Nation and Memory in Russia,
Poland and Ukraine
Week 7
Peasants into ... (Russians,
Ukrainians, Poles)
1.
2.
3.
4.
Peasants into…
Russia and the Russian Empire
Poles
Ukrainians
Nation building in 19th century Eastern
Europe
Task: Make peasants into Russians, Poles, Ukrainians
Problem: Serfdom, abolished in Prussia 1807/10, in Austria 1848, in Russia 1861
• Liberation without land (peasants have to pay for it)
• Gulf between nobility and nationally mobilised urban elite on the one side and
peasants on the other side
• Problem of literacy: 1850 in Prussia 85%, 1873 in Austrian Galicia 20%, 1897 in
Russian Empire 21.1%
• Fear of estate owners and conservatives of effect of literacy on behaviour of
peasants
• National movement: since last third of 19th century challenge by socialism
1.
2.
3.
4.
Peasants into…
Russia and the Russian Empire
Poles
Ukrainians
Russia
Feodor Vasilyev, Village (1869)
• Almost all ethnic Russians, ‘Little Russians’,
‘White Russians’ are orthodox
• since 1870s some sort of local selfadministration
• Existence of an educated elite
• Russians have a state (Russian Empire
• Long state tradition: existence of a Russian
history generally acknowledged
• Weakness of Russian Orthodox Church –
since 17th c. tool of autocracy
• Late introduction of self-administration
(zemstva)
• Gulf between autocracy and educated
elite
• Empire vs. Russian nation (enormous
role of non-Russians in imperial
bureaucracy)
• Existence of a Russian high culture
• Tension between Russian nationalism
• 44% of population are Great Russians
and Russian imperial interests
• Great Russians are not absolute majority
• The Russian Empire is one of the five Great
of population
Powers
• National movements in periphery:
especially Poland
The Russian
Empire is overstretched
Dilemma 1: to compete with the other Great•Powers
modernisation
needed,
effective modernisation based on co-operation of elites, education of population…
But… end of autocratic rule, sharing of power, education also vehicle for ‘wrong’ –
revolutionary or reformist ideas – elites scared of peasant uprising
Dilemma 2: Russification of minorities needed to transform Russia into a Russian
nation state. But… Russification could provoke resistance of other ethnic groups
Major Ethnic Groups in the Russian
Empire 1897 (125,640,000)
Russians
Ukrainians
Belarusians
Poles
Jews
Other ethnic groups in the West
Ethnic groups in the North
Ethnic groups Volga/Ural
Ethnic groups in Siberia
Ethnic groups in the Steppe
Ethnic groups in the Transcaucasia
Ethnic groups in the Caucasus
Ethnic groups in Central Asia
Diaspora groups (1.43% Germans)
44.31%
17.81%
4.68%
6.31%
4.03%
4.47%
0.42%
5.85%
0.99%
1.99%
3.53%
1.05%
5.69%
1.91%
Domestic Policy 1856 - 1881
1860-1873
• First railway boom
1861 Feb 19
• Emancipation of the serfs
1863-1865
• Law (courts) and education reform,
Zemstvo instituted
1873
• Populist movement To the People (V
narod)
1874
• Universal Military Training Act, military
reforms
1879
• People's Will Party – terrorism
1881 March 1 • Asassination of Alexander II
Alexander II
1855-1881
What is Russification?
Three varieties (Thaden)
Unplanned: certain individuals take on Russian culture and
language, takes several generations
Administrative: demand by the Russian government that Russian
must be used in administration everywhere in the empire
Cultural: active policy that aims to replace a population’s native
culture with Russian
Edward C. Thaden et al., Russification in the Baltic Provinces and Finland,
1855-1914 (Princeton, 1981), pp. 7-8
Theodore R. Weeks, ‘Russification: Word and Practice 1863-1914’, in
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society Vol 148, No. 4,
December 2004, pp. 473-474
Monument of field marshal Ivan Paskevic in Warsaw
Alexander Nevsky Cathedral,
Warsaw, before 1914
1.
2.
3.
4.
Peasants into…
Russia and the Russian Empire
Poles
Ukrainians
Poland
Uprisings before 1900
1794
Kosciuszko-Uprising (Russia)
Also in Greater Poland (Prussia)
1806
Uprising in Greater Poland (Prussia)
1830
November Uprising (Russia)
1846
Greater Poland (attempt, Prussia)
and Galician Slaughter, Kraków (Austria)
1848
Greater Poland (Prussia)
1863
January Uprising (Russia)
November Uprising, 1830
Polish lands, 1840-1848
January Uprising, 1863/64
1863
1794 Kosciuszko uprising
1795 Third Partition of Poland
After the Battle of Racławice (1794), painting by Jan Matejko (end of 19th c.)
Realism and Positivism vs.
Romanticism
Cracow School:
Michał Bobrzyński
1849-1935
A short history of Poland, 1879
The Birth of the Polish State, 2 vols.,
1914-22
Warsaw School:
Tadeusz Korzon
1839-1918
Organic Work
Starting point: failed insurrections
Poland culturally and economically too underdeveloped to
sustain an independent state
New strategy:
• Improve industry and trade in the Polish provinces
• Build towns and railways
• Organize cooperatives and organize Polish peasantry
• Raise the literacy and the national consciousness of the
population
Important advocates: Stańczyk group in Cracow and Warsaw
positivists
The Polish lands 1863 - 1914
Russian Empire

