Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria

Name

The name of the newly created realm, selected by the Habsburgs in 1772, stems from a title used since the 13th century by Kings of Hungary, who had a long-standing claim over both Galicia and Lodomeria. The term "Galicia" is a Latinized form of Halychyna, a historical region and a medieval principality centered in the city of Halych. The name "Lodomeria" is also a Latinized form of the original Slavic name of the principality centered in Volodymyr-Volynskyi, and also known as Volhynia. The royal title "King of Galicia and Lodomeria" was created by King Andrew II of Hungary (1205–1235) during his temporary conquests of the region. Since that time, the dual title was included among ceremonial titles used by the kings of Hungary, thus creating the basis for later (1772) Habsburg claims.

Galicia was the largest part of the area annexed by the Habsburg monarchy in the First Partition of Poland in 1772, with the addition of a minor part of historical Lodomeria (the Belz region belonged to medieval Volhynia/Lodomeria). As such, the newly annexed territory was named the "Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria" to underline the Habsburg claim to those regions, as lands of the Hungarian Crown. Already in 1772, the annexed territory included a significant (southern) part of Lesser Poland, but that region was not represented in the name of the realm, for various political reasons.

In the Third Partition of Poland (1795), additional portions of the abolished Kingdom of Poland (northern and eastern parts of the historical Lesser Poland, and the most western part of historical Lodomeria) were also annexed by the Habsburgs, and renamed as West Galicia (or New Galicia), which additionally expanded the geographical reference of the term Galicia, thus omitting again Polish designations from the official geopolitical terminology.

Ceremonial name

After the annexation of the Grand Duchy of Kraków in 1846, the name of the realm, in its wider ceremonial form, was: Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria with the Grand Duchy of Kraków and the Duchies of Auschwitz and Zator. It had equivalents in all languages spoken in the region, including: German: Königreich Galizien und Lodomerien mit dem Großherzogtum Krakau und den Herzogtümern Auschwitz und Zator; Polish: Królestwo Galicji i Lodomerii wraz z Wielkim Księstwem Krakowskim i Księstwami Oświęcimia i Zatoru.

History

In 1772, by the First Partition of Poland, the Habsburg Monarchy acquired Galicia, with parts of Lodomeria and Lesser Poland. Until then, those regions were parts of the Polish Kingdom: the Lesser Poland since the early medieval times, and Galicia-Lodomeria since the Galicia–Volhynia Wars in the 14th century, when they were annexed, and remained under Polish rule until the First Partition. The first governor, Count Johann Anton von Pergen, took his post in the autumn of 1772.

Lwów (Lemberg in German) served as the capital of Austrian Galicia, which was dominated by the Polish aristocracy, despite the fact that the population of the eastern half of the province was mostly Ukrainians. In addition, there existed a large Jewish population in Galicia, also more heavily concentrated in the eastern parts of the province.

During the first decades of Austrian rule, Galicia was firmly governed from Vienna, and many significant reforms were carried out by a bureaucracy staffed largely by Germans and Czechs. The aristocracy was guaranteed its rights, but these rights were considerably circumscribed. The former serfs were no longer mere chattels but became subjects of law and were granted certain personal freedoms, such as the right to marry without the lord's permission. Their labour obligations were defined and limited, and they could bypass the lords and appeal to the imperial courts for justice.

The eastern-rite Uniate Church, which primarily served the Ruthenians, was renamed the Greek Catholic Church to bring it on a par with the Roman Catholic Church; it was given seminaries, and eventually, a Metropolitan. Although unpopular with the aristocracy, among the common folk, Polish and Ukrainian/Ruthenian alike, these reforms created a reservoir of good will toward the emperor which lasted almost to the end of Austrian rule. At the same time, however, the Austrian Empire extracted from Galicia considerable wealth and conscripted large numbers of the peasant population into its armed services.

From 1809 to 1860

In 1809, during the Napoleonic Wars, Austria was forced in the Treaty of Schönbrunn to cede all of its third partition gains, plus Zamość and some other areas, to the Napoleonic Duchy of Warsaw, and some eastern areas around Ternopol to the Russian Empire. (For details, see § Administrative divisions.) In 1815, after the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna returned Ternopil and a few other territories to Austria, but assigned the bulk of the formerly-Austrian territory of West Galicia to Congress Poland (Kingdom of Poland), which was ruled by the tsar. The city of Kraków and the surrounding territory, formerly also part of New or West Galicia, became the semi-autonomous Free City of Kraków under the supervision of the three powers that ruled Poland (i.e. Austria, Russia, and Prussia).

