3) the Russophile. In a sense, at the beginning of this period all Rus' patriots were Old Ruthenians (starorusyny). And while it may be true that ukrainophile tendencies among certain leaders were evident as early as the 1830s and russophile tendencies in the 1850s, greater clarification among the three orientations did not begin to take place until the late 1860s.

How did these three orientations differ from each other, and in what ways, if any, were they similar? Basically, their differences stemmed from conflicting inter­pretations of the historical past and views as to the national language. As for their similarities, all three orientations shared the belief that the origin of Austria’s East Slavs must be traced back to medieval Kievan Rus'. All three also used the same term to describe themselves and their culture: they were the people of Rus', who called themselves rusyny (Rusyns or Ruthenians) and who spoke the rus'kyi (Rusyn or Ruthenian) language.

Although all three orientations started from a similar terminological premise, their interpretations of terms differed. The Ukrainophiles argued that the terms rusyny and rus'kyi were antiquated forms of the preferable and more modern terms ukraintsi (Ukrainians) and ukrams'kyi (Ukrainian). The language and the group therefore should be called Ukrainian. The Russophiles argued that the terms rusyny and rus’kyi were local variants of the forms russkie (Russians) and russkii (Russian). Accordingly, the people in question were really Russian and the language they spoke was Russian, or, more precisely, the ‘Little Russian dialect’ of Russian. In the end, only the Old Ruthenians continued to use the original terms, rusyny and rus'kyi, which also implied that the concept of Ruthenianism was limited to East Slavs within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. While Galicia’s Old

Old Ruthenians, Russophiles, and Ukrainophiles

Behind what may seem little more than semantic sleight of hand or a play with words, there were profound perceptual differences among the three fac­tions of Austria-Hungary’s Ukrainian intelligentsia, especially between the Russophiles and the Ukrainophiles. Both the Old Ruthenians and the Russo­philes regarded the three branches of the East Slavs - Great Russians (veliko- rossy), Belorussians (belorossy), and Little Russians (malorossy) - as comprising one Russian, or a common-Russian (obshcherussiii), nationality.

In contrast, the Ukrainophiles considered the idea of a single common- Russian nationality an ideological fantasy. They regarded the East Slavs of Austria-Hungary as belonging to a distinct Ukrainian nationality living on compact ethnographic territory that stretched from the Carpathian Mountains in the west to the Caucasus Mountains in the southeast. This last, geographic formulation was put forth to counteract the Russophile formulation that a single Russian people lived on lands that stretched from the Carpathians to the Pacific Ocean.

The ideological underpinnings of the three national orientations in Galicia were differing interpretations of the history of the East Slavs. All three orienta­tions began with the premise that Kievan Rus' was the starting point of the history of the East Slavs and that one important component of that medieval state was the principality, later the Kingdom, of Galicia-Volhynia. Of the events following the disintegration of Kievan Rus' in the thirteenth century and of the Galician-Volhynian Kingdom in the fourteenth century, each orien­tation presented a different understanding. The Old Ruthenians essentially limited their discussion to eastern Galicia, as if it were a kind of distinct terri­torial and even ethnocultural unit. For the Old Ruthenians, the era of Polish domination between 1340 and 1772 was a negative and Austrian rule a positive phenomenon.

In contrast, both the Russophiles and the Ukrainophiles viewed Galicia as part of a larger unit, but not the same unit. The Russophiles adopted the notion accepted in the Russian Empire of the unity of East Slavic historical development under the hegemony of the northern Rus' princes and, later, Muscovy as expressed in the linear theory of the displacement of political centers: from Kiev to Vladimir-na-Kliazma to Moscow to St Petersburg (see chapter 2). Within this framework, they considered Galicia a ‘Russian’ land, whose unity with medieval ‘Kievan Russia’ had been interrupted temporarily by Polish and Austrian occupation along the way to its eventual ‘reunification’ with ‘mother Russia,’ to take place at some future time.

The Ukrainophiles rejected the linear theory of the displacement of politi­cal centers, which, by implication, treated Ukraine (South Russia or Little Russia) as a province. Instead, they argued that Kievan Rus' formed the basis of a distinct civilization centered on Ukrainian territory and subsequently maintained in the Galician-Volhynian Kingdom and then the Cossack state. Rus'-Ukrainian historical continuity was still being sustained during the nineteenth century in the language and folklore, that is, in the collective psyche, of the Ukrainian people. Eastern Galicia, as well as northern Bukovina and Transcarpathia, was part of this larger Ukrainian whole. It is no coinci­dence that it was precisely in Galicia’s administrative center of L'viv that the Ukrainian viewpoint was given its most elaborate presentation during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in the historical writings of Professor Mykhailo S. Hrushevs'kyi.

Ruthenians never went so far as to argue that they formed a separate nationality, their perceptual horizons nonetheless remained limited to the realm of the Habsburgs.

Language as the symbol of identity

The schematization outlined above is most clearly borne out in the evolution of the language question.

With respect to the language itself, the old controversy opposing a book lan­guage with prestige to one based on the spoken vernacular (which was associated with peasant vulgarisms) continued. In 1848, the Supreme Ruthenian Council called for the introduction in schools and publications of ‘that language which our people speak,’¹ and initially the vernacular was used. After the conservatives in the clerical leadership came to dominate the national movement, however, there was a return to the Slaveno-Rusyn book language. This meant essentially Church Slavonic, but now with fewer local vernacular elements and an increasing number of borrowings from Russian. Some leaders, like Ivan Naumovych, even argued that the Great Russian literary language as used by the Muscovites was really the crea­tion of Little Russians. If that were the case, the Galicians were simply taking back what rightfully belonged to them in the first place. In the end, it was a Galician ‘Russian’ recension of Church Slavonic that was used by the Old Ruthenians in their publications, the best known of which was the newspaper Slovo (L'viv, 1861­87). The language was called ruskyi (later russkyi) by its practitioners, but it was never codified, it had no rules, and it was described by its detractors - both Ukrain- ophiles and Russophiles - as the iazychie, or macaronic jargon.

In the 1860s, some leaders active since 1848 were joined by younger Galicians who favored use of the local vernacular. They were inspired especially by the writ­ings of the Dnieper Ukrainian Taras Shevchenko, who was just becoming known in Galicia. Because of their interest in the peasants and the spoken language, these Galicians became known as the narodovtsi, or populists. Their first attempts to publish journals in the Galician vernacular (Vechemytsi, 1862-63; Meta, 1863-66; Nyva, 1865; Rusalka, 1866) during the 1860s were short-lived. Following the 1863 and 1876 restrictions on publishing in Ukrainian that were imposed in the Rus­sian Empire, however, a few Dnieper Ukrainians, led by Panteleimon Kulish and Oleksander Konys'kyi, gave their support to the Galician populists and founded two organs, Pravda (1867-98) and Zoria (1880-97), and, after their demise, the journal Literatumo-naukovyi vistnyk (1898-1932). Although published in L'viv, these publications served both Galician and Dnieper Ukrainians, and they became the leading Ukrainian organs for literary works and for political, social, and cultural commentary. The Galician Ukrainophiles also established their own vernacular newspaper, Dilo (1880-1939), which appeared daily after 1888.

