Multicultural Border Towns in Western Ukraine 1772-1914

As a result of the four partitions of Poland (1772 to 1815), a common border between Austria and Russia was established, dividing a once unified territory. This new boundary separated not only countries but also administrative, educational and economic systems as well as villages and families, though not necessarily peoples and religions. The effects of the borders on the multicultural small towns - today all part of Western Ukraine - would be long felt. In contrast to recent scholarly studies which have concentrated on the political history of Galicia and on the capital L`viv, on national movements, the peasantry and religious aspects, this three-year research project anticipates a comparative and intercultural historical analysis of daily life at the very frontiers. It undertakes as exemplary investigations three paired border towns (shtetls) in Austrian Galicia and Russian Volhynia and Podolia: namely, Brody and Radyvyliv in the north and Volochy`sk and Pidvolochy`sk as well as both Husiatyns on the River Zbruch further south. What effects did the Polish partitions have on the Jewish, Polish and Ukrainian communities? How did relations - socially, politically, and economically - develop in times of modernisation, reforms and revolutions, and anti-Jewish pogroms? How did inter-ethnic relationships shift on account of nationalist and antisemitic pressure? How did the townspeople`s relations towards the politically and socially dominant Polish magnates and Russian and German or Polish officials fluctuate? Which specific roles did the borders and the peripheries play in the framework of the Austrian and Russian empires and their interrelations? Archival holdings in the former capitals (Vienna, St. Petersburg), the highesr regional centres (L`viv, Kiev) and western Ukrainian regional centres (Ternopil`, Zhytomyr, Rivne), together with printed sources such as statistics, travel reports and newspapers will be analysed. The results of the project should appear in a monograph which, on the one hand, will depict the three paired multi-religious and multiethnic border towns, and on the other hand, will compare developments in both empires between the First Partition of Poland and the outbreak of the First World War. By investigating the transformation of multicultural communities over the course of almost 150 years, this project aspires to offer a unique contribution to Eastern European studies in general as well as to the fields of Jewish, regional and border town history more specifically.

This project examined three paired and mostly unknown towns on both sides of the essentially stable former Austrian-Russian border (today all six towns are found in Western Ukraine). Our timeframe covered the period from the first partition of Poland in 1772 to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. The towns chosen were Brody / Radzivilov, Podwoloczyska / Volochisk und Husiatyn (lying on both sides of the Zbruch River, the partition divided the town into two and both retained the old name). Our investigations have resulted in establishing how this once relatively unified region of the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth - in terms of its political, social, legal, economic and cultural traditions - evolved both similarly as well as differently due to the divergent Russian and Austrian imperial policies. Strikingly, economic growth in Russia`s and Austria(-Hungary`s) peripheries was determined by trans-national trade, which in this area developed first across roads and then across railway tracks. Brody`s leading position in East-West trade was strengthened by its new status under Austria as a "free-trade" town, which unexpectedly also assisted the gradual economic growth of neighbouring Russian Radzivilov. However, the development of both towns became hampered by the more convenient Austrian land route to the Crimea through Podwoloczyska and Volochisk (a trans-national train line began running in 1871). Divided Husiatyn, lying in the more hilly Podolia area, was not favoured as a rail junction by either empire, and throughout the century, traders had to cross a foot rather than rail bridge from one town to the other. In the area of religion, the Austrian authorities tolerated non- Roman Catholicism to a greater extent than the Russian authorities tolerated non-Russian Orthodox communities, thereby allowing, for example, the Ukrainian Uniate (Greek Catholic) Churches and Jewish Hasidic Courts (such as the one in Husiatyn) to thrive. In Russia, however, the former was banned, and the latter was viewed suspiciously. Indeed, Russia invested in building Russian Orthodox churches, which had the additional purpose of vividly marking the boundary. Our investigations of epidemics (typhus, cholera), fires and wars shed light on shared catastrophes which repeatedly hindered population and urban growth, and our examination of legal and illegal trade (i.e. customs station officers, border police and smugglers) resulted in a greater understanding of common multiethnic daily life experiences at the borders, revealing among other things, that many depictions by the Austrian Jewish writer Joseph Roth are actually not so far-fetched. Published interim results of the project "Multicultural Border Towns in Western Ukraine, 1772-1914" can be found in the volume Die Galizische Grenze. Kommunikation oder Isolation? edited by Christoph Augustynowicz and Andreas Kappeler (=Europa Orientalis 3) (Wien 2006), especially pages 115-127 and 127-143. Forthcoming publications are expected in the Jahrbücher für die Geschichte Osteuropas, among others.