Galician RussophiliaRussophiles // Internet Encyclopeidia of Ukraine, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 2019 (), also known in Poland and Ukraine as Moscophilia (Ukrainian: москвофільство, moskvofil'stvo) was a cultural and political movement in modern-day western Ukraine, which emerged during the 19th century. First becoming popular in the region of Carpathian Ruthenia (then part of the Kingdom of Hungary), it later spread to Galicia and Bukovina, both ruled by Austria-Hungary. Its ideology emphasized that since the Eastern Slavic people of Galicia were descendants of the people of Kievan Rus' (Ruthenians), and followers of Eastern Christianity, they were thus a branch of the Russian people. The movement was part of the larger Pan-Slavism that was developing in the late 19th century. Russophilia was largely a backlash against Polonisation (in Galicia), Romanianization (in Bukovina) and Magyarisation (in Carpathian Ruthenia) that was largely blamed on the landlords and associated with Roman Catholicism.
Russophilia has survived longer among the Rusyn minority, especially that in Carpathian Ruthenia, and the Lemkos of south-east Poland.
Terminology The Russophiles did not always apply the term to themselves and identified as "Russians", "Rusians", "Ruthenians" or "Rusyny" ("Rusyns"). Some of them used self-descriptions such as "Obshcherossy" ("Common Russians"), "Starorusyny" ("Old Ruthenians") or "Tverdorusyny" ("Hard Ruthenians") in order to stress their cultural and political orientation on Russia, and opposed themselves to supporters of a distinct Ukrainian identity, whom they derogatorily called "Ukrainophiles" or "khakhly". Ukrainian national circles (Ukrainian: народовці, literally "populists") in their turn called their Russophile opponents "Moscophiles" (from the name of Moscow) or "katsaps".
Background
After the fall of the westernmost East Slavic state in 1349, most of the area of what is now Western Ukraine came under the control of Poland and Hungary, with Poland ruling Galicia and Hungary controlling Carpathian Ruthenia. The loss of independence began a period of gradual, centuries-long assimilation of much of the native elite into Polish and Hungarian culture. This elite adopted a national orientation in which they saw the native Rus population of Galicia as a branch of the Polish nation who happened to be of the Eastern Christian faith. They believed that the native language was merely a dialect of Polish, comparable to Mazovian, and that assimilation would be inevitable.
This process of Polonisation was, however, resented by the peasants, the clergy, and small minority of nobles who retained their East Slavic culture, religion or both. The latter two groups would form the nucleus of native national movements that would emerge with the loosening of Polish and Hungarian control in western Ukraine, which occurred when the entire region came under the control of the Austrian Habsburgs in the course of the Partitions of Poland. The Austrian Emperor emancipated the serfs, introduced compulsory education and raised the status of the Ruthenian priests to that of their Polish and Hungarian counterparts. Furthermore, they mandated that Ukrainian Catholic seminarians receive a formal higher education (previously, priests had been educated informally by their fathers), and organized institutions in Vienna and Lviv that would serve this function. This led to the appearance, for the first time, of a large educated social class within the Ukrainian population in Galicia.Himka, John Paul. (1999). Religion and Nationality in Western Ukraine. McGill-Queen's University Press: Montreal and Kingston. p. 6. Austrian reforms led to a gradual social mobilization of the native inhabitants of Western Ukraine and the emergence of several national ideologies that reflected the natives' East Slavic culture and were opposed to that of Roman Catholic Poland and Hungary. This development was encouraged by the Austrian authorities because it served to undermine Polish or Hungarian control of the area. The cultural movements included: Russophilia, the idea that Galicia was the westernmost part of Russia and that the natives of Western Ukraine were, like all of the Russian Empire's East Slavic inhabitants, members of one Russian nation; Ruthenianism, the idea that the people of Western Ukraine were a unique East Slavic nation; and Ukrainophilia, the idea that the people of western Ukraine were the same as those of neighbouring lands in the Russian Empire but that both were a people different from Russians, known as Ukrainians (the name "Ukrainians" itself began to be accepted by Ruthenian Galicians around the 1890s, under the influence of Mykola Kostomarov and the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius in central Ukraine).Magocsi 1996, p. 440.