Despite their belief in ethnolinguistic unity with Ukrainians in the Russian Empire, until the very end of the century Galicia’s populist Ukrainophiles referred to their nationality and the vernacular language they were using as Rusyn/Ruthenian (rus'ka narodnist', rus'ka mova). It was not until the late 1890s and, more notably, the first decades of the twentieth century that the populist intelligentsia adopted the term Ukrainian instead of Rusyn/Ruthenian to describe their nationality and language.

This same period also witnessed serious attempts to codify the Galician vernac­ular through the publication of grammars (Mykhailo Osadtsa, 1863; Omelian Ohonovs'kyi, 1880, 1889; Stepan Smal'-Stots'kyi and Fedir Gartner, 1893, 1907, 1914) and the first large-scale dictionaries of the Ukrainian, or, as it was called, Ruthenian, language (Omelian Partyts'kyi, 1867; levhen Zhelekhivs'kyi, 1886). The populist Ukrainophiles received a particular boost when in 1893 the Austrian school administration in both Galicia and Bukovina accepted the vernacular (according to the model of the Zhelekhivs'kyi dictionary) for use in schools and for official purposes. No less important for the ukrainophile success in language was the fact that the movement had a number of outstanding writers. Not only did Dnieper Ukraine’s leading authors (Konys'kyi, Kotsiubyns'kyi, Nechui-Levyts'kyi, Ukrainka, Hrinchenko) publish in the pages of Galicia’s journals, the region also produced its own literary genius in the person of Ivan Franko. Although Franko started out as an Old Ruthenian writing in what he later called the iazychie, quite early in his career he switched to a vernacular-based medium, in which he wrote an astonishingly large body of prose, poetry, plays, translations, essays, and schol­arly works. Because of his multifarious talent, Franko showed that the Galician variant of Ukrainian was a viable instrument of expression for all kinds of intellec­tual endeavor.

Faced with the success of the populist Ukrainophiles on the question of lan­guage, a few members of the Old Ruthenian camp (Pylyp Svystun, Osyp A. Markov, Osyp Monchalovs'kyi, luliian lavors'kyi, Semen Bendasiuk) rejected the uncodi­fied Slaveno-Rusyn book language (the iazychie) and adopted instead standard lit­erary Russian. During the 1890s, they started several newspapers and journals (Besieda, 1887-97; Pnkarpatskaia Rus', 1909-15), and at the beginning of the twen­tieth century they took over the Old Ruthenian cultural organizations (the National Home, the Galician-Rus' Matytsia), whose publications they russified. Their activity marked the emergence of a distinct russophile movement in Galicia. Whether in the area of language or - as will become evident - in that of organiza­tional and political life, the Russophiles arrived on the Galician scene too late.

There are no hard and fast chronological markers of when Galicia’s Old Ruthenian, Ukrainophile, and Russophile factions arose or when they ceased to exist. Moreover, it was not uncommon to find supporters of one orientation join­ing one or both of the ideological rivals at different times in their careers. Gener­ally, however, it is safe to assume that most Galician leaders had an Old Ruthenian provincial national oudook until the 1860s. Then, during that decade and espe­cially during the 1870s, the populists, later known as the Ukrainophiles, split off. While there were committed individual Russophiles active in the 1850s, it was not until the 1890s that their distinctness from the Old Ruthenians became clear. But notwithstanding the chronological framework proposed here, it is possible, when looking at the first half of the nineteenth century, to consider individuals like the historian Denys Zubryts'kyi as a Russophile and the Ruthenian Triad (Shashkevych, Holovats'kyi, and Vahylevych) as ukrainophile in orientation, and, when looking at the second half of the century, to recognize that the former Triad member Holovats'kyi as well as a few leading Old Ruthenians (Ivan Nau- movych, Venedikt Ploshchans'kyi) became Russophiles well before the advent of a full-blown russophile movement in the 1890s. Put another way, the nationality movement in late nineteenth-century Galicia was characterized by a marked degree of ideological fluidity.

The national movement in Galicia: the organizational stage

The Ukrainian national movement in Galicia underwent a vibrant development during the second half of the nineteenth century. The oldest organizations, the Stauropegial Institute, the National Home, and the Galician-Rus' Matytsia, contin­ued to remain in the hands of the Old Ruthenians. Each of these organizations maintained a library, museum, archive, and printing shop as part of its operations in L'viv, and each was responsible for publishing newspapers, journals, scholarly works, and school texts. By and large, however, they had little direct contact with the peasant masses in rural areas.

The young populists of the 1860s hoped to correct this situation, and when they were unable to obtain positions of leadership in the Old Ruthenian organiza­tions, they created their own. Among the first of these was the Ruthenian Club (Rus'ka Besida), established in L'viv in 1861 as a kind of social society. Three years later, the Ruthenian Club established the first permanent Ukrainian theater any­where, and with cadres from both Galicia and Dnieper Ukraine successfully prop­agated the vernacular through plays staged in both L'viv and the surrounding countryside.

In terms of impact on broader segments of the Ukrainian population, the Pros­vita Society, founded in L'viv in 1868, was among the region’s most influential organizations. Prosvita, which means enlightenment, had as its original goal the promotion of culture and education at both the popular and the scholarly level. From the 1870s, however, it concentrated almost exclusively on popular culture and on work among the people. It did so through the offering of adult educa­tion classes, the establishment of village reading rooms, and the publication of textbooks and works in Ukrainian literature and history. In the 1890s, Prosvita entered the economic field, organizing stores, community warehouses, savings and loan banks, and agricultural and commercial cooperatives. By 1906, the Pros­vita Society had, besides its main building in L'viv, a broad network throughout eastern Galicia, including 39 affiliates or branches, 1,700 reading rooms, and 10,000 members. In its publication program, Prosvita issued eighty-two titles between 1869 and 1914, which totaled 655,000 copies. All were in vernacular Ukrainian.

Prosvita’s efforts in the important field of economic activity were not in isola­tion. The cooperative movement became widespread during the 1890s, with the result that on the eve of World War I there were more than 500 Ukrainian co­operatives and mutual credit associations. Among the more prominent were the National Trade Association (Narodna Torhivlia, est. 1883), the Dniester Fire Insurance Association (est. 1892), the Village Farmer Association (Sil's'kyi Hospo­dar, est. 1898), the Provincial Credit Union (Tsentrobank, est. 1898), the Provin­cial Audit Union (Kraiovyi Soiuz Reviziinyi, est. 1904), and the Provincial Dairy Union (Maslosoiuz, est. 1907). The cooperatives, all operated by Ukrainians, helped peasants and tradespeople to obtain credit and therefore the financial means to produce and sell their products. Thus, the cooperative movement made possible a process of organic social growth in which an improvement in economic standards developed hand in hand with an increase in Ukrainian national con­sciousness.