The 1820s and 1830s were periods of bureaucratic rule that was overseen by Vienna. Most administrative positions were filled by German speakers, including German-speaking Czechs. After the failure of the November Uprising in Russian Poland in 1830–1831, in which a few thousand Galician volunteers participated, many Polish refugees arrived in Galicia. The late 1830s period was rife with Polish conspiratorial organizations whose work culminated in the unsuccessful Galician insurrection of 1846. This uprising was easily put down by the Austrians with the help of a Galician peasantry that remained loyal to the emperor. The uprising occurred in the Polish-populated part of Galicia. Polish manorial gentry supported or were sympathetic to plans for an uprising to establish an independent Polish state, but peasants on the manorial estates of western Galicia, reduced to misery by poor harvests, saw little advantage for themselves in a free Poland. Instead, they seized the opportunity to rise against the institution of serfdom by killing many of the estate owners. With the collapse of the uprising for a free Poland, the city of Kraków lost its semi-autonomy and was integrated into the Austrian Empire under the title of a grand duchy. In practice, it was administered by the Austrian authorities as if it were part of Galicia.

In the same period, a sense of national awakening began to develop among the Ruthenians in the eastern part of Galicia. A circle of activists, primarily Greek Catholic seminarians, affected by the romantic movement in Europe and the example of fellow Slavs elsewhere, especially in eastern Ukraine under the Russians, began to turn their attention to the common folk and their language. In 1837, the so-called Ruthenian Triad led by Markiian Shashkevych, published Rusalka Dnistrovaia (The Nymph of the Dniester), a collection of folksongs and other materials in vernacular Ukrainian (then called rusynska, Ruthenian). Alarmed by such democratism, the Austrian authorities and the Greek Catholic Metropolitan banned the book.

Constitutional experiments

In 1859, following the Austro-Hungarian military defeat in Italy, the Empire entered a period of constitutional experiments. In 1860, the Vienna Government, influenced by Agenor Gołuchowski, issued its October Diploma, which envisioned a conservative federalization of the empire, but a negative reaction in the German-speaking lands led to changes in government and the issuing of the February Patent, which watered down this decentralization. Nevertheless, by 1861, Galicia was granted a legislative assembly, the Diet of Galicia and Lodomeria (Sejm in Polish). Although at first pro-Habsburg Ukrainian and Polish peasant representation was considerable in this body (about half the assembly), and the pressing social and Ukrainian questions were discussed, administrative pressures limited the effectiveness of both peasant and Ukrainian representatives and the diet became dominated by the Polish aristocracy and gentry, who favoured further autonomy. This same year, disturbances broke out in Russian Poland and, to some extent, spilled over into Galicia. The diet ceased to sit.

By 1863, an open revolt broke out in Russian Poland and from 1864 to 1865, the Austro-Hungarian government declared a state of siege in Galicia, temporarily suspending civil liberties. The year 1865 brought a return to federal ideas along the lines suggested by Gołuchowski and negotiations on autonomy between the Polish aristocracy and Vienna began once again.

Meanwhile, the Ruthenians felt more and more abandoned by Vienna and among the Old Ruthenians grouped around the Greek Catholic Cathedral of Saint George, there occurred a turn towards Russia. The more extreme supporters of this orientation came to be known as Russophiles. At the same time, influenced by the Ukrainian language poetry of the central Ukrainian writer, Taras Shevchenko, an opposing Ukrainophile movement arose which published literature in the Ukrainian/Ruthenian language and eventually established a network of reading halls. Supporters of this orientation came to be known as Populists , and later, as Ukrainians. Almost all Ruthenians, however, still hoped for national equality and for an administrative division of Galicia along ethnic lines.

