The Ukrainian Response

If 1848 was a high point for the Ukrainians of Galicia, the 1860s were certainly a low point. Vienna’s concessions to the Poles shocked and confounded Ukrainians. During the revolution of 1848 they had confronted the Poles as political equals; now they found themselves completely subordinated to them.

In the 1860s the interest and hopes of many educated Ukrainians focused on Russia. This was not suprising, for at this time various Slavic peoples, such as the Czechs, Serbs, and Bulgarians, who were hard pressed by Germans or Ottomans, also looked to their fellow Slavs, the Russians, for help. For its own purposes, Russia encouraged these Slavophile tendencies by establishing cultural contacts with and providing subsidies to these “kindred” peoples. One of the first and most avid Russian cultural missionaries was Mikhail Pogodin, a noted conservative historian, who in 1835 visited Lviv and established contacts with the Ukrainian intelligentsia. Although at the time his pro-Russian exhortations had little impact, in the climate of the 1860s, they began to bear fruit.

An early convert to Russophilism in Galicia was Denys Zubrytsky, a historian and one of the few Ukrainian noblemen.

Russophilism was attractive to the Old Ruthenians, not only because of Slavophile propaganda and disenchantment with the Habsburgs, but also because many of the veterans of 1848 believed that the only way they could withstand the Poles was to rely on Russia. Social psychology also played an important role. Even to the casual observer, it was evident that the Ukrainian clergy-elite suffered from an ethnic and social inferiority complex. Like every elite, it yearned for recognition and prestige. Yet Polish noblemen rarely failed to emphasize their social superiority over the Greek Catholic priests. Certainly the peasant nature of Ukrainian society and culture did not provide prestige and after the setbacks of the 1860s, Ukrainianism became even less appealing. Therefore, the opportunity to identify with the mighty tsar, the numerous Russian people and their flourishing culture addressed some of the clergy’s deep-seated needs. There was also a pragmatic consideration: given Austria’s weakness and Russia’s power, the possiblity that the Russians would take over Galicia sooner or later seemed realistic and many educated Ukrainians thought it prudent to climb on the Russian “bandwagon” early.

The Russophilism of the Ukrainians differed from that of the Czechs and other Slavs in that it went much further in stressing the similarity, even the identicalness, of Ukrainians and Russians.

By retreating completely from the positions of 1848, the Old Ruthenians showed that they did not believe in their ability to stand on their own culturally and, even more so, politically. A popular saying caught the essence of their position: “If we are to drown,” Russophiles frequently stated, “we prefer a Russian sea to a Polish swamp.” Another ramification of this attitude was that the Old Ruthenians, in placing all their hopes on Russian support, concluded that it was pointless to mobilize the Ukrainian masses. Their policies, therefore, came to be characterized by passivity and inertia.

But the Old Ruthenians were not so bold as to reject the Habsburgs openly. While stressing their cultural ties with Russia, they were careful to declare, in the same Slovo article of 1866: “We are and always have been unwaveringly loyal to our august Austrian monarch and the illustrious Habsburg dynasty.”¹² Some of them, notably the higher clergy, hedged even further, arguing that they were neither Russians nor Ukrainians but a separate Galician people. This muddled self-perception, as well as stress on localism, kowtowing to the powers that be, and attempts to identify with the mighty Russian Empire while reserving certain regional distinctions for themselves, was, of course, not a new phenomenon in Ukrainian history.

Among Ukrainians the impact of Russophilism was most clearly evident in the area of language. In line with their elitism, the Old Ruthenians adamantly refused to use the vernacular (or, “the tongue of swineherds and shepherds,” as they referred to it) as a basis for a Ukrainian literary language. They wanted their language to have a recognized literary tradition and prestige. Therefore, Church Slavonic, the ancient language of the ecclesiastical texts, together with an admixture of Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian words, was used in their publications.

This unwieldy, artificial linguistic amalgam, or iazychie, as it was called, may have been prestigious but it was also barely comprehensible, especially to the peasantry. Even educated Ukrainians who wrote in it, each according to his own haphazard rules, rarely spoke it, preferring the use of Polish. When asked why they used Polish, an Old Ruthenian responded that “because Little Russian is the language of the peasants and we do not know Russian, therefore we speak in the civilized language of the Poles.”¹³ The linguistic detour of the Old Ruthenian Russophiles was a rejection of the literary principles that guided the Ruthenian Triad and of the open espousals of the vernacular that appeared in 1848. So adamant were the Russophiles in their opposition to the vernacular that they even welcomed the ban on Ukrainian publications in Russia in 1876. And it was on this issue of language that the earliest opposition, emanating from among Ukrainian students, developed against the Galician Russophiles.

