Ukrainian Speakers in the Austro-Hungarian Empire
A similar mosaic developed across the border in the Habsburg Monarchy. According to the Austrian and Hungarian censuses of 1910, 3.4 million Ukrainian speakers lived in Galicia, 300,000 in Bukovina, and 470,000 in the seven northeastern counties of the Hungarian Kingdom24 (see map 3).
Ukrainian speakers constituted 40.2 per cent of the entire Galician crown land, a plurality (38.4 per cent) in Bukovina, and approximately 28.7 per cent of the total Hungarian seven-county population (in 1900).25 In addition to large numbers of Polish speakers, German speakers, and Magyar speakers, Jews also played an important role in these Ukrainian-speaking areas. In 1910, members of this last community formed nearly 11 per cent of the total Galician population, nearly 13 per cent in Bukovina, and 11.4 per cent in Transcarpathia.26As the Ukrainian national movement emerged in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the early twentieth century, its leaders demanded a redrawing of the borders of the crown lands and the establishment of an autonomous Ukrainian-speaking region, where the majority of their compatriots lived. If only the most Ukrainian-speaking compact territories were considered, Ukrainian speakers would have constituted a majority in Austria’s eastern Galicia (65 per cent), Transcarpathia (60.4 per cent), and northern Bukovina (56.5 per cent).27 But Habsburg bureaucrats opposed such changes. Once one national group received a concession from the central authorities, they reasoned, other national groups would demand as much, if not more.
Roman Catholicism prevailed in Austria-Hungary, but the Ukrainianspeaking population of Galicia, Bukovina, and Transcarpathia identified themselves, for the most part, as Greek Catholics. Formed in 1596, this religious group tore apart the unity of the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth’s Orthodox believers.
At first, Polish authorities and the Roman Catholic Church enthusiastically supported this hybrid faith (which recognized the primacy of the Pope of Rome, but retained the eastern rite, the Slavonic liturgical language, administrative autonomy, and married clergy), primarily as a means to convert the Orthodox to Roman Catholicism. After the brutal Cossack uprising of 1648-54, the Poles dismantled Orthodox institutions in the areas they recovered and favoured the Greek Catholic Church. The local population, which initially reacted with intense hostility to this religious metamorphosis, grew to accept this faith, but did not embrace Roman Catholicism. Disappointed with this outcome, the Polish authorities discriminated against the Greek Catholics and considered them second- class Christians. After the partitions of Poland, the Austrian monarchy supported the Ukrainian-speaking Greek Catholics and raised their status to equality with the Roman Catholics.In addition to religious differences, linguistic divisions in the Romanov and Habsburg empires complicated the emergence of a modern Ukraine. The languages groups spoke corresponded closely with class divisions and with urban and rural ways of life. The Ukrainian speakers dwarfed other language and cultural communities, especially in the countryside. In the Right Bank, for example, the overwhelming majority of peasants in 1897 listed Little Russian as their native language; the landlords, Polish or Russian (although one-third of the landlords did list Little Russian); and many of the townspeople, Russian or Yiddish.28 In the Left Bank and Novorossiia, the number of Ukrainian speakers surpassed the members of other language and cultural communities, especially in the countryside. Most of the urban residents identified themselves as Russian speakers. In the Ukrainian-speaking areas of Austria-Hungary, the majority of landlords and townspeople were Polish speakers, German speakers, Romanian speakers, or Hungarian speakers. A high percentage of those who identified themselves as Jews also lived in urban environments. Although these non-Ukrainian-speaking groups remained small, they played critical roles in the socio- economic development of the Austrian and Russian Ukrainianspeaking provinces in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In these provinces, the majority of members of the most powerful political, social, and economic elites in the towns and rural areas spoke languages other than those spoken in the Ukrainian-speaking countryside.