After the Prosvita Society redirected its energies to focus on education for the masses, the populist Ukrainophiles founded a new organization to promote litera­ture and literary scholarship. In 1873, the Shevchenko Society was established in L'viv at the initiative of and with financial support from leaders in Dnieper Ukraine, where at that very time Ukrainian scholarship was being hampered by new restrictions imposed by the tsarist government. The initial, literary orienta­tion of the Shevchenko Society changed in 1892, again at the initiative of Dnieper Ukrainians such as Volodymyr Antonovych and Oleksander Konys'kyi. The organ­ization was renamed the Shevchenko Scientific Society (Naukove Tovarystvo imeny Shevchenka). Five years later, in 1897, the society received a new president, the dynamic Dnieper-Ukrainian historian Mykhailo S. Hrushevs'kyi, who at the time was head of the department of Ukrainian history at L'viv University.

Under Hrushevs'kyi’s leadership, which lasted until 1913, the Shevchenko Scientific Society became an unofficial Ukrainian academy of sciences, with per­manent and corresponding members from all Ukrainian lands. Patterned on Vienna’s Imperial Academy of Sciences, it was divided into three sections: the his­torical-philosophical, the philological, and the mathematical-natural sciences- medical. Each of the sections published at least one scholarly periodical and/or series of scholarly monographs, including the historical-philosophical section’s prestigious Zapysky (L'viv, 1892-1939). With the exception, perhaps, of the schol­arly achievements during the brief period of Ukrainianization in Soviet Ukraine during the 1920s, the work sponsored by the Shevchenko Scientific Society in pre-World War I Austrian Galicia represented the apogee of Ukrainian scholarly endeavor.

The Old Ruthenians and Russophiles simply could not keep up with the orga­nizational talent of the populist Ukrainophiles. The Old Ruthenian National Home and Galician-Rus' Matytsia had some scholarly pretensions, but by the 1880s their journals had become no more than outlets for the dry and rather antiquated historical compilations of a few authors (Bohdan Didyts'kyi and, especially, Antin Petrushevych). At the beginning of the twentieth century, the younger Russophiles (Pylyp Svystun, Osyp Monchalovs'kyi) took over these orga­nizations and tried to revive scholarship in a ‘Galician-Russian’ ideological and linguistic mode, but its reach was largely restricted to a small circle of supporters.

At the popular level, the Old Ruthenians followed the lead of the Prosvita Society, establishing the Kachkovs'kyi Society (Obshchestvo imeny Mykhaila Kachkovs'koho) in Kolomyia in 1874. Two years later, its headquarters were moved to L'viv, and at the initiative of the priest Ivan Naumovych, an Old Ruthe­nian with strong Russophile inclinations, the Kachkovs'kyi Society published in the vernacular what became a very popular journal, Nauka (1871-1914). It con­tained cultural and economic information in a language and style quite accessible to the peasant masses. Aside from its main building in L'viv, by 1906 the Kachkovs'kyi Society had 26 affiliates, 1,261 reading rooms, and over 9,000 mem­bers. Between 1875 and 1914, it published 400 booklets in print runs ranging from 5,000 to 10,000 copies. Although these figures were more or less comparable to the Prosvita Society’s, the Old Ruthenians and later Russophiles had nothing to compare with the populist-Ukrainian theater and the wide range of Ukrainian cooperatives and mutual credit associations.

In the realm of education, the Ukrainians in Galicia were unequal to the Poles, notwithstanding their roughly equal numerical size. In relative terms, however, and considering the fact that there were no Ukrainian schools at all in the Russian Empire, Galicia’s Ukrainians made remarkable progress during the second half of the nineteenth century. By 1914, there were approximately 3,600 elementary schools in eastern Galicia (including the Lemko region), 71 percent of which (2,500) were Ukrainian. At the secondary level, the Ukrainians had 6 state gymna­sia (two in L'viv and one each in Przemysl, Kolomyia, Ternopil', and Stanyslaviv), separate classes for Ukrainian students at 2 Polish gymnasia (Berezhany and Stryi), and 15 private gymnasia. There were also to teachers’ colleges in eastern Galicia, each of which offered bilingual instruction, in Polish and Ukrainian. Most impor­tant from the standpoint of the debate as to the proper national orientation was the Austrian government’s decision in 1893 to recognize the vernacular Ukrain­ian (Rusyn) language as the standard for instructional purposes. As a result of this decision, the Old Ruthenian and Russophile orientations were effectively elimi­nated from the all-important educational system.

Although Ukrainians did not have their own university, there were depart­ments (katedry) at L'viv University, which offered Ukrainian-language instruction in subjects related to Ukrainian culture as well as in some general subjects (law and theology). To the Department of Ruthenian Language and Literature, estab­lished in 1848, several new Ukrainian departments were added, bringing the total to ten by 1914. The most influential was the department devoted to Ukrainian his­tory. Officially, it was called the Second Department of World History with Partic­ular Emphasis on the History of Eastern Europe. It was established in 1894, and because the first head was the Dnieper-Ukrainian scholar Mykhailo Hrushevs'kyi, the emphasis was on teaching and research in the history of Ukraine.

The Greek Catholic church had a special relationship to the national move­ment. Ever since the first half of the nineteenth century, seminarians and village priests had been among the earliest national awakeners. In fact, until 1848 the national movement consisted almost exclusively of clerics. Even in subsequent decades, as the nationalist movement grew and as its leadership was taken over by secular figures, priests continued to play a crucial role as conduits for national sentiment among rural folk. It was the priests who often taught young people in the village schools and who reached parishioners of all ages through the medium of Church Slavonic or the local vernacular. Hence, by their very speech they reminded the faithful that they belonged culturally to the eastern, Rus' world. And unlike their celibate Roman Catholic counterparts, married Greek Catholic priests were able to pass on their patriotic fervor to their wives and children. It is not surprising that well into the twentieth century many of the leading activists in the national movement - whether of the Old Ruthenian, the Ukrainophile, or the Russophile orientation - were the wives, sons, or daughters of village priests.