It was no easy matter for the younger generation to do battle with their well-established elders. The Russophiles dominated almost all the Ukrainian institutions. The National Home, the well-endowed Stauropegian Institute, the publishing house of the Galician-Ruthenian Matytsia, as well as much of the press, including the largest newspaper, Slovo, were in their hands.

In the pre-1848 period, it was the youth, led by the Ruthenian Triad, that espoused the use of the vernacular and, despite the backtracking of their elders, it was youth again that came to the defense of the spoken language in the 1860s. Like the Old Ruthenian Russophiles, many young West Ukrainians also looked to the east. But, while the older generation adulated the tsar, the youth was inspired by Shevchenko. It not only admired the beauty, vitality, and power that he drew from the language of the people, but it also shared his and many East Ukrainians’ orientation to the peasantry (narod). Hence, the term Narodovtsi was commonly applied to the West Ukrainian Populists.

Besides the generational and ideological differences that separated the Russophiles and the Populists, there were also social distinctions. The former tended to be well-placed ecclesiastical and secular bureaucrats and other “solid citizens”; the latter consisted mostly of students, younger clergy, and the rising secular intelligentsia. Yet, one should not exaggerate the initial differences that separated these two emerging camps within the thin stratum of educated West Ukrainians. At the outset, their disagreements focused almost exclusively on linguistic and literary matters. Otherwise, adherents of both groups shared similar values and backgrounds (frequently clerical) and they viewed their disagreements as a falling out among older and younger members of the same family.

External influences, however, gradually widened the gulf between the two factions. While Russophiles perused the works of conservative Slavophile Russian authors, the Populists avidly read the writings of Shevchenko, Kulish and Kostomarov.

The consensus that emerged among the Populists rested, first and foremost, on the recognition of the Ukrainians as a separate nation that stretched from the Caucasus to the Carpathians and that best expressed itself in its own vernacular. They concluded that the most effective way of emphasizing and developing this national distinctiveness was to cultivate and propagate the use of the Ukrainian language. Therefore, to them the main national issue was the linguistic and literary one. This narrow approach precluded the possibility of addressing social problems, challenging the government, and even engaging in politics. In this respect, the Populists were the West Ukrainian variant of the Ukrainophiles in the Russian Empire. A further similarity was that the Populists, like the Ukrainophiles, had no foreign support, as did the Russophiles. Because they had to rely on their “own people,” they were (theoretically) more democratic than their conservative Russophile rivals.

Almost all existing Ukrainian institutions, including the press, were controlled by the Russophiles – and the Populists had little access to them. The only solution was to create new ones. Surreptitiously – the Russophile hierarchy forbade seminarians to join Populist groups or to read their journals – the Populists formed several circles, foremost among them being Moloda Rus’ established in Lviv in 1861. The main activity of these circles was the publication of journals, a flurry of which appeared in the 1860s: Vechornytsi (1862) popularized Shevchenko and reflected the influence of the St Petersburg Osnova; Meta (1863–65) proclaimed its goal of educating a secular intelligentsia; Nyva (1865) and Rusalka concentrated on literature; and Pravda (1867–80) was a publication in which East Ukrainians often published their works and which served as an all-Ukrainian forum. Except for Pravda, these publications, which were edited by inexperienced young enthusiasts and lacked a broad readership and financial resources, quickly faded.

Meanwhile, a number of Populists worked on Ukrainian grammars and dictionaries. Another form of populist activity was the Ukrainian theater. Established in Lviv in 1864, it became, as in Russian-ruled Ukraine, an especially effective means of spreading national consciousness. In 1868 a group of about sixty Lviv students, led by Anatol Vakhnianyn, founded Prosvita, a society for “learning about and enlightening the people.” And in 1873, the aforementioned Shevchenko Literary Society was established in Lviv with the financial and moral support of East Ukrainians.

Despite this outburst of literary and cultural activity, it soon became obvious that the Populists had, in fact, little contact with the people. In addition to this realization, several other factors caused them to rethink their position. After the Ems Ukaz of 1876, contacts with the more experienced East Ukrainians suddenly increased. The political weakness of the Ukrainians in Galicia was dramatically demonstrated in 1879 when, under the leadership of Russophiles, they managed to send only three delegates to the provincial diet. By 1880, a new kind of leadership, consisting of secular intelligentsia, professors, and lawyers such as Iuliian Romanchuk, Oleksander Ohonovsky, and the Barvinsky brothers, had emerged.

