| One of the main characteristics of modern society is the creation of the modern nation. Once seen as an inherent part of human consciousness, there is now a scholarly consensus that nations are a modern creation. This has raised new questions about the reasons for the collapse of the multi-national Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of World War I. In particular, it begs consideration of how, during the nineteenth century, geography, language, or religion became the basis for Polish and Ukrainian political identities in Habsburg-ruled Galicia during the nineteenth century.; Lemberg (now in Ukraine and known in Ukrainian as Lviv, in Russian as Lvov, and in Polish Lwow) is an ideal site to study this problem. Austrian policy originally sought to make the city a center for state-sponsored culture with a university and a theater, where Polish elites in the region could be introduced to the Austrian administrative culture. While initially acknowledging the primacy of German as the administrative culture of the Austrian Empire, Poles and Ukrainians were not drawn to acculturate to German culture. Recognized by the state as distinct, Polish and Ukrainian elites each came to associate official recognition of their respective cultures as an attribute of the political legitimacy they wanted. First, the Poles used their control of cultural and political institutions to claim their equality with German culture. Then, Ruthenians sought to gain similar recognition on largely other grounds.; Based on archival and published sources, this dissertation demonstrates the important role the Austrian state played in the emergence of distinct Polish and Ukrainian identities in Galicia. In so doing, it diverges from a historiographical trend that has emphasized the autonomy of national movements. Moreover, the insights it offers contribute to a more general understanding of how the reliance on ethnic divisions by Empires lays the foundations for groups to create their own national identities. |
