Page - 139 - in Österreich-Ungarns imperiale Herausforderungen - Nationalismen und Rivalitäten im Habsburgerreich um 1900

© 2020, V&R unipress GmbH, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783847110606 – ISBN E-Lib: 9783737010603 BorislavChernev TheHabsburgMobilisationofEthnicity and theUkrainian Questionduring theGreatWar* TheHabsburgEmpireacquiredmostof itsUkrainianpopulatedterritoriesasa resultof the firstpartitionofPoland in1772,organising themwithinthenewly established Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. Ukrainians also resided in Bukovina, annexed fromtheOttomanEmpire in1775, aswell as in a regionof North-easternHungaryknownasTranscarpathianorUgricRus’.Themajority ofUkrainiansnevertheless lived intheRussianEmpire, sometwenty-twoanda half million according to the census of 1897 and perhaps as many as thirty million by 1914. The Ukrainian Question gradually emerged as an issue in HabsburgpoliticsasthechallengeofnationalismcametoEast-CentralEuropein thewakeof theFrenchRevolution.Over thecourseof the longnineteenthcen- tury, the partitioning powers ofAustria, Russia, andPrussia-Germany largely refrained fromplaying thenationalist card inorder tomaintainstability in the region.Thisbegantochangeas theGreatPowersaligned intwohostile camps, withAustria-HungaryandRussiaonoppositesides.Inageopoliticalatmosphere ofgrowingantagonism,especiallymanifestinEast-CentralEuropeinthewakeof the Bosnian Annexation Crisis of 1908–1909, East Galicia or Red Ruthenia (ChervonnaiaRus’)becamesomethingofanobsessionforRussiannationalists andalsocaughttheeyeoftheRomanovestablishment.In1913alone,theRussian ForeignMinistry funnelled200,000rubles to theRussophile faction inGalicia.1 Prior to theoutbreakof theGreatWar,however, these Imperial andnationalist challenges toAustria-Hungarybore little fruit. ThiswastochangedramaticallyonceUkrainianpopulatedterritoriesbecame oneofthemaincombatzonesontheEasternFront.WithUkrainiansfightingon bothsides,theempireshadtointroduceinnovativewaysofsecuringthepolitical loyalties of ‘their’ Ukrainians while simultaneously undermining their rival’s homefront.Furthermore, thewar introducedthe travailsof foreignoccupation *Thisarticle isdedicated toMarkvonHagen,whosework inspiredmyresearch. 1 Aleksandra Iur’evna Bakhturina, Okrainy Rossiiskoi imperii. Gosudarstvennoe upravlenie i natsional’naiapolitikavgodyPervoimirovoivoiny(1914–1917gg.),Moscow2004,p.122.