Under the impact of these developments, the Populists were willing to listen to at least one of Drahomanov’s admonitions: “The Poles have pushed you from the Galician diet; the Russophiles have forced you from your institutions … we advocate that you give up your policy of compromises and mutual denunciations and go instead to the people and organize.”¹⁴ As for the Russophiles, Drahomanov advised against any contacts with them. The Populists took this counsel to heart. Those that belonged to Russophile institutions or student clubs resigned from them. In 1880 they established a mass-oriented newspaper, called Dilo (The Deed) in pointed contrast to the Russophiles’ Slovo (The Word). That same year they called the first mass meeting (viche) of Ukrainians to discuss the state and needs of Ukrainian society. About 2000 persons, including many peasants, attended. In 1885 Narodna Rada, a representative body, was founded. The Radicals

To some observers, even the new activism of the Populists was not enough to assure them a constructive and progressive role in Ukrainian society. As for the Russophiles, they were so hopelessly reactionary as to be beyond criticism. These, at least, were the views of Drahomanov. As a representative of the intellectually more sophisticated East Ukrainian intelligentsia, the Geneva-based emigre was shocked by the low cultural level, the provincialism, and the pettiness of the Galicians. He opposed especially the predominant and, in his view, negative influence that the clergy exercised on Ukrainian life (in Eastern Ukraine, where the clergy was largely Russified, its impact on the Ukrainian movement was minimal). This committed socialist was incensed by the argument, repeated by many Galician priests in their sermons, that the poverty of the peasants was largely the result of their drunkenness and sloth. Convinced that the older generation of West Ukrainians (among which, in the 1870s and 1880s, he included the Populists) was too retrograde to rehabilitate, Drahomanov concentrated on developing contacts with Galician students.

In a series of epistles that appeared in the Galician student journal Druh, he urged the youth to reject the views of their elders, to broaden their intellectual horizons by familiarizing themselves with the best of European and Russian culture and science, and to commit themselves to aid the exploited masses with deeds, not merely words. Among a small but important segment of West Ukrainian youth, his message struck home, sparking what might be called an intellectual revolution. It led the members of this group to search for a third and socially more relevant way of defending the interests of the Ukrainians.

Drahomanov’s first adherents came from Sich, the Ukrainian student club in Vienna. In the late 1870s, two student groups in Lviv, the Russophile Akademicheskii kruzhok and the Ukrainophile Druzhnyi lykhvar, began to espouse his ideas. Several small groups of gymnazia students in the provinces also declared their support. But the most important converts to Drahomanov’s views were two gifted, energetic, and committed students of humble, peasant origins – Ivan Franko, who would become one of the finest Ukrainian writers, and Mykhailo Pavlyk. It was they who would lead the intellectual and ideological revolt, advocated by their Geneva-based mentor, against the narrow-minded, conservative thinking of the West-Ukrainian leadership.

In the time-honored tradition of the intelligentsia, the first harbinger of intellectual change was a journal. In 1876, Pavlyk and Franko took over editorial control of a Russophile student publication, Druh. They quickly discarded the iazychie it had used, adopted the Ukrainian vernacular, and began to attack the Russophiles. Soon afterward, they extended their criticism to the Populists, castigating them for their mediocre literary production and social conservatism. Shocked by the sharp criticism, radical tendencies, and anticlericalism of the editors, Galician Ukrainians began to cancel their subscriptions (readership dropped from about 500 to 260) and Drahomanov had to step in with financial support for the journal. Pavlyk also became involved in aiding socialist revolutionaries. And in 1878, to the glee of the Galician Ukrainian establishment, he and Franko were put on trial for subversive activities.

Although he received only a mild sentence, Franko was ostracized by Ukrainian society and had to turn to Polish socialists for support. Meanwhile, new and younger converts to socialism, such as Viacheslav Budzynovsky, Mykola Hankevych, Stanislav Kozlovsky, and Kyrylo Trylovsky, appeared. As a result, a small but active left wing developed among the West Ukrainians in the 1880s. By 1890 these young activists, together with the “old veterans” Franko and Pavlyk, were ready to organize a political party. It would be the first Ukrainian political party in Western and Eastern Ukraine and its appearance (which preceded the East-Ukrainian RUP by a decade) would be symptomatic of the new and dynamic stage of development upon which the Galician Ukrainians had embarked.