Galicia (Habsburg Austria)

Center and periphery are popular concepts to describe geographical, political, or economic power relations. Both are mostly perceived as strict and mutually exclusive categories. This article examines a Galician border town whose history illustrates the complexities of conceptualizing center and periphery relations. At first glance, nineteenth-century Brody (in today's Ukraine) would seem to qualify as a peripheral town located on the Galician border between the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires. An analysis of this city under Habsburg rule (1772–1918), however, shows us that during that period it constituted both an important center and a declining periphery, not only consecutively, but also simultaneously. Its situation on the country's physical and political periphery did not harm Brody's central role in Europe's East-West trade until the first twenty years of the nineteenth century. Only in later decades did the city lose its place within a modernizing commercial system, and eventually it declined in importance. If we leave aside the economic aspect and take a closer look at Brody's mostly Jewish inhabitants, we see that for centuries this city functioned as an important center for Eastern and Central European Jewry. Even though the town's centrality for Jewish history also changed over time, Brody nevertheless kept its place on Jewish mental maps, whether as a center of religious learning, as a pioneering site of political emancipation, or as a safe haven for Jewish refugees.

In the early twentieth century, three provinces of the Austrian half of the Habsburg Empire enacted national compromises in their legislation that had elements of non-territorial autonomy provisions. Czech and German politicians in Moravia reached an agreement in 1905. In the heavily mixed Bukovina, Romanian, Ukrainian, German, Jewish and Polish representatives agreed on a new provincial constitution in 1909. Last but not least, Polish and Ukrainian nationalists compromised in spring 1914, just a few months before the outbreak of the First World War vitiated the new provisions. Even though the provisions of these agreements varied substantially, new electoral laws introducing national registers were at their heart. These were designed to ensure a fairer representation of national groups in the provincial assemblies and to keep national agitation out of electoral campaigns. The earliest compromise in Moravia went furthest in consociational power sharing. However, the national bodies within the provincial assembly had no right to tax their respective national communities, and the provisions of the provincial constitutions kept the non-nationally defined nobility as an important counterbalance. The compromises in Bukovina and Galicia, even if they categorised all inhabitants nationally, contented themselves with even less autonomous agency for the national bodies in the provincial assemblies and rather emphasised the symbolic elements of national autonomy. The non-territorial approach in all three crownlands, however, was an instrument to reorganise multi-ethnic provinces that increasingly became the model for national compromises in other Austrian provinces.

Galizien war eine der ärmsten Regionen der Habsburgermonarchie und konnte im späten 19. Jahrhundert nur rudimentär an Industrialisierung und Wohlstandsteigerung anschließen. Die Ursachen für die gescheiterten Modernisierungsprojekte der imperialen Beamten und regionalen Eliten reichen bis in die Frühe Neuzeit zurück, als das spätere Galizien unter polnisch-litauischer Herrschaft zum Rohstofflieferanten Westeuropas abstieg. Die periphere Verflechtung mit überregionalen Märkten akzentuierte sich unter habsburgischer Ägide ab 1772 weiter: Die Wirtschaftspolitik des Wiener Hofs bevorzugte die böhmischen und österreichischen Zentren, geopolitische Umstände und regionale Interessenskonstellationen bremsten Entwicklungsimpulse.  Wirtschaftspolitische Reformdiskurse waren dabei eingebettet in kulturgeografische Zivilisierungsdiskurse der habsburgischen Verwaltung. Im späten 19. Jahrhundert eigneten sich die national definiertemn Modernisierungsprojekte der galizischen Regionaleliten diese Schemata für ihre eigenen Zwecke an. Allerdings konnten sie die periphere Position Galiziens nur sehr begrenzt verändern.
Das Buch zeigt insgesamt, wie die ungleichen überregionalen Verflechtungen im Zusammenspiel mit der imperialen Wirtschaftspolitik Galiziens Entwicklung zwischen 1772 und 1914 behinderten.

An urban biography, Brody: A Galician Border City in the Long Nineteenth Century reconciles 150 years of the town's socioeconomic history with its cultural memory. The first comprehensive study of this city under Habsburg-Austrian rule, Börries Kuzmany advises against reading urban history solely through the national lens. Besides exploring Brody's extraordinary ethno-confessional structure—Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians—Kuzmany examines the interrelation between the city's geographical location at the imperial border, its standing as a key commercial hub in East-Central Europe, and its position as a major springboard for the dissemination of the Haskalah in Galicia and the Russian Empire. After delving into the contradictory perceptions of Brody in travelogues, fiction and memory books, Kuzmany uses contemporary and historical photographs to provide an illustrated walking tour of this now Ukrainian town.