The relationship of the Greek Catholic church hierarchy to the national move­ment was more complex. For much of the second half of the nineteenth century, many bishops and their priestly consultors in the episcopal sees of L'viv and Prze­mysl adopted a rather cautious and, at times, distanced attitude. This should come as no surprise. Nationalism, like religion, is an ideology, and it was one that in eastern Galicia was becoming increasingly attractive to an ever-greater number of people who otherwise might have directed their psychic energy - and financial support - exclusively to the church. Then there was the question of the various orientations within the national movement and its potential divisiveness among priests. Until the late 1860s, this was not a problem, since the national movement was still dominated by Greek Catholic priests, many of whom were members of the metropolitan consistory at the St George Cathedral in L'viv. Known as the St George Circle (sviatoiurtsi), this group became the bulwark of the Old Ruthenian orientation, which emphasized the use of the Slaveno-Rusyn (Church Slavonic) language and Old Slavonic alphabet, as well as the belief that in order for individ­uals to preserve a Rus' identity in Galicia they first had to be faithful Greek Catho­lics. Because of its traditionalist approach, the Greek Catholic church was initially suspicious of, and even antagonistic toward, the secular populist Ukrainophiles, especially the outspoken socialist activists like Ivan Franko and Mykhailo Pavlyk.

It was not, in fact, until the beginning of the twentieth century that the Greek Catholic church hierarchy began to change its stance. The change was in large measure related to the appointment in 1900 of Andrei Sheptyts'kyi as metropoli­tan (reigned 1900-1944). Sheptyts'kyi was a towering figure (in both physical stature and sociocultural influence) from a polonized Ukrainian family, who rediscovered his Rus' roots and eventually embraced wholeheartedly the Ukrain­ian national cause. Because of his aristocratic status, moreover, he was welcomed among both the Polish and the Austrian social and ruling elites. While remaining tolerant of the Old Ruthenians and individual russophile priests, Sheptyts'kyi firmly rejected the russophile position on national identity. After some initial skepticism, the Ukrainophiles eventually embraced Sheptyts'kyi since they saw in him a leader able to restore the historic bond between religion and nationality. In effect, under Sheptyts'kyi’s leadership the Greek Catholic church hierarchy in Galicia gradually changed its outlook, with the result that by the beginning of the twentieth century it was becoming a bulwark of Ukrainianism.

The national movement in Galicia: the political stage

The national movement in the second half of the nineteenth century was influ­enced by political developments in various contexts: the provincial Galician, the imperial Austrian, and the international. In the Galician context, Ukrainian polit­ical life was characterized by a struggle to achieve the following goals: (1) the divi­sion of the province into two parts, each with its own diet, administration, and board of education; (2) equality for the Ukrainian language in schools and public life; (3) the establishment of a Ukrainian university; and (4) the implementation of universal suffrage. With the exception of universal suffrage, Galicia’s Ukraini­ans failed to achieve fully any of these political goals. They did, however, make some important progress in all four areas.

In Galician provincial politics, the Ukrainians were invariably opposed by the Poles, whose own political interests were in most cases diametrically opposed to Ukrainian interests. Polish-Ukrainian relations varied from almost total alienation to attempts at compromise and cooperation. At first, Ukrainian political desires were expressed through umbrella-like organizations in the tradition of the 1848 Supreme Ruthenian Council. As a result of the post-revolutionary return of Aus­trian absolutism, the Supreme Ruthenian Council was obliged to abolish itself in 1853. Old Ruthenian leaders attempted to revive the body by founding the Ruthe­nian Council (Rus'ka Rada) in 1870. When the populists proved unable to work with this group, they established their own National Council (Narodna Rada) in 1885. Finally, in 1900 the Russophiles established yet another National Council (Narodnyi Soviet). All three councils survived until 1914, but none had any long­term impact on political developments.

More influential were political parties, which first came into being during the 1890s. This was a decade of growing international tension in which the threat of war with the neighboring Russian Empire loomed large on the horizon. In such an atmosphere, Vienna urged the Poles to attempt to reach an accord with the Ukrainians. Because the Old Ruthenians were adamantly anti-Polish, the Poles, led by the viceroy of Galicia, Kazimierz Badeni, turned instead to the Ukrain- ophiles. The Ukrainophiles, who of the two were the stronger faction, were led by the Austrian parliamentary deputy luliian Romanchuk of the National Council. Urged by some Dnieper-Ukrainian leaders, Romanchuk agreed to cooperate with the Poles in an attempt to bring about internal harmony within the province. This cooperation marked the dawn of the so-called New Era, in which Galician Ukrain­ians gained a few advantages in the realm of education (including the department of Ukrainian history, the ‘Second Department of World History,’ at L'viv Univer­sity). But the results were far below general expectations, and this brief period of Polish-Ukrainian rapprochement ended before the close of the century.

There was one group of Ukrainophiles who had from the very outset opposed any cooperation with the Polish-dominated provincial administration and its sup­porters. These were the socialists Ivan Franko and Mykhailo Pavlyk, who in 1890 founded the Ukrainian Radical party. The new party called for the complete transformation of Galician society according to socialist principles, and by 1895 it had proclaimed as essential the unification of Ukrainians on both sides of the Austro-Russian border and the creation of an independent Ukrainian state. Ukrainian independence was first proposed by Viacheslav Budzynovs'kyi at the founding congress of the Radical party, and then by another party activist, luliian Bachyns'kyi, in a book entitled Ukraina irredenta (1895). This was the first time the goal of an independent Ukraine had been expressed anywhere, and it preceded by nearly a decade the similar formulation of the goal formulated by Mykhailo Mikhnovs'kyi and its adoption by the Revolutionary Ukrainian party in Dnieper Ukraine.

As a result of the failure of the New Era and its attempt at Polish-Ukrainian compromise, the political spectrum in Galicia was reorganized at the very end of the century. Romanchuk and the democratic populists, now joined by a few former radical socialists (among them Ivan Franko), in 1899 formed the National Democratic party. This party intended to work through existing political channels

Independence for Ukraine

luliian Bachyns'kyi’s Ukraina irredenta, which called for an independent Ukraine, was ready for publication in 1893. It did not appear in print, however, until the very end of 1895, when Galicia’s Ukrainian Radical party finally adopted independence as part of its platform. In the words of Bachyns'kyi:

1 wish to make as the primary order of the day the future of the Ukrainian nation [nafsiia], not only in Austria but also in Russia....

With regard to Dnieper Ukraine, the primary issue is the struggle for a constitu­tion in Russia.... But aside from struggle against absolutism, the small group of already-conscious Ukrainians must also now begin to promote to whatever degree possible among Ukrainian society in Russia the idea of political independence for Ukraine....

This matter depends to a large degree on the position of Ukraine with regard to the constitutional struggle in Russia, that is, with regard to what is now the pri­mary order of the day - the question of the internal reorganization of Russia. The position that Ukrainians take on this issue and the results of their work on its behalf will determine how easy or difficult will be the further struggle for the political independence of Ukraine....

As for Galicia... everything depends on two things: the struggle against Aus­trian centralism; and the [need for] changes in the electoral system of the provin­cial diet and imperial parliament....

Considering the political transformation of Ukrainian society in Galicia, what is the situation with regard to the struggle on behalf of the idea of the political independence of the Ukrainian people [italic in original]?