Galician autonomy

In 1866, following the Battle of Königgrätz and the Austrian defeat in the Austro-Prussian War, the Austrian Empire began to experience increased internal problems. In an effort to shore up support for the monarchy, Emperor Franz Joseph began negotiations for a compromise with the Hungarian nobility to ensure their support. Some members of the government, such as the Austro-Hungarian prime minister Count Richard von Belcredi, advised the Emperor to make a more comprehensive constitutional deal with all of the nationalities that would have created a federal structure. Belcredi worried that an accommodation with the Magyar interests would alienate the other nationalities. However, Franz Joseph was unable to ignore the power of the Magyar nobility, and they would not accept anything less than dualism between themselves and the traditional Austrian elites.

Finally, after the so-called Ausgleich of February 1867, the Austrian Empire was reformed into a dualist Austria-Hungary. Although the Polish and Czech plans for their parts of the monarchy to be included in the federal structure failed, a slow yet steady process of liberalisation of Austrian rule in Galicia started. Representatives of the Polish aristocracy and intelligentsia addressed the Emperor asking for greater autonomy for Galicia. Their demands were not accepted outright, but over the course of the next several years, a number of significant concessions were made toward the establishment of Galician autonomy.

From 1873, Galicia was de facto an autonomous province of Austria-Hungary with Polish and, to a lesser degree, Ukrainian or Ruthenian, as official languages. The Germanisation had been halted and the censorship lifted as well. Galicia was subject to the Cisleithanian jurisdiction of the Dual Monarchy, but the Galician Sejm and provincial administration had extensive privileges and prerogatives, especially in education, culture, and local affairs.

These changes were supported by many Polish intellectuals. In 1869, a group of young conservative publicists in Kraków, including Józef Szujski, Stanisław Tarnowski, Stanisław Egbert Koźmian and Ludwik Wodzicki, published a series of satirical pamphlets entitled Teka Stańczyka (Stańczyk's Portfolio). Only five years after the tragic end of the January Uprising, the pamphlets ridiculed the idea of armed national uprisings and suggested compromise with Poland's enemies, especially the Austrian Empire, concentration on economic growth, and acceptance of the political concessions offered by Vienna. This political grouping came to be known as the Stanczyks or Kraków Conservatives. Together with the eastern Galician conservative Polish landowners and aristocracy, called the "Podolians", they gained a political ascendancy in Galicia which lasted until 1914. This shift in power from Vienna to the Polish landowning class was not welcomed by the Ruthenians, who became more sharply divided between Ukrainophiles, who looked to Kyiv and the common people for historic connection, and Russophiles who stressed their connections to Russia.

First World War and Polish-Ukrainian conflict

During the World War I, Galicia saw heavy fighting between the forces of Russia and the Central Powers. The Imperial Russian Army overran most of the region in 1914 after defeating the Austro-Hungarian Army in a chaotic frontier battle in the opening months of the war. They were, in turn, pushed out in the spring and summer of 1915 by a combined German and Austro-Hungarian offensive. The Russian administration, created during two different periods (1914-15 and 1916-1917), was called General Government of Galicia and Bukovina.

In late 1918, Eastern Galicia became a part of the restored Republic of Poland, which absorbed the Lemko-Rusyn Republic. The local Ukrainian population briefly declared the independence of Eastern Galicia as the West Ukrainian People's Republic. During the Polish-Soviet War, the Soviets tried to establish the puppet-state of the Galician SSR in East Galicia, the government of which, after a couple of months, was liquidated.

The fate of Galicia was settled by the Peace of Riga on 18 March 1921, giving all of Galicia to the Second Polish Republic. Although never accepted as legitimate by some Ukrainians, it was internationally recognized with significant French support on 15 May 1923. The French support for Polish rule of ethnically mixed eastern Galicia and its oil resources in the Borysław-Drohobycz basin was rewarded by Warsaw, allowing significant French investment to pour into the Galician oil industry. The Poles had convinced the French that since less than 25% of the ethnic Ukrainians were literate before the Great War, and Ukrainians were novices in governing themselves, only the Poles, not the Ukrainians, would be able to administer eastern Galicia and its precious oil assets.

The Ukrainians of the former eastern Galicia and the neighbouring province of Volhynia made up about 12% of the population of the Second Polish Republic, and were its largest minority. As Polish government policies were unfriendly towards minorities, tensions between the Polish government and the Ukrainian population grew, eventually giving rise to the militant underground Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.

