In:
Nationalities Papers, Cambridge University Press (CUP), Vol. 44, No. 5 ( 2016-09), p. 731-750
Abstract:
In Galicia in 1848, petitions as to whether the province should be divided in two with a Polish and a Ruthenian region moved thousands of people to action. Although the petitions were among the largest in the history of the Habsburg monarchy, the petition lists have never been researched in detail. Whereas the initiators of the petition for the partition were anxious to present a narrative of national and confessional unity for a “Ruthenian” Eastern Galicia suppressed by “Poles,” the counter-petitionists disputed the very existence of a Ruthenian nationality and chose a narrative of peaceful, conflict-free living together. A close reading of the petition lists reveals both conflict and co-existence. The lists with a checkered contrast of Cyrillic, Latin, and Hebrew scripts bear witness to what was a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional society. More than that, these sources prove impressively that the three large religious and ethnic communities – Poles, Ruthenians, and Jews – were in continuous day-to-day contact with each other. While the history of emerging nationalism has so far been in the foreground in historiography of the revolutionary events in Galicia in 1848, the petitions' sources tell another story of everyday social interaction and of practices of social ambiguity in the Galician village and market communities.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
0090-5992
,
1465-3923
DOI:
10.1080/00905992.2016.1177004
Language:
English
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Publication Date:
2016
detail.hit.zdb_id:
1491362-8
detail.hit.zdb_id:
781054-4
SSG:
8
SSG:
7,41
SSG:
3,6