The Radical party was the first party to make one of its primary goals the idea of political independence for the Ukrainian people.... The party’s economic principles and cultural ideals cannot be achieved, however, without a politically independent Ukraine.... The idea of political independence for the Ukrainian people has, in fact, attracted new cadres of supporters among the Galician- Ukrainian ‘intelligentsia’ and the Galician-Ukrainian proletariat.

source: Taras Hunczak and Roman Sol'chanyk, cds.. Utrains'ka suspil'no-politychna dumka v 20 stolitti: dokumenty i materiiafy, Vol. I (New York 1983), pp. 27—33ff.

in order to achieve the division of Galicia into two provinces. The division was to be only a first step, after which eastern Galicia would be unified with Dnieper Ukraine to form an independent state. In contrast, the Radical party and the newer Ukrainian Social-Democratic party (est. 1900) were less concerned with national unity than with the complete socioeconomic transformation of Galician society. Finally, the Russophiles joined together with some Old Ruthenians to establish the Russian National party (est. 1900). Old Ruthenian-Russophile politi­cal cooperation did not last long, however, because the Russophiles became increasingly anti-Austrian and were not averse to cooperating with the Poles. Both attitudes were anathema to the Old Ruthenians, but potentially attractive to the Poles, who were concerned about the ever-increasing strength of the ukraino- phile movement. Consequently, the Polish viceroy of Galicia, Andrzej Potocki, and some prominent Polish political leaders threw their support behind the local Russophiles. Thus, by the beginning of the twentieth century, Ukrainian political life was divided between moderate and more left-wing Ukrainophiles on the one hand, and a decreasing number of Old Ruthenians along with younger, more assertive Russophiles on the other.

With the breakdown of the Polish-Ukrainian compromise, relations between the two nationalities grew increasingly strained. This was particularly the case after universal suffrage was introduced throughout the Austrian half of the empire in 1907. That same year, the Ukrainophiles received twenty-two seats and the Russophiles five seats in the elections to the imperial parliament. In Galicia, however, the old curia system was maintained for elections to the diet, so the Poles were able to continue their control of that body. Ukrainian discontent was further exacerbated by corrupt electoral practices during the 1907 dietary elec­tions, which were accompanied by the deaths of several Ukrainian peasants. These factors, combined with the Polish decision to support the Russophiles, cre­ated a tension that culminated in April 1908 in the assassination of the Galician viceroy, Andrzej Potocki, by a Ukrainian university student, Myroslav Sichyns'kyi. Sichyns'kyi’s trial became a cause celebre for the ukrainophile movement, and his imprisonment only provoked further friction between Polish and Ukrainian uni­versity students for the next several years.

The national movement in eastern Galicia also had serious international impli­cations. The tsarist Russian government had long ago accepted the russophile view that Galicia as well as northern Bukovina and Transcarpathia was part of the patrimony of Kievan Rus' and, as such, should one day be reunited with ‘mother Russia.’ St Petersburg therefore was willing to give support to any elements in Galicia that were in agreement with this goal. It was in this context that the Ems Ukase of 1876, which outlawed the Ukrainian language in the Russian Empire, contained a specific clause calling for support for Galicia’s Old Ruthenian news­paper, Slovo. Subsidies and expressions of moral support were indeed sent to Gali­cia, through Mikhail F. Raevskii, the Orthodox chaplain attached to the Russian embassy in Vienna, and, via correspondence and other channels, between Pan- Slavist publicists in the Russian Empire and their sympathizers in Galicia. In con­sequence of such contact, in 1867 the first head of the Department of Ruthenian Language and Literature at L'viv University, lakiv Holovats'kyi, was stripped of his professorial post and forbidden to return to the Austrian Empire after particpat- ing in a scholarly conference in Russia.

Holovats'kyi had, of course, been a well-known early populist Ukrainophile who later in life became a Russophile. One important reason for his change of heart and that of several Old Ruthenians was their disillusionment with the role of Austria and its seemingly declining international status during the 1860s. Vienna, moreover, had withdrawn its support of the Ukrainian national movement in the 1850s, and by the 1860s it was backing the Poles and their influential viceroy, Agenor Goluchowski. Furthermore, Austria had just lost wars against Sardinia- Piedmont and France in 1859 and Prussia in 1866. All this suggested to some Old Ruthenian leaders that the Austrian Empire was on the decline and that the day was imminent when tsarist Russia would take over Galicia.

Such Russophile inclinations among the Old Ruthenian leadership (including sympathy for Orthodoxy) were brought to light in 1882, when the Austrian gov­ernment held a trial in L'viv at which several Old Ruthenian leaders and the Transcarpathian russophile activist Adol'f Dobrians'kyi were accused of promot­ing Orthodoxy and seeking to detach Ukrainian-inhabited lands from Austria. Although they were acquitted of the charges, the damage was done. The Old Ruthenian orientation became tainted in the eyes of much of Galician and official Austrian opinion; some of its leaders were removed from office (including the Greek Catholic metropolitan losyf Sembratovych); others were forced by subsequent circumstances to emigrate to Russia (including the head of the Kachkovs'kyi Society, Father Ivan Naumovych, and the Slovo editor Venedykt Ploshchans'kyi).

After the demise of the Old Ruthenians, St Petersburg eventually found new supporters among a younger group of Galician Russophiles. Many of them openly declared their hope of becoming part of Russia; others silendy shared the same aspiration. As part of its stepped-up campaign against Austria-Hungary, the tsarist government provided large sums of money to spread Orthodoxy among Greek Catholics in Galicia and Transcarpathia and particularly among immigrants from these regions in the United States. In fact, the rapid growth of Russian Orthodoxy in the United States was encouraged by tsarist policy during the two decades before the outbreak of World War I, and Orthodox immigrants helped to spread that religion in their native villages when they returned home. The Carpathian region, whence many immigrants had come, was particularly susceptible. Buko­vina had, of course, always been Orthodox. Now Orthodoxy began to reach as well the mountainous areas of southwestern Galicia (the Lemko region) and Transcarpathia, where it was equated with faith in the tsar and with the Russian nationality. To encourage its spread, the Galician-Russian Benevolent Society was established in St Petersburg in 1908 and the Carpatho-Russian Liberation Com­mittee in Kiev in 1913. Russophilism in the form of Orthodoxy was thus given a new lease of life in the Austro-Hungarian Empire on the eve of World War I.

The populist Ukrainophiles were also influenced by developments beyond the borders of Galicia, primarily as a result of interaction between Dnieper-Ukrainian national leaders and their counterparts in Austria-Hungary. The first important figure in this relationship was Mykhailo Drahomanov, a professor at Kiev’s Univer­sity of St Vladimir who was forced to leave Dnieper Ukraine in the wake of the Ems Ukase of 1876. Drahomanov traveled through Galicia and Transcarpathia, and from exile in Switzerland and, later, Bulgaria he continued to maintain close contact with his Galician disciples. The most devoted of these disciples were Ivan Franko, Mykhailo Pavlyk, and Ostap Terlets'kyi, who under Drahomanov’s influ­ence became convinced that Ukrainian political independence would not be pos­sible before economic self-sufficiency and cultural awareness were achieved. First, however, Galician society had to be restructured on a socialist basis.

