Larry Wolff: The Idea of Galicia. History and Fantasy in Habsburg Political Culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010. XI, 486 S., Abb., Ktn. ISBN: 978-0-804-76267-0

Backwardness: Economic – Social?

The book of Larry Wolff, very well written, witty, interesting, original and thought-provoking, cannot be measured by the standard of a typical historical monograph. It goes through the history of the Habsburg Galicia between 1772 and 1918 (with a short chapter on Galicia’s posthumous life). Contrary to the title, the book is not a classical history of an idea: such history would have to incorporate the place of Galicia in the political thought, both of the Poles, the Ukrainians (the ideas of Polish or of Ukrainian Piedmont are barely mentioned in the book), of the Jews (Zionists and various types of assimilationists) and of the Habsburg or Romanov Empires. Political thought is almost completely beyond the scope of this book. “History and fantasy”, mentioned in the subtitle, seems a better approximation of the real content. The way Wolff had chosen is a more ambitious one than a standard history of ideas: he investigates the concept of Galicia, looking for what is subconscious, unclear and unwritten (at least not in clear text). This approach is both more rewarding and more risky than more traditional genres of history: it gives the reader a great amount of material for reflection, numerous insights and interpretative propositions. It also invites discussion and urges the reader to ponder on possibilities of alternative solutions to the problems presented in the book. Were we to try to reconstruct, what actually are the elements the idea of Galicia consists of, we could well name the following: Galicia is barbarous; lying somewhere “in den Carpathischen Gebürgen”, as Maria Theresa wrote to Joseph (p. 15), it is an object to be civilized. It is new: the enlightened Habsburg state creates it “ex nihilo”, as if bringing order into the chaos. Anarchy is the main enemy of the civilizing task; this topic repeats itself through the whole period of the Habsburg rule. The civilizing task, however, is never complete. Galicia cannot grow completely civilized; otherwise the rationale of the Habsburg rule would have vanished. Somehow following this line of reasoning, a conflict seems to be essential of Galician public life. This conflict permeates various levels of reality. On the political level, this is a multi-sided conflict between Poles, Ruthenians, Jews, and Germans. It can be also expressed in social terms as conflict between landowners, peasants and state bureaucrats (with Jews taking part occasionally in this social conflict as inn-keepers, money-lenders or small merchants). On the deeper level, the conflict is one between reality and appearance: the authorities, be it in in times of Joseph, of Metternich, of neo-absolutism after 1849 or of the Galician autonomy after 1868, continuously attempt to present the province as progressing happily towards civilization, while playing down the tensions and difficulties. The reality, however, could not be totally disregarded and it made itself felt in a series of violent crises, (as rabacja of 1846 or a pogrom wave in 1898, or the murder of Statthalter Andrzej Potocki in 1908) as well as through cultural activities (satirical poetry of Fredro and Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński).

The book analyses these problems through the suggestive characteristics of various authors: Polish (as the two poets mentioned above), German, Ukrainian and Jewish. The picture is an impressive and ambitious interpretative proposal and all what I can say is that I like it: it resonates well with what I know and what I think I understand from the Galician history. Two general features of the book seem to me especially interesting and worth stressing. First, the book belongs to a still very small list of works that treat Galicia supra-nationally. This is a study of a multinational and multicultural province, a study that attempts to present the interrelation of cultures in a long chronological perspective. It is only to be hoped that other historians will follow. Second, the interpretive proposal that seems very promising is the metaphor of combating the chaos and anarchy. The author has traced the history of this metaphor from the Josephinist bureaucrats of the 1770s and 1780s to the Polish nationalists of the early 20th century. It really catches something important in the history of thinking about Galicia and should be a useful analytical tool. It explains why the Viennese travellers often did not notice the real changes in Galician life and why their descriptions from late 18th to early 20th century are at times striking by their similarity. They were, in a sense, ‘programmed’ to see only backwardness: backwardness that was undoubtedly real but that was not the whole story.