Kingdom of Poland becomes Vistula land

Russification

Discrimination of Catholic Church (Uniate Church)

University of Warsaw replaced by Imperial University
of Warsaw (Teaching in Russian)
German Empire

Anti-Catholic policy under Bismarck

Germanisation of School system

School strike after attempt to introduce German language
in religious instruction

Policy to promote settlement of ethnic Germans

Discrimination of ethnic Poles
Michał Drzymała, his wife and his wagon
Austrian Crownland Galicia and Lodomeria, 1910
Population: 8 Million
West Galicia
in %
Roman-Catholic
East Galicia Together
in %
2,381,940
88.6 1,349,630
25.3 3,731,570
46.5
86,585
3.2 3,294,420
61.7 3,381,005
42.1
213,173
7.9
658,722
12.4
871,895
10.9
Protestant
7,953
0.3
30,371
0.6
28,324
0.5
Orthodox
165
0.0
2,680
0.0
2,845
0.0
Greek-Catholic
Jewish
Austria-Hungary after 1867
Crownland Galicia and Lodomeria

Polish elite profits from imperial reforms

Close cooperation with Polish elites

Social, political, economic and cultural dominance of Poles

Polonisation of administration, education

Dominance of Polish language in universities in Cracow and Lwów

Modern political parties develop,

Hundreds of Polish newspapers and journals, thousands of books are published

Polish politicians (Polish club in Austrian parliament) very influential

Polish ministers and gouvernors
Galicia – the Polish Piedmont
The Making of the Polish Nation
PRO
• Polish language and long tradition
of literate culture
• Influence in Galicia since 1867
• German Empire: rule of law
• Roman-Catholic faith
• Common history of most of the
territory until the end of the 18th c.
• Existence of a numerous, genuinely
Polish elite – the nobility
• Cultural bonds: similar traditions,
costumes, songs and so on
• Emancipation/liberation of
peasants in Prussia, Austria, Russia
Paradox: creating precondition for
Polish nation building
CONTRA
• Partitions of Poland: no state
• Living in the Russian Empire,
Prussia/German Empire and the
Austro-Hungarian Empire.
• No common present
• Opportunities for educated Poles in
the service of the Empires
• Small middle class
• Sharp social conflict between
peasants and estate owners
• Unclear borders
• Unclear national boundaries (for
ex. Polish Jew or Jewish Pole)
• National 'awakening' of Ukrainians,
Lithuanias etc.
• Policy of Russification and
Germanization
1.
2.
3.
4.
Peasants into…
Russia and the Russian Empire
Poles
Ukrainians
Ukrainians in the Russian Empire
• Assimilation
• “Little Russians”
• Valuev Decree and Ems
Ukaz
• Orthodox faith
• Attraction of Russian
culture
• Upward mobility chances
• Ukrainian nationalism
• Ethnicity and historical
traditions
• Small group of proUkrainian noblemen
• Ukrainian language
and literature
• Partial coincidence of
social and ethnic
boundaries
Crownland Galicia and Lodomeria, 1910
Population: 8 Million
West Galicia
in %
Roman-Catholic
East Galicia Together
in %
2,381,940
88.6 1,349,630
25.3 3,731,570
46.5
86,585
3.2 3,294,420
61.7 3,381,005
42.1
213,173
7.9
658,722
12.4
871,895
10.9
Protestant
7,953
0.3
30,371
0.6
28,324
0.5
Orthodox
165
0.0
2,680
0.0
2,845
0.0
Greek-Catholic
Jewish
Options
• Polish option – “gente ruthenus, natione
polonus”
• Ruthenian option – “Rusyny”
• Russian option – Russophiles
• Ukrainian option – Ukrainophiles
• (Panruthenian option) – including Belarussians
John-Paul Himka, ‘The Construction of Nationality in Galician Rus’: Icarian
Flights in Almost All Directions’, in Ronald Grigor Suny and Michael D. Kennedy
(eds.), Intellectuals and the Articulation of the Nation (Ann Arbor, 1999), pp.
109-64.
Phase B/C
•
•
•
•
•
•
1848 Ruthenian Council
Reading Clubs (Prosvita)
Co-operative movement
Emergence of a secular elite
Ruthenian-Ukrainian parties (since 1890s)
Ruthenians/Ukrainians represented in
Austrian parliament and in Galician Diet
Volodymyr Antonovych
1834-1908
Main work
History of Ukraine-Rus’
10 volumes,
Mykhailo Hrushevsky
1866-1934
The Making of the Ukrainian Nation
PRO
• Ukrainian language and literature in
the vernacular since 1798
• Greek-Catholic faith in Galicia a
barrier to assimilation by the Polish
nation
• Common history until the 17th c.
• Social antagonism to Polish or
Russian/Russified overlords
• Cossack autonomy in early modern
Europe and short period of
independence
• Cultural bonds: similar traditions,
costumes, songs and so on
• Children of Orthodox and Uniate
Priests – core of educated national
elite
CONTRA
• Ukrainian language not yet a fully
developed “high language”, Russian/Polish
available as alternative languages for higher
education
• Since 1667/1772 Eastern part has common
history with Russia, Western part with
Poland/Austria
• traditional elites have become Russians or
Poles
• no uncontested Ukrainian state in history
• Potential members of the nation live in
different empires as non-dominant ethnic
groups
• Opportunities for educated Ukrainians in
Russian Empire
• almost no middle class
• Different denominations
• Politics of Russification/Polonization