Galician Russophilia

[citation needed] This process of Polonisation was, however, resented by the peasants, the clergy, and small minority of nobles who retained their East Slavic culture, religion or both.

The Austrian Emperor emancipated the serfs, introduced compulsory education and raised the status of the Ruthenian priests to that of their Polish and Hungarian counterparts.

Initially, there existed a fluidity between all three national orientations, with people changing their allegiance throughout their lives, and until approximately the turn of the 20th century members of all three groups frequently identified themselves by the ethnonym Ruthenians (Rusyny).

Its proponents, referred to as "Old Ruthenians", were mainly wealthier or more influential priests and the remnants of the nobility who had not been Polonised, and were quite loyal to the Habsburgs, to whom they owed their higher social standing.

He wrote that the standard Russian language was more acceptable for modern writing and that the popular dialects in Ukraine were corrupted by Polish influence.

These ideas were stimulated by the Russian pan-Slavist Mikhail Pogodin, who stayed in Lviv (called then Lemberg) in 1835 and 1839–1840 and who during this time influenced the local Ruthenian intelligentsia.

Indeed, the historiography of the medieval Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia was largely begun by Galician Russophiles and served as the basis for their nation-building project (in contrast, the Ukrainophiles at that time focused on the history of the Cossacks).

[7] In terms of literature and culture, the Russophiles promoted Nikolai Gogol and Ivan Naumovich in contrast to Ukrainophile emphasis on Taras Shevchenko.

In Galicia, Russophilia emerged as early as the 1830s, when "Society of scholars" was organized in Przemyśl and was stimulated in part by the presence in Lviv in 1835 and from 1839–1840 of Russian pan-Slavist Mikhail Pogodin who became acquainted with the local Ruthenian intelligentsia and became an influence on them.

Within a generation of achieving dominance of Western Ukrainian life, however, the Russophiles were eclipsed by the Ukrainophiles, or so-called Populists (Narodovtsi).

Originally coming from the same social stratum as the Russophiles (priests and nobles), but joined by the emerging secular intelligentsia, the Ukrainophiles were from a younger generation who unlike their fathers found enthusiasm for Taras Shevchenko rather than the Tsars, and embraced the peasantry rather than rejected it.

In order to help the impoverished peasants, Ukrainophile activists set up co-operatives that would buy supplies in large quantities, eliminate middlemen, and pass the savings onto the villagers.

A second important factor for the success of the Ukrainophiles was the exile from Dnieper Ukraine of a large number of well-educated and talented eastern Ukrainian writers and scholars, such as the writer Panteleimon Kulish, the former professor of Kiev's University of St. Vladimir, economist and philosopher Mykhailo Drahomanov, and especially the historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky, who headed a newly established department at the University of Lviv.

This phenomenon led to the ironic observation of Drahomanov that the Ukrainophiles were actually more in touch with contemporary Russian cultural and intellectual trends than were the Russophiles despite the latter group's love for Russia.

Many of the classics teachers needed as a result of Russian educational reforms promoted by Dmitry Tolstoy in the 19th century were Galicians.

[18] The 1890 agreement was crucial in helping Ukrainian national identity flourish in Galicia earlier than it did in the Russian Empire's territories where it was suppressed.

[19] Other factors helped Ukrainophilia triumph over Russophilia in Galicia: the Polish-dominated high society of Galicia was deeply anti-Russian in response to the Russian suppression of Polish uprisings, hence, the Galician Polish gentry set an anti-Russian tone for polite society while remaining sympathetic to the Ukrainophile movement.

They founded the Russian National Party, called for complete identification with Russia and promoted the conversion of the western Ukrainian people to Orthodoxy.

[25] Immediately before the outbreak of World War I, the Austrian and Hungarian governments held numerous treason trials of those suspected of Russophile subversion.

Russophiles were punished for allegedly seeking to separate Galicia, Northern Bukovina and parts of northern Hungary from Austria-Hungary and attaching them to Russia, of seeking volunteers for the Russian army, and of organizing a pro-Russian paramilitary group known as the Russkie Druzhiny – a Russophile counterpart to the Ukrainophile pro-Austrian Ukrainian Sich Riflemen.

Russian Grand Duke Nicholas issued a manifesto proclaiming that the people of Galicia were brothers who had "languished for centuries under a foreign yoke" and urged them to "raise the banner of United Russia.

Ukrainian schools were forcibly converted to Russian-language instruction,[29] reading rooms, newspapers, co-operatives and credit unions were closed, and hundreds of community leaders were arrested and exiled under suspicion of collaboration.

Although Nicholas II issued a decree forbidding forceful conversion from Uniatism to Orthodoxy, except in cases where 75% of the parishioners approved,[30] the ultimate goal was the liquidation of the Ukrainian Catholic Church.

[31] The Russians were aided in their suppression of Ukrainian culture by local Russophiles[32] and by Polish anti-Ukrainian figures such as Lviv professor Stanisław Grabski.

When Austria regained Galicia in June 1915, most of the remaining Galician Russophiles and their families retreated alongside the Russian army in fear of reprisals.

Kost Levitsky, a prominent Ukrainophile leader and the future president of the West Ukrainian National Republic, appeared as a prosecutor during the trials against the Russophiles.

[38] Karpatska Rus', a Rusyn language newspaper published in the United States, avoided any suggestion that the Lemkos were a branch of the Ukrainians.

[43] In 1938, Carpathian Ruthenia gained its autonomy under the Prime Minister Andrej Bródy but was deposed on 11 October 1938, when he was revealed to be a Hungarian agent.

[47] In the 2019 presidential election, Smer's Maroš Šefčovič and Štefan Harabin had a positive correlation with Greek Catholic and Eastern Orthodox communities.

[48] In the 2024 European Parliament election, Smer won 35% of the Rusyn vote followed by the far-right Republic Movement (15%) and the social democratic Hlas with 12%.