Administrative divisions

Prior to the First Partition of Poland, which established the kingdom, the region had been divided into Voivodeships (historically also "palatinates"). Specifically, the area that became Galicia and Lodomeria comprised most of the Ruthenian (with the Land of Halicz), Bełz and Kraków Voivodeships and smaller parts of the Podolian, Lublin and Sandomierz Voivodeships.

Soon after the partition the newly acquired Polish territories were organised into six Kreise (lit. 'circles'), named after major centers (Belz, Halych, Lviv, Pilzno, Sambir, Wieliczka). They were subdivided in November 1773 into 59 Kreisdistrikte ("circle districts"); this was reduced to 19 in 1777.

Standard Kreise (1782–1850; 1854–1867)

In 1782 the two-level system was abolished and the Kingdom was divided into 18 standard Kreise (sing. Kreis; Polish: cyrkuły, sing. cyrkuł; Ukrainian: округи okruhy, sing. округа okruha), much like the other (non-Hungarian) Habsburg realms. This system remained in place (except 1850–1853) until they were finally abolished in 1867.

In 1786 Bukovina – the former northwestern part of Moldavia which had been occupied by Russia in 1769 (during the Russo-Turkish War) and ceded to the Habsburg monarchy in 1774 as a "token of appreciation" – became part of Galicia as the Bukowiner Kreis. (Prior to that, it had been administered as a military district.)

After the Third Partition of Poland in 1795 the three western-most Kreise – Mislenicer, Sandecer and Bochnier – were transferred to West Galicia (see below). The Dukl(a)er Kreis became the Jasłoer Kreis. West Galicia was merged with Galicia proper in 1803.

In the 1809 Treaty of Schönbrunn which ended the War of the Fifth Coalition, Austria was forced to cede the Zamośćer Kreis (Zamość), along with all of its third partition gains, to the Duchy of Warsaw; these became part of the Russian-controlled Congress Poland in 1815, apart from Kraków (part of West Galicia) which became the Free City of Cracow. Austria was also forced to cede the Tarnopoler Kreis and most of the Zalestschyker Kreis to Russia, which collectively became the Tarnopolsky Krai; the rump of Zalestschyker Kreis was merged with part of the Stanislauer Kreis to form the Kolomeaer Kreis. When the Tarnopolsky Krai was returned to Austria in 1815, the two parts were re-separated; the former Zalestschyker Kreis became the Czortkower Kreis.

By 1815, the Kreise had mostly taken on stable forms. In 1819 the Myslenicer Kreis became the Wadowicer Kreis.

In 1846, Austria annexed the Free City of Cracow and it became the Grand Duchy of Kraków. Administratively, this was treated as the Galician Krakauer Kreis.

In 1850, the Kreise were briefly replaced with Regierungsbezirke and Bezirkshauptmannschaften (see below), but these reforms were reversed in 1853, with the exact administrative structure to be determined. In 1854 the Kreise were formally re-established, sub-divided into Amtsbezirke and grouped into two Verwaltungsgebiete ("administrative regions/territories") – Lemberg (Lviv/Lwów) and Krakau (Krawów). Lemberg and Krakau were themselves statutory cities subordinate directly to the Kingdom.

Regierungsbezirke and political districts (1850–1853)

In 1850 Galicia and Lodomeria was divided into three Regierungsbezirke ("government districts"), named after their capitals: Lemberg (Lviv/Lwów), Krakau (Krawów) and Stanislau (Stanislaviv/Stanisławów; today called Ivano-Frankivsk). The Kreise were abolished and replaced with political districts (Bezirkshauptmannschaften), of which they had 19, 26 and 18 respectively (giving a total of 63).

The Regierungsbezirke and political districts abolished in 1853 and the Kreise formally reinstated in 1854 (see above).

Political Districts (1867–1918)

In 1867 the Kingdom was once again split into numerous political districts (German: Bezirkshauptmannschaften), called powiaty (counties) in Polish, of which there were originally 74. In 1914 they numbered 82. Besides Lwów (Lviv in Ukrainian) being the capital of the Kingdom, Kraków was considered as the unofficial capital of the western part of Galicia and the second most important city in the region.

Other administrative entities

West Galicia was part of the Kingdom from 1795 to 1809, until 1803 as a separate administrative unit. As with the rest of Galicia, it was divided into Kreise:

Bukovina was part of the Kingdom from 1786 to 1849 (after 1849: Duchy of Bukovina).

