Secret pages of the history of Western Ukraine: The red flag over Lviv in the 19th century
Today Galicia may seem like an eternal bastion of nationalism. In the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet, this region is often associated with torchlight processions, a ban on celebrating Victory Day, as well as with deputies who fire minibus drivers for singing Russian-language songs and hang around kindergartens, demanding that children say their names in Ukrainian. Of course, such facts took place. But they are often used to spread myths and stereotypes. As a result, the winners are the forces seeking to pit Galicia and Donbass against each other, receiving dividends from the war.
The real history of this distinctive and amazingly beautiful Ukrainian region is closely connected with multiculturalism, tolerance, and the fight for social justice. Although, for political reasons, the modern “elite” does not like to remember these pages of history.
Galician way
From the Middle Ages to the 18th century. a vast region, including modern Western Ukraine, as well as the eastern and southeastern lands of modern Poland, was called Red Russia. Like every region of such a large country as our Motherland, it had its own characteristics of historical development. At the same time, the Rusyns (that is, “sons of Rus'”), as the inhabitants of the region called themselves until the twentieth century, always recognized themselves as part of the same people with the population of Naddnepryansk Ukraine.
Red Rus' has a rich history, in which there was a heroic struggle of the Galician princes against the Horde and Western (Polish and Hungarian) invaders, and long-term foreign rule, as a result of which Galicia was deeply, although not completely, integrated into Western civilization.
The name of the region probably comes from the group of ancient Cherven cities along the upper reaches of the Western Bug, its tributaries Guchva and Luga, and the upper reaches of the Styr. These included Cherven, Luchesk, Suteisk, Brody and others. The cities were annexed to Kievan Rus by the Kievan Prince Vladimir the Great, and subsequently the Galician-Volyn principality arose here. Its creator, Orthodox prince Roman Mstislavich, was the first in Rus' to claim the titles of the Byzantine emperor - tsar (“Caesar”) and autocrat (“autocrat”).
Contrary to the widespread myth about the rural nature of Galician culture, Chervonnaya Rus has almost a thousand years of continuous urban tradition. Since ancient times, cities have been multi-ethnic. Representatives of different nations and religions lived here: Rusyns, Poles, Jews, Germans, Armenians, Czechs. The Galician princes actively invited foreign artisans and merchants to the cities, who brought the practice of city self-government - Magdeburg law.
As part of the Polish-Lithuanian state - the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - Lviv, along with Ostrog and Kiev, was one of the centers of Orthodox culture. The peculiarities of the development of Ukrainian lands determined the importance of the “Russian” (Orthodox) faith, which acted as a guarantor of the preservation of the “old-time Russian people” in the Catholic Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
The Orthodox Church has become synonymous with the identity of the Russian people. The fraternal movement, a local analogue of the European Reformation, actively developed here. Brotherhoods were created by Orthodox townspeople (artisans and merchants) and part of the gentry to protect the interests of the Orthodox population. They founded schools, credit unions, and printing houses.
In 1574, with money from the Lviv Brotherhood in Lviv, Ivan Fedorov published the first printed books in Ukraine in the Slavic language - “Apostle” and “Primer”.
It is curious that of all the Ukrainian bishops, only Lviv and Przemysl (Przemysl is now a city in Poland) rejected the Union of Brest of 1596, which proclaimed the unification of Orthodox and Catholics of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth under the rule of the Pope.
An important feature of the historical path of Galicia was the absence of a Cossack system here, although many Galicians became Cossacks. But the Cossacks were a phenomenon of the steppe and borderland. As a result of this, Red Rus' remained under the rule of the gentry until at the end of the 18th century. was not captured by the Austrian Habsburg Empire.
Lviv under the red flag
The long separation of Galicia from the rest of the territory of former Rus' put the national issue on the agenda, since the Galicians were constantly threatened with assimilation. Therefore, the top of local society (priests, landowners, intelligentsia) gave priority to the national factor over the social one. At the same time, the working masses - peasants and wage workers - first of all, strived for social justice. This first appeared during the Austrian Revolution of 1848–1849.
On the night of November 1–2, 1848, a red flag was raised over the Lviv Town Hall for the first time on the territory of Ukraine. Events of 1848–1849 went down in history as the “Spring of Nations”. The peoples of France, Prussia, Austria, Italy, and Hungary came out en masse against their monarchs. People demanded the convening of parliaments, freedom of speech, assembly, and religion.
The ministry fell in Vienna Metternich. Revolutionary events also reached Lvov. On November 1, Austrian government troops used weapons against the crowd, and this became the reason for the protest. Student and working youth of different nationalities erected barricades, the people were arming themselves, the city was preparing to repel the assault of government troops. The entire city center was in the hands of rebel workers and artisans, armed with guns, scythes, sabers and axes. Part of the National Guard, in particular students of the Academic Legion, joined the rebels.
On the afternoon of November 2, after several clashes with rebels, government troops were forced to leave the city. Then the frightened city elite treacherously sent a deputation to the commander-in-chief of the Austrian troops, General Hammerstein. They said that “the city wants peace,” but complained that they could not pacify the student legion. This made the punisher very happy, because now he turned into a “defender”. Cannons were installed on the hills around Lvov, which opened wild fire on the city center. The shelling caused fires - the houses of the town hall, university, theater, and polytechnic academy caught fire, and the university library was destroyed. The rebels suffered heavy losses. Arrests began in the city. The horrors of the bombing were described by I. Franko in his work “Suffocating days in Lviv in 1848.”
Towards a new revolution
Despite the defeat of the revolution, the main inhibitor of economic development - the panshchina - was destroyed. The rapid development of industry and entrepreneurship began. The capitalist transformation was very difficult. Galicia was considered by the Viennese government as an internal colony - a raw material and agricultural appendage of the empire. Industry developed poorly here, mainly mining enterprises (oil extraction, ozokerite, deforestation), wood processing and food industries, and foreign capital dominated. Heavy industry almost did not exist, mechanical engineering developed poorly, and the level of mechanization of production was low. The predominant number of Western Ukrainian (Rusyn) enterprises had a pronounced handicraft character.
The peculiarities of the economic development of the Rusyn lands were also reflected in the structure of the population. Small Polonized and Germanized towns were surrounded by a Ruthenian sea of peasants. The region was constantly in a state of agricultural overpopulation, which created a constant reserve of cheap labor for industry. But due to the underdevelopment of the industry, many were forced to go abroad to work or emigrate.
The revolutionary movement became more active in Galicia at the end of the 19th century with renewed vigor. The main forms of struggle were rallies, demonstrations and strikes. In 1890, workers of Lvov, Drohobych and other cities held demonstrations on May 1. At the rallies, speakers called for a struggle against social and national oppression, for an 8-hour working day, and for the political rights of workers. The leaflet released contained the following words: “Working Ukrainians and Poles. Brothers and comrades. For all of us, Ukrainians and Poles, the First of May is a day of international friendship and solidarity.”
The Austrian authorities frantically defended the interests of the owners. I. Franko described the authorities’ reprisal against the builders: “The hussars attacked the tightly packed crowd, the army was met with a hail of stones and, after several terrible attacks, pushed back from Streletskaya Square, improvised barricades, then new troops, four volleys from rifles into the crowd, then new shooting - a hunt for those who are scattered and for those who hid in the gateways, the torture of passers-by.”
All illustrations were selected by the portal’s editors from open sources. Captions for illustrations – PolitNavigator.
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