on a gentle ad hoc, school-by-school basis. Students have to master basic Ukrainian to enter university, but once there, many of their books and lectures are still in Russian. In the Donbass and Crimea, contrary to what the Russian press would have one believe, nearly all schools remain Russian-speaking. In Lviv, on the other hand, a generation of schoolchildren is growing up, for the first time in fifty years, who speak no Russian at all. But through most of the country, urban Ukrainians look set to become what many of them are already – bilingual. Though the language problem is not going to fade away – Russian is too deeply entrenched for that – it has already ceased to be quite the political football it was in the immediate post-independence years.
Shevchenko’s work, though a great boost to Ukrainophiles, did nothing to soften government hostility to Ukrainian cultural revival. His death in 1861 was followed by the century’s second great Polish uprising, provoking a new wave of Russian paranoia. All religious and educational publications in Ukrainian were banned, and a new generation of activists was sent into exile. ‘A Little Russian language never existed, does not exist and never shall exist,’ the interior minister instructed the censors. ‘Its dialects as spoken by the masses are the same as the Russian language, with the exception of some corruptions from Poland.’ 17 Restrictions eased slightly in the early 1870s, only to tighten again with the Edict of Ems in 1876. Under the Edict’s malign influence, the national movement evaporated. Dissent flowed instead into the empire-wide anarchist and revolutionary movements, climaxing with Aleksandr ITs assassination (by a terrorist group led by a Ukrainian from Odessa) in 1881. From the mid-1870s, therefore, the pressure for national revival came not from Kiev but from Austrian-ruled Lviv. Small, poor and backward, Galicia became the unlikely Piedmont of Ukraine.
As in Kiev, the national movement in Lviv got much of its initial impetus from imperial efforts to play Ukrainians off against the more powerful Poles. Austria experimented with the technique in 1848, during the Europe-wide popular risings known as the ‘Springtime of Nations’. When the barricades went up in Cracow and Lviv, the governor of Galicia, Count Franz Stadion, encouraged Ukrainian leaders to submit a loyal petition to the Emperor, asking for official recognition for their nationality and for Galicia to be split in two. He helped organise a ‘Ruthenian Supreme Council’ under a Uniate bishop, and gave funding for the first Ukrainian-language newspaper. An elected parliament with Ukrainian representation was, however, dissolved once order had been restored.
In 1861, following Austria’s defeat at the hands of the French in Italy, parliament and constitution reappeared, this time permanently. As well as sending delegates to the Reichsrat in Vienna, each province had its own local Diet, with jurisdiction over schooling, health and trade. But the electoral system was designed to give solid majorities to the conservative landowning class – which in Galicia meant the Poles. Whereas only fifty-two votes were needed to elect a deputy to the landlords’ curia, peasant delegates needed almost 9,000, and urban workers had no votes at all. The result was that although Ukrainians made up about half Galicia’s population, they never held more than a third of the seats in the Lviv Diet. Moreover, the Galician government was notoriously addicted to vote-rigging: ballot-box stuffing, intimidation and non-registration of candidates and voters were all common. Though Galicia introduced direct and universal suffrage in 1907 – several years after Vienna, thanks to Polish opposition – Ukrainians remained heavily under-represented.
In 1867 Austria lost another war, this time with the Prussians. The result was the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, giving the Hungarians direct rule over about half the
Shevchenko’s work, though a great boost to Ukrainophiles, did nothing to soften government hostility to Ukrainian cultural revival. His death in 1861 was followed by the century’s second great Polish uprising, provoking a new wave of Russian paranoia. All religious and educational publications in Ukrainian were banned, and a new generation of activists was sent into exile. ‘A Little Russian language never existed, does not exist and never shall exist,’ the interior minister instructed the censors. ‘Its dialects as spoken by the masses are the same as the Russian language, with the exception of some corruptions from Poland.’ 17 Restrictions eased slightly in the early 1870s, only to tighten again with the Edict of Ems in 1876. Under the Edict’s malign influence, the national movement evaporated. Dissent flowed instead into the empire-wide anarchist and revolutionary movements, climaxing with Aleksandr ITs assassination (by a terrorist group led by a Ukrainian from Odessa) in 1881. From the mid-1870s, therefore, the pressure for national revival came not from Kiev but from Austrian-ruled Lviv. Small, poor and backward, Galicia became the unlikely Piedmont of Ukraine.
As in Kiev, the national movement in Lviv got much of its initial impetus from imperial efforts to play Ukrainians off against the more powerful Poles. Austria experimented with the technique in 1848, during the Europe-wide popular risings known as the ‘Springtime of Nations’. When the barricades went up in Cracow and Lviv, the governor of Galicia, Count Franz Stadion, encouraged Ukrainian leaders to submit a loyal petition to the Emperor, asking for official recognition for their nationality and for Galicia to be split in two. He helped organise a ‘Ruthenian Supreme Council’ under a Uniate bishop, and gave funding for the first Ukrainian-language newspaper. An elected parliament with Ukrainian representation was, however, dissolved once order had been restored.
In 1861, following Austria’s defeat at the hands of the French in Italy, parliament and constitution reappeared, this time permanently. As well as sending delegates to the Reichsrat in Vienna, each province had its own local Diet, with jurisdiction over schooling, health and trade. But the electoral system was designed to give solid majorities to the conservative landowning class – which in Galicia meant the Poles. Whereas only fifty-two votes were needed to elect a deputy to the landlords’ curia, peasant delegates needed almost 9,000, and urban workers had no votes at all. The result was that although Ukrainians made up about half Galicia’s population, they never held more than a third of the seats in the Lviv Diet. Moreover, the Galician government was notoriously addicted to vote-rigging: ballot-box stuffing, intimidation and non-registration of candidates and voters were all common. Though Galicia introduced direct and universal suffrage in 1907 – several years after Vienna, thanks to Polish opposition – Ukrainians remained heavily under-represented.
In 1867 Austria lost another war, this time with the Prussians. The result was the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, giving the Hungarians direct rule over about half the
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