Te article examines the growth and decline of the one most important industrial enterprise in Podgórze, in the direct vicinity of Kraków, where during the second half of 19th century. Maurycy Baruch founded a fourmill, automatic bakery, as well as briquette and tile factories. Baruch managed his business complex until his death, when it was taken over by his offspring. Te history of the Baruch enterprises, in particular their modernization and marketing/promoting strategy, is presented in the context of contemporary Galician and Habsburg business competition. Te main sources include is the local press, mostly from Kraków.

The article deals with the question of mobility in the context of the common rights of passage, carriage and cattle drive through properties belonging to estates. Till 1848 Galician peasants and townsmen enjoyed them on the basis of charters or custom law. In the second half of the 19th century rights were abolished or regulated. Archival research proved that in the whole century there were many conflicts regarding common rights, which is the main hypothesis put forward in the present article. The arrangement of the present text is conventionally structured, i.e. historical background, hypothesis and research questions; discussion of the source base, methodology and research tools; the main body, summary and general conclusions. The article originated on the basis of archival sources, mainly from the Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Lviv, which were utilised for the very first time. The sources were supplemented by cartographic materials prepared by means of QGIS software.

Moses and Gitla Ritter were accused of murdering the charwoman Franciszka Mnichówna. The accusation and trials which followed revoked the blood libel. In three circumstantial trials (1882–1886), despite the lack of evidence, the Ritters were found guilty and sentenced to death. Owing to the “ritual” nature attributed to the presumed murder, the trials became media events, followed by an international audience. The author discusses the course of the trials, considering whether and how the municipalities in which they took place exploited their unexpected popularity for promotional purposes. What importance did the urban elites attach to the trials? How can we interpret the three guilty verdicts, and what symbolic significance can be assigned to them?

Traditions in the perception of the Jewish quarter in Kraków:
guides of urban heritage sites from the second half
of the nineteenth century
(Summary)
In the nineteenth century, Kraków was a popular tourist destination. This
is why fi rst publications assisting visitors in exploring the town’s most attractive sites started to be published very early into the century. Initially, the
“Jewish town” was not considered worthy of being recommended to tourists.
It was not until the completion of conservation works which unveiled the connections between Jewish religious buildings and the architecture of the royal
town that the attitudes of guide publishers changed and a new trend started
to emerge. This transformation was also infl uenced by the visit of Archduke
Rudolf, who was unabashedly fascinated by the material heritage in the
neglected Jewish quarter. In the late nineteenth century, the Kazimierz district – especially the Renaissance Old Synagogue – started to be routinely
included in guides of Kraków a site of particular interest.

This article presents and analyses legal acts that influenced the situation of Jews in
Galicia and shaped the local co-existence of Jewish communities and municipalities. It
concentrates on subsidies provided to Jewish charities and welfare institutions by municipal
funds. The subsidizing policy of Krakow is compared with that of Lwów.

Kozińska-Witt, Hanna: Kraków Municipality and Jewish Denomination Church : Provisional Municipal Statute for the Royal Capital Kraków (1866) and its Effect The authoress describes and analyzes the implementation of the legal equality in the Municipal statute of the Galician statutory city of Kraków. The study focuses in detail on the sixth section of the Provisional Municipal Statute for the City of Kraków (1866), which regulated the approach of the municipality to the Jewish community, whereas above all those circumstances are of interest, which could possibly affect the content of the section. The Section VI of the Municipal statute of Kraków is compared with the coessential section of the Statute of Lviv (1870). Especially two aspects are pointed out: the fixation of the subsidization of the Jewish institutions and the establishment of the municipal council, which should minister the affairs of the Jewish inhabitants of the city and maintain contact of the municipality to the Jewish community. The authoress takes the view, that by virtue of the paragraphs of the section VI both the legal equality was introduced and the social status quo was preserved.

The theme of the paper is the tension in the inter-relations between national culture and life as led in the municipalities. This issue is examined, taking the presentation of the city Cracow at the General Provincial Exhibition of 1894 as an example, analysing both national rhetoric and local government in practice. Particular attention is paid to the efforts of the Cracow municipal administration to present a city dedicated to preserving tradition as a modern living space. The analysis of municipal presentation will be supplemented by an examination of the ceremonies which accompanied the Exhibition (visit of the Crown Prince) and events (meeting of the Municipal Conference). In the final section the author endeavours to assess the significance of the Exhibition for the process of modernisation in Galicia. The paper closes with a brief comparison with the “Exhibition of Municipalities”, during the 1929 General Provincial Exhibition held in Posen, in which the essential differences between the Lemberg and the Posen presentations with regard to the sense of national belonging and the level of civilisation are brought to light.