Initially, there existed a fluidity between all three national orientations, with people changing their allegiance throughout their lives, and until approximately the turn of the 20th century members of all three groups frequently identified themselves by the ethnonym Ruthenians (Rusyny). Initially, the most prominent ideology was Ruthenianism, or Rutenstvo. Its proponents, referred to as "Old Ruthenians", were mainly wealthier or more influential priests and the remnants of the nobility who had not been Polonised, and were quite loyal to the Habsburgs, to whom they owed their higher social standing. While emphasizing their separateness from the Poles in terms of religion and background, these people nevertheless maintained an elitist attitude towards the peasantry. They frequently spoke the Polish language among themselves, and tried to promote a version of Church Slavonic with elements of the local Ukrainian vernacular as well as the Russian language as a literary language for western Ukraine. This language was never standardized, however. The language actually spoken by the common people was viewed with contempt. Old Ruthenians rejected both Ukrainophilism and Russophilism. The Ukrainian thinker Mykhailo Drahomanov wrote ironically of them, that "you Galician intellectuals really do think of creating some kind of Uniate Paraguay, with some kind of hierarchical bureaucratic aristocracy, just like you have created an Austro-Ruthenian literary language!"Paul Robert Magocsi. (2002). The Roots of Ukrainian Nationalism: Galicia as Ukraine's Piedmont. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Old Ruthenianism dominated Galicia's cultural scene until the mid-19th century, when it was supplanted by Russophilia; many of the proponents of old Ruthenianism eventually became Russophiles.
Ideology The time has come . . . to cross our Rubicon and say openly so that everyone can hear it: We cannot be separated by a Chinese wall from our brothers and cannot stand apart from the linguistic, ecclesiastical, and national connection with the entire Russian world! From Ivan Naumovich's Glimpse into the future, considered the most important manifesto of Galician RussophilismJohn Paul Himka. (1999). Religion and Nationality in Western Ukraine, p. 26. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press. The early Galician Russophile Nikolay Kmicykevich wrote an article in 1834 stating that the Russians were the same people from Western Ukraine to Kamchatka, from the White Sea to the Black Sea, and the language they spoke was the same Russian language. He wrote that the standard Russian language was more acceptable for modern writing and that the popular dialects in Ukraine were corrupted by Polish influence. These ideas were stimulated by the Russian pan-Slavist Mikhail Pogodin, who stayed in Lviv (called then Lemberg) in 1835 and 1839–1840 and who during this time influenced the local Ruthenian intelligentsia. No longer seeing themselves as representatives of a small Ruthenian nation of under three million people, weak in comparison to its neighbours, the Russophiles now saw themselves as the westernmost branch of the Great Russian people. A Russian orientation also played into the Russophile's elitist tendencies, because the Russian literary language which they tried to adopt (many continued to use the Polish language in their daily lives) set the Russophile priests and nobles apart from the Ukrainian-speaking peasants. Politically, the Russophiles came to advocate the idea of a union between a Galician Ruthenia and Russia.
Russophilia increased its popularity in Galicia following the Revolutions of 1848, as the Austrian government de facto transferred administrative power of the region to Polish nobility, ignoring demands of the Supreme Ruthenian Council. As a result, many members of that organ, including conservative members of the clergy, adopted a pro-Russian orientation, at the same time underlining their loyalty to the Austrian monarchy. One of the most active Galician Russophiles was the prominent historian, nobleman Denys Zubrytsky, who helped convert many members of the Galician elite to his cause. He was also the first to begin writing in standard Russian: as early as 1849 he started his main work, The History of the Ancient Galician-Russian Principality. In a letter to his friend Mikhail Pogodin, Zubrytsky claimed that his stated purpose was to acquaint his Galician people with Russian history and the Russian language. Indeed, the historiography of the medieval Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia was largely begun by Galician Russophiles and served as the basis for their nation-building project (in contrast, the Ukrainophiles at that time focused on the history of the Cossacks).Serhiy Plokhy. (2005). Unmaking Imperial Russia. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 161–162. In terms of literature and culture, the Russophiles promoted Nikolai Gogol and Ivan Naumovich in contrast to Ukrainophile emphasis on Taras Shevchenko.Kai Struve. (2005). Peasants and Patriotic Celebrations. In Galicia: A Multicultured Land. (Hann & Magocsi, Eds.) Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 116
In terms of language, Galician Russophiles were strongly opposed to the adoption of the vernacular Ukrainian language spoken by peasants and instead supported the adoption of standard literary Russian. This opposition was such that they even welcomed the ban on the Ukrainian language in the Russian Empire in 1876.Orest Subtelny. (2009). Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press Reflecting their belief that the people of Ukraine played a special role in the greater Russian nation, the leading Russophile thinker Ivan Naumovich declared that the Russian language was derived from "Little Russian" and was only being readopted in Galicia. Indeed, Galician Russophiles wrote that one of the reasons for all East Slavs to adopt the Russian language was that the modern Russian language had been created in the 17th and 18th centuries by scholars from Ukraine.Timothy Snyder. (2003). The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999 New Haven: Yale University Press p. 124
Despite some democratic elements (such as promoting literacy among peasants) Galician Russophilia tended to be anti-democratic and reactionary, placing it at odds with the democratic trends in 19th-century society. For example, the Russophile leader Denis Zubrytsky defended serfdom both before and after the emancipation of Austrian Galician serfs in 1848.