The Free City of Cracow was a co-protectorate with Prussia and Russia from 1815 to 1846. It was annexed by Austria in 1846 as the Grand Duchy of Kraków and became de facto part of the Kingdom.

Government

After the partition of Poland, the region was governed by an appointed governor, later a vice-regent. During the war time, the office of the vice-regent was supplemented by a military-governor. In 1861, a regional assembly was established, the Sejm of the Land, which initially, due to a lack of adequate administrative building, was located in the building of the Skarbek Theatre until 1890.

Vice-Regents

List of vice-regents since 1900:

Count Leon Piniński (31 March 1898 – June 1903)

Count Andrzej Kazimierz Potocki (8 June 1903 – 12 April 1908)

Count Michał Bobrzyński (28 April 1908 – 14 May 1913)

Witold Korytowski (14 May 1913 – 20 August 1915)

Russian occupation of Galicia (September 1914 – 1915)

Hermann von Colard (August 1915 – 8 April 1916)

Baron Erich von Diller (April 1916 – March 1917), exiled due to Russian occupation

Russian occupation (1916 – 26 July 1917)

Count Karl Georg Huyn (1917 – 1 November 1918), in fact subordinate to the Regency Council and its General Commissar Prince Witold Leon Czartoryski instead of the Austrian Crown.

Political parties and public organisations

Chief Ruthenian Council (2 May 1848 – 1851), headed by Gregory Yakhimovich and later by Mykhailo Kuzemsky. It consisted of 30 members.

Ruthenian Council (Lviv) (1870–1814)

Ruthenian Congress (23 May 1848) was an oppositional political formation to the Chief Ruthenian Council, to which belonged such personalities as Ivan Vahylevych, Julian Lawriwskyj, Leon Sapieha, and others.

Ukrainian National Democratic Party (1899–1919) was created in place of the People's Council (1885–1899), eventually becoming part of the Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance (UNDO)

Ukrainian Radical Party (1890–1939)

Christian-Social Party (1896–1930), until 1911 was called the Catholic-Ruthenian People's Union, in 1930 it split when some members joined UNDO, while others created the Ukrainian Catholic People's Party.

Ukrainian Social Democratic Party (1899–1939), was created by some members of the Ukrainian Radical Party and in 1924 partially merged with Communist Party of Western Ukraine (1919–1938)

Ukrainian General Council (1914–1916), initially as the Chief Ukrainian Council, was a national political bloc of most of the Ukrainian parties. It laid the foundation for creating the Ukrainian state in the West Ukraine.

Ukrainian Forum (Besida) (until 1928 Ruthenian Forum) (1861–1939), a forum-type association created by Julian Lawriwskyj based on the Lviv intelligentsia circle, "Young Rus". The organization established its own Ukrainian-based professional theater (1864–1924).

Prosvita (1868–present)

Shevchenko Scientific Society (1873–present)

Demographics

In 1773, Galicia had about 2.6 million inhabitants in 280 cities and markets and approx. 5,500 villages. There were nearly 19,000 noble families with 95,000 members (about 3% of the population). The "non-free" accounted for 1.86 million, more than 70% of the population. A small number were full farmers, but by far the overwhelming number (84%) had only smallholdings or no possessions.

No country of the Austrian monarchy had such a varied ethnic mix as Galicia: Poles, Ruthenians, Germans (Galician Germans), Armenians, Jews, Hungarians, Romani people, Lipowaner, etc. The Poles were mainly in the west, with the Ruthenians (Ukrainians) predominant in the eastern region (Ruthenia).

The Jews of Galicia had immigrated in the Middle Ages from Germany and mostly spoke Yiddish as their first language. German-speaking people were more commonly referred to as "Saxons" or "Swabians", even though most of them did not come from Saxony or Swabia (cf. Transylvanian Saxons and Danube Swabians). There were also some Mennonites who mostly came originally from Switzerland, but spoke a dialect of Palatine German which is close to Pennsylvania German. With inhabitants who had a clear difference in language, such as with the Saxons or the Roma, identification was less problematic, but widespread multilingualness blurred the borders again.