More conservative in approach but no less influential was Panteleimon Kulish, who during the 1880s urged the Galician Ukrainians to reach an accord with the Poles. A similar goal was propounded during the following decade by the Dnieper-Ukrainian writer Oleksander Konys'kyi and the historian Volodymyr Antonovych, whose influence resulted in the Galician-Ukrainian attempt at com­promise with the Poles known as the New Era.

The last important figure among the Dnieper Ukrainians was Mykhailo S. Hrushevs'kyi, who, unlike his countrymen from the east, actually lived and worked for a substantial period of time in Galicia. His scholarship and organiza­tional work as professor at L'viv University and president of the Shevchenko Sci­entific Society left an indelible imprint on Galician, and, for that matter, all, Ukrainian cultural life. Hrushevs'kyi was less sympathetic to the idea of coopera­tion with the Poles. He felt that in the relatively liberal environment of Austria, Galician Ukrainians should build a solid national and cultural social fabric which could serve as a kind of Piedmont for a future independent Ukrainian state. When the winds of political change finally struck the Russian Empire following the revolution of 1905, Hrushevs'kyi and others turned their attention to the Ukrainian revival in Kiev. But hopes placed in Dnieper Ukraine proved to be short-lived. After a few years, Russia’s post-revolutionary liberal period was fol­lowed by a return to tsarist absolutism and restrictions on Ukrainian culture. Given this state of affairs, Austrian Galicia seemed to be the only place where Ukrainian national life could flourish. In this sense, even the Dnieper-Ukrainian political leader levhen Chykalenko could later recall, ‘Galicia was for us a model in the struggle for our nation’s rebirth; it strengthened our faith and hope for a better future. Galicia was a true “Piedmont” of Ukraine, because prior to 1906 a Ukrainian press, scholarship, and national life could develop only there.’²

The belief in Galicia as a Piedmont notwithstanding, during the first decades of the twentieth century an independent Ukrainian state seemed only a distant future possibility. This was because the Austro-Hungarian Empire, despite all its difficulties, was still a viable political entity. And Galician Ukrainians seemed fully aware of this reality. Consequently, by and large they remained loyal subjects of Emperor Franz Joseph who were committed to the perpetuation of Habsburg Austria. Even Galician-Ukrainian political leaders, whose rhetoric in the parlia­mentary and dietary forums often sounded harsh and aimed at the destruction of the existing order, were beginning to reassess what seemed in the context of all the Ukrainian lands the relatively positive aspects of Habsburg rule. In that regard, it is not surprising that representatives of all Ukrainian political parties in Galicia could declare at a meeting in December 1912, ‘With a view to the welfare and future of the Ukrainian people on both sides of the border, in case of war between Austria and Russia the entire Ukrainian community will unanimously and resolutely stand on the side of Austria against the Russian Empire, as the greatest enemy of Ukraine.’³

At the Bottom of the Pecking Order

In both relative and absolute terms, Ukrainians in Habsburg Austria (Galicia and Bukovina) by the end of the nineteenth century' had enjoyed more legal and national rights than Ukrainians anywhere else. This explains, in part, why even decades after Austria-Hungary ceased to exist former Ukrainian subjects of the Habsburgs continued to remember with great fondness the 'good old days’ under Emperor Franz Joseph.

As with most nostalgic memories, however, the more unpleasant realities were frequently forgotten. Some were recently brought to light in an award­winning German-language film by the Hungarian director Istvan Szabo. The film. Colonel Redl (1984), is based loosely on a real-life figure of the same name. Colonel Alfred Redl was a career officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army who on the eve of World War I was demoted from the high post of imperial chief of military intelligence, roughly equivalent to the present-day director of the CIA in the United States. Early in the film, it is made clear that Redl was born in L'viv, or Lemberg as it was called in German, and that he is of Ruthenian (ruthenisch) nationality, although his father's family had immigrated to Galicia from Hungary sometime in the early nineteenth century.

Redl and his superiors - none other than the heir apparent to the throne, Franz Ferdinand, best remembered for his assassination in 1914 at Sarajevo - are concerned about corruption and lax discipline among the army’s officer corps. They arc determined to set an example by holding a public trial that will uncover treasonous activity and thereby send a strong message to the officers that they had better mend their ways. Redl diligently sifts through the intelligence files and comes up with what he considers five ideal dossiers from which a suitable show trial can be fabricated.

‘Excellent idea, Redl,’ says the heir apparent, Franz Ferdinand. ‘But it all depends on the particular person.’

Redl suggests either a Captain Max von Dornheim or a Lieutenant-Colonel Gyorgy von Komjathy from Budapest.

Franz Ferdinand responds: ‘Look, Colonel Redl, this trial must prove to the army and the officer corps that the enemy is within our ranks and that we’ll strike down mercilessly those who neglect their duty. We must also show to the monarchy’s peoples and to the whole world a united, strong Austro- Hungarian Army. This is, above all, a political matter.

‘Therefore, the accused cannot be an Austrian, especially not an Austrian aristocrat, since that would weaken the trust in our supreme command.

‘Nor can he be a Hungarian. After all, we live in a dual monarchy. It’s not advisable to irritate the enemy from within.

‘He certainly can’t be a Czech. They always have demonstrations and too many parliamentary scandals and independence movements. They’d consider such a trial a direct provocation.

‘It definitely can’t be a Jew. The Dreyfus case [in which an officer of Jew­ish background in the French Army was falsely accused of treason and eventu­ally acquitted] tore Europe apart. We’d stir up international indignation, not to mention how it would strain our emperor’s contacts with the Rothschild Bank, contacts that are vital to the monarchy.

‘And, finally, it can’t be a Serb or Croat. That region is just too dangerous.

‘We must look elsewhere.’

‘Do you have Hungarian blood in you?’ continues Franz Ferdinand.

‘Ruthenian,’ answers Redl.

‘You see,’ says the heir apparent, ‘that’s what we need, a Ruthenian.

‘Look for an exact double of yourself, Redl.’

Td have to look in Galicia,’ Redl replies.

‘Then look there,’ says Franz Ferdinand. ‘Find someone with a similar background, career, and connections. Then you’ll have your man!’

The scriptwriter, who throughout the film emphasizes the conflicts and tensions among officers of different national backgrounds, poignantly captures the real spirit of the Habsburg Empire. When the chips were down, it was clear to the highest rulers who were at the bottom of Austria-Hungary’s nationality pecking order and were therefore dispensable - the Ruthcnians, or Ukrainians.