Among the most interesting fragments of the book I would mention the fascinating material connected with the usage of the term “Kraj” (Land) in the Polish political journalism. The author demonstrates the ambiguity of the concept in different contexts: it could mean “Poland”, “Austria”, “Galicia” and other entities. One could perhaps introduce to the analysis the role of “Kraj”, or “Land”, as a political concept of its own right, representing the idea of territorial patriotism, as opposed both to ethnic-national or universal-imperial allegiance. This idea, known as “Landespatriotismus” and strong especially in the Bohemian milieu, but present also in other regions of the Monarchy and beyond, was at certain moments quite strong; it would be interesting to check whether the use of the term by Polish Galician authors at certain places is not an echo of this idea.

Of course, in the book of Larry Wolff, as in every interesting book, there are certain detailed interpretations which may be subject of discussion. I have to confess, like probably most of historians not trained in psychoanalysis, I had certain problems in following the interpretation of Sacher-Masoch’s erotic fantasies. While the general interest of Sacher-Masoch in the social and interethnic conflicts in Galicia is admirably presented, I am not completely convinced (in spite of the author’s persuasion) that the story of a sadomasochist contract can be understood as symbolizing the social and political situation in Galicia. Another example are the anthropometric statistics conducted by the Cracow academy in 1872. Are these statistics really a forerunner of Nazi racism (p. 237)? Only as far as the 19th century in general is a forerunner of the 20th century – but this would bring us too far away from Galician problems.

A more general point to discuss is connected with the overall picture of the province on the pages of the book. The author on the one hand critically analyses the concept of a civilizing mission, of barbarity, etc. On the other hand, he accepts certain elements of this picture. With this I can only agree; while rejecting over-simplified schemes, I believe that economic backwardness is a category indispensable for sensible description of the situation in Galicia. This interplay of criticism and cautious partial acceptance of the idea of backwardness makes the book all the more persuasive and interesting. At the same time I would put some accents differently, especially as regards the evaluation of the position of the Poles. As a Polish historian, I feel rather awkward here, as I do not want to be seen as ‘defending’ the role of the Polish element: nevertheless, I would dare to suggest the possibility of a more nuanced view on the Poles in Galicia. What seems to me especially problematic is a certain continuation in presenting the Cracow conservatives and radical nationalists. They were essentially different types of politicians and thinkers and it is difficult to see conservative historians like Józef Szujski or Michał Bobrzyński as preparing the ground for Roman Dmowski’s National Democrats. Of course, the author knows it; nevertheless the reader may gain the impression that the Polish right was equally nationalist throughout the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. In a sense, the author sympathizes with the perspective of the “Neue Freie Presse”, as well as of some Ukrainian authors from the period and to a degree endorses the picture of Poles as aristocratic oppressors of the Ruthenians, Jews and peasants. This picture is not totally wrong, but distorted. It is understandable that this perspective was taken by the Ukrainian intellectuals who fought for equal rights of their nation, or by Viennese liberal journalists for whom the conservatives were among the main foes. A historian writing more than a century after the events can already allow himself a more nuanced picture and show a Polish-Galician society that cannot be reduced to nobility oppressing peasants: the Polish society had various conflicting political agendas, it had liberal and democratic streams (as a historian working on the history of Polish liberalism I may be pardoned for stressing that!), it presented a whole spectrum of political opinions.

These remarks are not intended to question the merits of this deep, original and very interesting book; if it invites debate at times, then it is what all serious and thought-provoking books should do. The book is a pleasure to read and a mine of original interpretative ideas that merit deeper thought and can help us to understand better various aspect of life of Galicia, perhaps also of every European periphery. It will also fulfil another important task: although it is not a synthetic “History of Galicia for beginners”, the book will certainly serve as an introduction to many readers, and it can be an excellent one, opening the roads to all possible sorts of Galician fascinations.

Maciej Janowski, Warszawa/Budapest