Page - 146 - 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 The separation of POWs by nationality accompanied by preferential treat- mentwascommonpracticealongtheEasternFront.Russianauthoritiessingled outHabsburgSlavandItalianPOWs,andGermanAlsatianPOWsforfavourable treatment. In turn, the Central Powers endeavoured to recruit some of the 400,000UkrainianPOWsheld inspecial campswithbetter livingconditionsat Rastatt and Salzwedel in Germany and Freistadt in Upper Austria. Galician teachers andULUactivistswere brought in to offer courses inUkrainian lan- guage, culture, and history. Libraries containing a large number of books in Ukrainianweresetup.InanearlyactivityreporttotheForeignOfficeinVienna fromDecember1914, theULUnotedthat ithadalready foundafewPOWswho could “prove very useful for our action inUkraine,” adding reassuringly that onceculturalworkwas in full swing therewere likely tobehundredsandeven thousands.20Eventually, 40,000 or so POWswhowere considered particularly receptive to culturalpropaganda formedunits of a futureUkrainian armyand received additionalmilitary training fromGerman andAustro-Hungarian of- ficers.ARussianenvoywhomanagedtovisit the twoGermancampsremarked that the results were “highly satisfactory” from the perspective of the Central Powers.21Dr Vasyl Symovich, a leading ULUmember who was in charge of culturalworkatFreistadt fromtheautumnof1914,alsohighlightedthegrowth ofUkrainiannational consciousness.22 In thismanner, thepolicies andpractices in internment, refugee, andPOW campspursuedbothpositive andnegativemobilisationof ethnicity. TheAus- trianGovernment attempted to regulate andpromote a formofUkrainianna- tionalidentityloyaltotheHabsburgthronewhileviolentlysuppressingeventhe slightest hint of pro-Russian sympathies with harsh incarceration and, occa- sionally, executions.TheRussianoccupationofEastGaliciapresentedamirror imageof thispolicy inanumberofways. 20 DerBundzurBefreiungderUkraineanUrbas:Berichtüberdieorganisatorische,literarisch- informativeundaufklärendeTätigkeitdesBundesinÖsterreichundimAuslandefürdieZeit September–Dezember1914,ZusammenstellungderKosten, 16.12.1914, in:Hornykiewicz, Ereignisse inderUkraine (seenote5), vol. 1,p. 170–190,herep. 184. 21 Alexei I.Miller, TheRomanovEmpire andNationalism. Essays in theMethodologyofHi- storicalResearch,Budapest2008,p. 191. 22 Quoted inMarkvonHagen,TheEntangledEasternFront in theFirstWorldWar, in:Lohr/ Tolz/Semyonov/vonHagen(ed.),TheEmpireandNationalismatWar(seenote3),p. 9–48, herep. 38. BorislavChernev146