In the last months before the outbreak of World War I, the ever-present fric­tion with the Poles also seemed something that could be overcome. Negotiations between representatives in the Galician diet resulted in the approval in early 1914 of a new provincial statute. The electoral law was changed so that there would be separate Polish and Ukrainian chambers in the diet. Moreover, the provincial board of education was to be divided into Polish and Ukrainian sections, and the imperial government in Vienna agreed to resolve the issue of a Ukrainian univer­sity favorably within four years. These reforms seemed finally to satisfy both national groups, and the immediate future for Galicia’s Ukrainians seemed to augur well. It was 1914, however. And in August of that year Europe was to be torn apart by a war that would spread to other parts of the world and that at its end would bring about the complete transformation of Ukrainian society.

The national movement in Bukovina

The population of Bukovina, which became a distinct province in 1861, almost doubled during the last seventy-five years of Austrian rule, increasing from 447,000 in 1851 to 795,000 in 1910. During this period, the proportion of Ukraini­ans in the population as a whole declined slightly, from 42 percent to 38 percent. The other numerically important group were the Romanians (34 percent in 1910), followed by a sizable Jewish (12 percent) and smaller German (8 percent) and Polish (4 percent) minorities. In the northern half of the province (if it is divided more or less by the present Ukrainian-Romanian boundary), the Ukraini­ans traditionally constituted the majority (58 percent in 1910), followed by the Romanians (17 percent), Jews (15 percent), Germans (6 percent), and Poles (5 percent). Ukrainians primarily inhabited rural farming areas and the mountain­ous valleys of northern and western Bukovina; the few towns and one city - Cher- nivtsi (85,000 inhabitants in 1910) - were inhabited for the most part by Jews, Romanians, Poles, Germans, and, in some cases, the so-called Lipovany, Russian Old Believers who immigrated to the region in the eighteenth century.

Of all the Ukrainian-inhabited territories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bukovina was the last to experience a national revival. This is largely because the Orthodox church, of which the Bukovinian Ukrainians were members, had for the longest time been controlled by Romanian hierarchs who had no interest in fostering the Rus' culture of the inhabitants living in the northern half of the province.

It was not until the late 1860s that the first national organizations were founded. They included the Ruthenian Society (Ruskaia Besida), established in 1869 in Chernivtsi to promote popular culture, and the Ruthenian Council (Ruskaia Rada), founded one year later as a political group to defend national interests and to prepare Ukrainians for participation in elections to the Bukovin­ian diet and Austrian parliament. Initially, both organizations were in the hands of Old Ruthenians or of Russophiles (the priests Vasyl' Prodan and Sydir Vorob- kevych, and Ivan Hlibovyts'kyi), and not surprisingly, the first publications and journals (Bukovyns' kaia zoria, 1870-71) they issued used the traditional Slaveno- Rusyn book language.

By the 1880s, the activity of the populist Ukrainophiles in neighbouring Galicia was serving as an inspiration for the Bukovinians, and consequently both the Ruthenian Society and the Ruthenian Council came under the control of the populists. After 1884, the Ruthenian Society became for Bukovina what the Pros­vita Society was for Galicia. It established a network of cultural organizations throughout the province which by 1914, in addition to the main center in Cher­nivtsi, numbered 9 branches and 150 reading rooms, with about 13,000 registered members. Also at this time, Bukovina’s first major writer to use the vernacular, Osyp Fed'kovych, began to edit the populist literary journal Bukovyna (Chernivtsi, 1885-1918). The Ruthenian Society published Bukovyna, as well as several other periodicals, some original works, and some translations, in the Ukrainian vernac­ular. The Ruthenian Society also made possible the organization of several other cultural groups, and it was largely responsible for having the Department (kate- dra) of Ruthenian Language and Literature established during the very first year of the newly founded Franz Josef I University in Chernivtsi in 1875. A second Ukrainian department (in pastoral theology) was established at the same univer­sity in 1899.

At the all-important elementary school level, the Ukrainians in Bukovina were relatively well off. They had their own inspector (Omelian Popovych) on the Provincial Board of Education, whose activity helped to ensure a steady rise in the number of Ukrainian elementary schools, from 165 in 1896 (131 Ukrainian and 34 Ukrainian-German or Ukrainian-Romanian) to 216 in 1910 (compared with 177 Romanian, 82 German, 12 Polish, and 5 Hungarian). There were also three Ukrainian gymnasia (Chernivtsi, 1896; Kitsman, 1904; Vashkivtsi, 1908) as well as public (1871) and private (1907) teachers’ colleges in Chernivtsi.

In political life, the Ruthenian Council was taken over in the mid-i88os by the populist Ukrainophiles (lustyn and lerotei Pihuliak, Ivan Tymins'kyi, Omeliian Popovych). Consequently, the Old Ruthenians and Russophiles (Vasyl' Prodan, Ivan Hlibovyts'kyi, Hryhorii Kupchanko) established their own National Council (Obshchestvo Narodnaia Rada) and continued to publish several newspapers in Slaveno-Rusyn and Russian (Pravoslavnaia Bukovyna, 1893-1901; Pravoslavnaia Rus', 1909-1910; Russkaia pravda, 1910-1914). Nonetheless, the Old Ruthenian and Russophile factions remained in the decided minority, even after St Peters­burg increased its aid to the Orthodox movement during the first decade of the twentieth century and found sympathizers among local younger Russophile lead­ers (especially the Gerovskii brothers).

The political field was consequently left open to the Ukrainophiles, among whom the leading figures were the Galician-born Stepan Smal'-Stots'kyi, who since 1885 had headed the Department of Ruthenian Language and Literature at Chernivtsi University, and his rival, the local landowner Baron Mykola Vasyl'ko. In 1890, the Ukrainians obtained their first political representation: three deputies in the Bukovinian diet in Chernivtsi and one deputy in the Austrian parliament in Vienna. Finally, in 1911 Bukovina underwent a political reorganization whereby the old curia electoral system was replaced by one based on nationalities and pro­fessions. This meant that despite their actual electoral strength, the Ukrainians were guaranteed 17 of 63 seats in the diet, compared with 22 for the Romanians, 10 for the Jews, 6 for the Austro-Germans, 6 for the Poles, and 2 others. Such administratively imposed efforts at equality reflected Austria-Hungary’s determi­nation to resolve the nationality problem within its borders. Bukovina was held up as a kind of model for other Habsburg provinces, and for a while the term homo Bukovinensis was used in Austro-German literature to describe a person of toler­ance and of a high and varied culture. It was in such a positive atmosphere that the Ukrainian national movement was able to flourish in Bukovina during the quarter century before World War I.

The national movement in Transcarpathia

A marked decline in the national movement in Transcarpathia during the second half of the nineteenth century stood in sharp contrast to its rise in Galicia and Bukovina. Following the revolution of 1848 and its immediate aftermath, when some political and cultural progress was made under the dynamic leadership of Adol'f Dobrians'kyi and Aleksander Dukhnovych, the Transcarpathian national movement began to wane. This was especially evident after 1868, when as a result of the Ausgleich the Hungarian Kingdom had finally succeeded in obtaining the right to control its own internal affairs without interference from Vienna.