It is however possible to make a clear distinction in religious denominations: the majority of the Poles were Latin Catholics, while the Ruthenians were mostly Greek Catholics (formerly part of the Metropolis of Kiev, Galicia and all Ruthenia in the Ruthenian Uniate Church). In Galicia, there were few Eastern Orthodox Christians, who were concentrated mainly in Bukovina (part of the Kingdom from 1786 to 1849), and had their own eparchy (diocese), centered previously at Rădăuți, and since 1782 in Chernivtsi.

The Jews, who represented the third largest religious group, were mostly traditional in their religious observance, which later developed into Orthodox Judaism. The Jewish community had a strong sense of Galician identity and called themselves Galitzianer to distinguish themselves from the other Ashkenazi communities of Eastern Europe. The Jewish community of Galicia was largely Orthodox or Hasidic in 1772 and many regarded the reforms introduced by the Emperor Joseph II, such as the introduction of conscription, as a form of oppression, leading the Galitzianer to split between the Orthodox and Hasidic communities committed to the traditional values vs. the "modernisers" who wanted to change.

Economy

Socio-economic statistics

Galicia was economically the least developed part of Austria, suffering from under-industrialization and overpopulation. The Austrian government had allowed landowners to maintain old monopolies dating back to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth period, such as the production of beer and vodka. This enabled them to maintain a certain level of wealth, and thus disincentivised the introduction of new crops and the adoption of novel economic pursuits.

The first detailed description of the economic situation of the region was prepared by Stanislaw Szczepanowski (1846–1900), a Polish lawyer, economist and chemist who in 1873 published the first version of his report titled Nędza galicyjska w cyfrach (The Galician Poverty in Numbers). Based on his own experience as a worker in the India Office, as well as his work on the development of the oil industry in the region of Boryslav and the official census data published by the Austro-Hungarian government, he described Galicia as one of the poorest regions in Europe. Several subsequent authors would frame the socio-economic situation in Galicia in a similar negative light, and East Galicia as even less developed than West Galicia. Canadian historian Stella Hryniuk (1985) sought to demonstrate that many of these early observations were flawed due to arbitrary criteria, such as valuing the cultivation of grains over potatoes:

"East Galician yields of wheat, rye, and potatoes regularly exceeded those of West Galicia. Yields of potatoes - a staple of the peasant diet - were often above those of other Austrian crown lands. Having increased until around 1890, there was thereafter a decline in the hectarage devoted to the main grain crops other than maize, but the area under potatoes continued to increase. Contemporaries regarded this trend as indicating increased impoverishment, but we need not do so. Firstly, we do not need to share their attachment to the noble tradition of growing grain. Secondly, given what we know today about its nutritional value, we should not underestimate the potato [...]".

Statistics indicate that Galicia and Lodomeria were poorer than areas west of them. The average income per capita did not exceed 53 Rhine guilders (RG), as compared to 91 RG in the Kingdom of Poland, 100 in Hungary and more than 450 RG in England at that time. Also, the taxes were relatively high and equalled 9 Rhine guilders a year (c. 17% of yearly income), as compared to 5% in Prussia and 10% in England. Also, the percentage of people with higher income was much lower than in other parts of the Monarchy and Europe: the luxury tax, paid by people whose yearly income exceeded 600 RG, was paid by 8 people in every 1,000 inhabitants, as compared to 28 in Bohemia and 99 in Lower Austria. Despite high taxation, the national debt of the Galician government exceeded 300 million RG at all times, that is approximately 60 RG per capita.

The Great Economic Emigration

Beginning in the 1880s, a mass emigration of the Galician peasantry occurred. The emigration started as a seasonal one to Germany (newly unified and economically dynamic) and then later became a Trans-Atlantic one with large-scale emigration to the United States, Brazil, and Canada.

