Figure 1.--Here we see a Ukranian peasant shepoard boy in Galacia is wearing a straw outfit for protection when it rained, probably in he 190s. Notice the lack of cover. The peaantry in the Austo-Hungarian Empire did not own the land they worked. This varied somewhat in the various Austro-Hungarian oriovinces. This was not unsual at the time. America was still a rare country in which small-scale farmers commonly owned land. The image gives a good idea why Eropeans were flooding into Ameruica at the time. American text books often show pictures of the poverty among immigant communities. Realy do they show images like this depicting what conditiions the immigrant were fleeing. This biy probably never attended a scgool. Upon arrival in Ameuica he would be enrolled in a finme public school.

Galicia is an historic region of eastern Europe that was a part of Poland before Austria annexed it (18th century). It was resrored to the resurected Polish state after World War I (1918-19) and then divided between Poland and the Soviet Uktaine aftyer Workd War II (1945). Unlike 1918, the Soviet Union used the NKVD to force massive population movements. Galacia includes the slopes of the Carpathian Mountains and plains to the north and bordering on Slovakia in the south. The region is drained by imortant rivers , the upper Dniester, the upper Vistula, and the San. This divides Galicia into the western or Polish and the eastern or Ukrainian parts The principal cities are Kraków (Poland) and Lvov (Ukraine). The region includes rich agricultural and after seizing the area, Austriab poloicy was to keepm it largely agricukltural. Industrial development would only begin after World War II. Galacia in central Europe has a long history. With the death in battle of Hungarian King Louis II, the Habsburgs inherited the Hungarian Crown. And with it the Hungarioan claims to the Kingship of Galicia and Lodomeria. At the time thiswas maningless. Poland which contolled the aea was still a great power. This had changed by the 18th cebtury when the Polih Partitiins commenced. Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary, justified participaion in the First Polish Partition with these historical claims (1772). The Tsarist Empire seized Volhynia to the north-east. Much of Lesser Poland -- Nowy Sącz and Przemyśl (1772–1918), Zamość (1772–1809), Lublin (1795–1809), and Kraków (1846–1918) – made up Austrian Galicia. Interestingky, while Austria's claim was based on the historical Hungarian crown claim, Galicia and Lodomeria were not transferred to Hungarian lands after the Ausgleich (1867). Galacia became part of Cisleithania, the Austrian-administered regions of Austria-Hungary. Thevofficila name was the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria with the Duchies of Auschwitz and Zator. After the Free City of Kraków was incorprated (1846), it became the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, and the Grand Duchy of Kraków with the Duchies of Auschwitz and Zator. Each of these historic entities were entirely separate. They were only united under Austrian rule they became a single province set betweem Prussia/Germany and Russia, a dangerous location. While seized from the Polish Kingdom, the population was not entirely Polish. There was avery substabntial Ukranian population. (For nationalist reasons, the Austrians referred to Ukranians as Ruthebians.) A crutial point is that the Poles had a tradition of satehood while the Ukrabians did not. Many of the cities had substantial Jewish populations. Galicia became the centre of Hasidism. The institution of serfdom was well established in Poland at the time it was acquired by Austria. The problem for Austria in acquiring Galicia that Poland also had a strong national spirit shared by both the aristocrscy and the serfs. This would eventually result in the Galacian Slaughter (Rzeź galicyjska), also known as the Peasant Uprising (1846) and the Szela Uprising. It was a 2-month uprising of Galician peasants centered around Tarnów. Many of the insurgents were fornmer serfs, but supported by the Zlachta (Galacian Polish aristocrats). It was part of the wider Kraków Uprising. The Galician peasants killed some 1,000 noblemen and destroyed about 500 manors. [Berend, p. 212.] The Austrian Imperial regime moved in the Imperial Army to destroy the Zlachta and to attempt to supress Polish nattionalism in Galacia. The Slaughter proved to be the the largest peasant uprising on Polish lands in the 19th century. Some historians call it 'the last jacquerie or peasant uprising in European history'. [Ertl, p. 352.]

Sources

Berend, Iván T. History Derailed: Central and Eastern Europe in the Long Nineteenth Century (University of California Press: 2003).

Ertl, Alan W. Toward an Understanding of Europe: A Political Economic Précis of Continental Integration(Universal-Publishers: 2008).

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Created: 7:13 AM 9/16/2024
Last updated: 7:13 AM 9/16/2024