Dukhnovych died in 1865, and four years later Dobrians'kyi, who had aided the tsarist Russian army in its invasion of Hungary in 1848, was forced to leave the country. The russophile orientation which both these leaders had supported was carried on by a small minority of Greek Catholic priests and writers (Anatolii Kralyts'kyi, Ivan Sil'vai, Aleksander Mytrak, lulii Stavrovs'kyi-Popradov, and levhen Fentsyk). This group even managed to publish a few newspapers (Svit, 1867-71; Novyi svit, 1871-73; Karpat, 1873-86; Listok, 1885-1903), either in the traditional Slaveno-Rusyn language or a local version of Russian. The 1860s also witnessed the establishment of a few organizations concerned with assisting stu­dents and raising the cultural standards of the population (the Society of St John the Baptist in Presov, est. 1862; the Society of St Basil the Great in Uzhhorod, est. 1866), the first printing shop with Cyrillic letters in Uzhhorod (est. 1863), and some teaching in Slaveno-Rusyn at the elementary level.

The political compromise between Austria and Hungary was to have a decid­edly negative.effect on the national movement in Transcarpathia. In 1868, the Hungarian government passed a law entitled ‘On the Equality of the Rights of the Nationalities.’ Equality, according to this law, meant that since ‘all citizens of Hungary constitute a single nation, the indivisible, unitary Magyar nation... every citizen, to whatever nationality he belongs, is an equal member.’⁴ For a long time, the Magyars had been a minority in the Hungarian Kingdom, and their own nationalist leadership was now determined to reverse what they perceived as a dangerous state of affairs. In one sense, Hungary adopted a liberal policy, since according to its understanding of equality no person, whether Slovak, Romanian, German, Serbian, or Rusyn, was discriminated against. Each had equal access to whatever Hungarian society had to offer, just as long as he or she became a Mag­yar. In fact, many educated members of Hungary’s various nationalities, including Rusyns/Ukrainians, did adopt fully a Magyar identity. Known derogatorily by their fellow Rusyns as magyarones, they frequently worked in the administration and schools within their native region, where they became the fiercest proponents of the forced magyarization of the non-Magyar inhabitants.

Since a Slavic-oriented national intelligentsia had always been a minority among the Transcarpathians, it was not really difficult or out of character for the majority of educated Rusyns/Ukrainians to become magyarized. These mag­yarones reached the uppermost echelons of the local Greek Catholic church, in both the eparchy of Mukachevo (with its seat in Uzhhorod) and the eparchy of Presov (in present-day Slovakia), which was established in 1818. In the words of Mukachevo’s Greek Catholic bishop Stefan Pankovych (reigned 1867-1874), ‘If now we live under the rule of the Magyars, then we should become Magyars.’⁵

Despite the pervasively Magyar environment, Transcarpathia did experience a kind of populist movement during the last decade of the nineteenth century. A few younger leaders (Evmenii Sabov, lurii Zhatkovych, Avhustyn Voloshyn, Mykhailo Vrabel') tried to turn the assimilatory tide by replacing the antiquated Slaveno-Rusyn and the foreign Russian language with the local vernacular in local publications. In fact, several grammars and popular journals (Nauka, 1897-1914; Nedilia, 1898-1918) were published at the turn of the century in the Transcar­pathian vernacular. This trend also gave rise to the view that the Transcarpathians were neither Russians nor Ukrainians, but rather a distinct Subcarpathian Rusyn nationality. The Transcarpathian national leadership, which had always main­tained contacts with Galicia (especially with the Old Ruthenians), began to be dis­pleased with the rise of Ukrainianism there. Even Avhustyn Voloshyn, who later became one of the leading Transcarpathian Ukrainophiles, in igio referred to ‘those terrible diseases of Ukrainianism and radicalism that have recently spread in Galicia [and that] have brought about continual strife and have alienated the Rusyn from his church, his language, and even from his name Rusyn.’⁶ Whether or not such an assessment was correct, some Transcarpathian leaders believed it.

Nevertheless, the nationalist intelligentsia in Transcarpathia, whether Rus­sophiles or independent-minded Rusynophiles, were in a decided minority. Hungarian governmental pressure to encourage assimilation increased, as was graphically revealed in the school system. Following a new school law passed in 1907, the number of Transcarpathian schools using Slaveno-Rusyn or the vernacu­lar declined precipitously. For instance, whereas in 1874 there were 479 such schools, after 1907 there were none. All that were left were Magyar-Rusyn bilin­gual schools, but even these declined, from 255 in 1896 to 34 in 1913. The vast majority of the clerical and secular intelligentsia were more than willing to assimi­late to Hungarian culture and to be considered Magyars of the Greek Catholic faith.

Nevertheless, with regard to the Ukrainian national movement, Transcarpathia was the notable exception in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. During the years 1848 to 1914, developments in Galicia and to a certain extent in Bukovina made possible the preservation of the Ukrainian national idea. The Galicians as well as their counterparts in Dnieper Ukraine felt this to be the case.

While Ukrainianism was being suppressed in the Russian Empire, all the funda­mentals that make possible a viable national life - historical ideology, language, literature, cultural organizations, education, religion, and politics - were being firmly established in Austrian Galicia. The Habsburg rulers and their imperial administration may have used German as a functional medium of communi­cation, but they did not associate themselves with any one of the empire’s nation­alities. Ukrainians, therefore, could exist within the socially and politically acceptable framework of a hierarchy of multiple loyalties without having to give up their national identity. In other words, a Galician or a Bukovinian could be both a Ukrainian national patriot and a loyal Austrian Habsburg subject. The two identities were compatible. The Austro-Hungarian Empire thus stood in marked contrast to the Russian Empire, where accepting the idea of a hierarchy of multi­ple loyalties meant that an East Slav in Ukraine (or Little Russia) could be only a Russian from Little Russia, or simply a Russian. Being a Ukrainian in the Russian Empire in the sense of being something distinct meant rejecting the dominant social and political values of tsarist society and thereby placing oneself, even in the best of circumstances, on the fringes of society.

Despite its numerous problems - economic deficiencies, national friction

The National Movement, 1849-1914 457 between Poles and Ukrainians, internal controversy among different factions of the nationalist intelligentsia - late nineteenth-century Austrian Galicia provided a setting in which it was proved beyond a doubt that a Ukrainian nationality existed and could adapt to and flourish in a modern social environment. Yet the long era of the Austrian Order - the Pax Austriae, which had made such a social and national transformation possible for Ukrainians - was to come to an end. For all its positive aspects, in 1914 Austria-Hungary was about to stumble into war, a con­flict that within four years would destroy the Habsburg Empire and change the face of Europe.

This page intentionally left blank