Caused by the backward economic condition of Galicia, where rural poverty was widespread, the emigration began in the western, Polish populated part of Galicia and quickly shifted east to the Ukrainian inhabited parts. Poles, Ukrainians, Jews, and Germans all participated in this mass movement of countryfolk and villagers. Poles migrated principally to New England and the midwestern states of the United States, but also to Brazil and elsewhere; Ruthenians/Ukrainians migrated to Brazil, Canada, and the United States, with a very intense emigration from Western Podolia around Ternopol to Western Canada; and Jews emigrated both directly to the New World and also indirectly via other parts of Austria-Hungary. The vast majority of the Ukrainians and Poles who went to Canada prior to 1914 came from either Galicia or the neighboring Bukovina province of the Austrian Empire. In 1847, 1849, 1855, 1865, 1876 and 1889, there were famines in Galicia that led to thousands starving to death, which increased the sense that life in Galicia was hopeless and inspired people to leave in search of a better life in the New World. Adding to the exodus were the inheritance laws in Galicia adopted in 1868 which stated that the land should be equally divided amongst the sons of a peasant, which — owing to the tendency of Galician peasants to have large families — led to the land being divided into so many small holdings as to make farming uneconomical.

A total of several hundred thousand people were involved in this Great Economic Emigration, which grew steadily more intense until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. The war put a temporary halt to emigration, which never again reached the same proportions. The Great Economic Emigration, especially the emigration to Brazil, the "Brazilian Fever" as it was called at the time, was described in contemporary literary works by the Polish poet Maria Konopnicka, the Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko, and many others. Some states in south of Brazil have a large percentage of their population formed by direct descendants of these Ruthenian/Ukrainian immigrants.

When it comes to social relations, most especially between peasants and landlords, the area was the most undeveloped in the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Galician peasantry was always living on the verge of starvation. This led the Polish peasants to ironically refer to the province as "Golicja i Głodomeria" i.e "(the place of) Bareness and Starvation". Tsar Alexander II had officially banned serfdom and liberated the serfs in the Russian Empire in the 1870s and enacted legislation to protect the serfs. But in Galicia, the serfs could be coerced or forced through predatory practices back into serfdom by the affluent Polish merchant class and local nobility, a condition which lasted until the start of World War I.

Industry

In 1880, industry in Galicia was at a low level. In 1857, Galicia had 102,189 persons or 2.2% of the population, who worked in industry. By 1870, that number had risen to 179,626, or 3.3% of the population.

Coal mining and oil production were the region's chief industrial activities.

Oil and natural gas industry

Near Drohobych and Boryslav in Galicia, significant oil reserves were discovered and developed during the mid 19th and early 20th centuries. The first European attempt to drill for oil was in Bóbrka in western Galicia in 1854. By 1867, a well at Kleczany, in Western Galicia, was drilled using steam to about 200 meters. On 31 December 1872, a railway line linking Borysław (now Boryslav) with the nearby city of Drohobycz (now Drohobych) was opened. American John Simon Bergheim and Canadian William Henry McGarvey came to Galicia in 1882. In 1883, their company, McGarvey and Bergheim, bored holes of 700 to 1,000 meters and found large oil deposits. In 1885, they renamed their oil developing enterprise the Galician-Karpathian Petroleum Company (German: Galizisch-Karpathische Petroleum Aktien-Gesellschaft), headquartered in Vienna, with McGarvey as the chief administrator and Bergheim as field engineer, and built a huge refinery at Maryampole near Gorlice, in the southeast corner of Galicia. Considered the biggest, most efficient enterprise in Austro-Hungary, Maryampole was built in six months and employed 1000 men. Subsequently, investors from Britain, Belgium, and Germany established companies to develop the oil and natural gas industries in Galicia. This influx of capital caused the number of petroleum enterprises to shrink from 900 to 484 by 1884, and to 285 companies manned by 3,700 workers by 1890. However, the number of oil refineries increased from 31 in 1880 to 54 in 1904. By 1904, there were 30 boreholes in Borysław of over 1,000 meters. Production increased by 50% between 1905 and 1906 and then trebled between 1906 and 1909 because of unexpected discoveries of vast oil reserves, of which many were gushers. By 1909, production reached its peak at 2,076,000 tons or 4% of worldwide production. Often called the "Polish Baku", the oil fields of Borysław and nearby Tustanowice accounted for over 90% of the national oil output of the Austria-Hungary Empire. From 500 residents in the 1860s, Borysław had swollen to 12,000 by 1898. In 1909, Polmin with headquarters in Lviv was established for the extraction and distribution of natural gas. At the turn of the century, Galicia was ranked fourth in the world as an oil producer. This significant increase in oil production also caused a slump in oil prices. A very rapid decrease in oil production in Galicia occurred just before the Balkans conflicts.

