Extract

Ukrainian-speaking Greek Catholics who identified with the Polish political nation represent a longstanding trope in Polish history. The designation arose during the seventeenth-century apex of the Polish-Lithuanian Republic, played out in the intellectual milieu of Austrian Galicia, and featured prominently in efforts to resurrect a federated, multicultural Polish state after World War I. Adam Świątek’s Gente Rutheni, Natione Poloni: The Ruthenians of Polish Nationality in Habsburg Galicia, newly translated from the Polish, explores how this hybrid identification animated residents of eastern Galicia and how it eventually faded with the rise of an independent Ukrainian movement. Świątek’s book comes at a crucial moment in scholarly debates about the genesis of modern nations, the long tail of imperial formations, and the evolution of modern Ukraine. Presenting the broad sweep of Galician history through the prism of Polish-Ruthenian cooperation, the study reminds us of the fluidity of ethnic attachments, challenging assumptions that Polish-Ruthenian relations were long fraught with implied violence, and that Polish-identifying Ruthenians were traitors to the Ukrainian cause.

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