Galicia was the Central Powers' only major domestic source of oil during World War I.

Culture

Newspapers: Gazette de Leopol (1776), Slovo (closed in 1876 due to Ems Ukaze)

Weekly: Zoria Halytska (first issue on 15 May 1848)

Flag

Until 1849, Galicia and Lodomeria was a single province with Bukovina and used the blue-red flag (consisting of two horizontal stripes: the upper one was blue, the lower one was red).

In 1849, Bukovina was given an independent status from that of Galicia-Lodomeria and kept the blue-red flag. Galicia was given a new flag consisting of three horizontal stripes, being blue, red and yellow.

That flag remained in use until 1890, when Galicia-Lodomeria received a new flag consisting of two horizontal stripes being red and white. It remained in use until the dissolution of the Kingdom of Galicia-Lodomeria in 1918 and is displayed in Ströhl's Oesterreichisch-ungarische Wappenrolle (1898).

References

Jan Miller: Chorągwie i flagi polskie, Instytut Wydawniczy "Nasza Księgarnia", Warsaw 1962,

Hugo Ströhl: Oesterreichisch-ungarische Wappenrolle, Vienna 1898

Military

The Kingdom was divided into three major military districts centered in Kraków, Lviv, and Przemyśl. Local military used a specialized language for communication known as Army Slav. One of the major army units was the 1st Army, consisting of 1st (Kraków), 5th (Pressburg), and 10th (Przemyśl) Corps.

Selected units (1914); command language German

Eight out of 11 Imperial and Royal Uhlan regiments were located in Galicia (see Uhlan)

One Imperial and Royal Dragoon regiment

10 Imperial and Royal Infantry regiments

Two Artillery divisions:

43rd Field Artillery Division (55% Ukrainians, 25% Poles), Lemberg

45th Field Artillery Division (60% Ukrainians, 25% Poles), Przemyśl

Five Feldjäger battalions (Military Police):

4th Galicia Feldjäger Battalion (77% Poles), Braunau am Inn (Rzeszow district)

12th Bohemia Feldjäger Battalion (67% Czech, 32% German), Cavalese (Kraków district)

14th Feldjäger Battalion (47% Ukrainians, 43% Poles), Mezzolombardo (Przemyśl district)

18th Feldjäger Battalion (59% Ukrainians, 31% Poles), Trient (Lviv district)

30th Galicia-Bukowina Feldjäger Battalion (70% Ukrainians), Steyr (Stanislav district)

Others

10th Engineer Battalion (50% Poles, 30% Ukrainians) (Przemyśl)

1st Sapper Battalion (50% Poles, 23% Germans, 23% Czechs) (Krakau)

10th Sapper Battalion (50% Poles, 30% Ukrainians) (Przemyśl)

11th Sapper Battalion (48% Ukrainians, 32% Poles) (Lemberg)

Polish Legions

Ukrainian Legions, later as part of the battle group of Archduke Wilhelm

1st Ukrainian Cossack Rifle Division (1918)

The memory of Galicia

In 2014, the Polish historian Jacek Purchla stated that there were two ways of remembering Galicia, namely as an idyllically innocent multi-cultural land, of a simpler and better time compared to the present vs. the Austrian view of Galicia as a Halb-Asien ("half-Asia") as Austrian officials always regarded Galicia as "a barbaric place inhabited by strange people of questionable personal hygiene". Galicia was always considered in Vienna to be a colony in need of being "civilized", and as a result, the Austrians never considered Galicia to be a part of Austria proper. Both the Polish and Ukrainian communities of Galicia saw the province as their "Piedmont" where plans for an independent Polish or Ukrainian state were broached, making the memory of Galicia under Austrian rule a central part of Polish and Ukrainian national memories. In 2014, Purchla stated: "The latest proof of the political significance of the Galician heritage has been the contribution of its Ukrainian parts to the success of the Maidan [revolution] this year and last year". Starting in the late 19th century, about 2 million Galician Jews immigrated to the United States, and amongst the descendants of the Galitzianer in the United States, the memory of Galicia as either a lost paradise or as a backward province to escape from is kept alive. The Economist reported: "In Europe, Galicia is a central element of Poles' national identity and of Ukrainians' search for a European identity."