Historical and legal assessment of incorporation of Western Ukrainian lands to the composition of Austrian Empire in the second half of the ХVІІІ century

Abstract

The preconditions of incorporation of Western Ukrainian lands into the structure of the Austrian monarchy in the second half of the XVIII century are analyzed. and given a historical legal assessment. It is noted that the accession of the West Ukrainian lands to the Austrian Empire was typical of the era of European absolutism by the act of incorporation, which pursued a certain strategic goal of the Austrian government: the expansion and strengthening of the Austrian borders and the improvement of the connection between the Austrian provinces, first of all, between Semigorod and newly joined in 1772 Galicia.

It was shown that the peculiarity of the organization of public administration in the western territories of Austria and Austria-Hungary consisted in the fact that the formation and functioning of the administrative apparatus during 1772-1918 was carried out exclusively by the Austrian authorities. The western Ukrainian population, in violation of social, national, religious rights, was forced to submit to the introduction of a foreign Austrian and Hungarian law. This contributed to the assimilation of the Western Ukrainian population, the deepening of the crisis of Ukrainian spirituality and culture in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. To the negative consequences of the incorporation of Western lands Austria and Austria-Hungary also include the impossibility of developing processes of Ukrainian state-building, preserving its own national state, law, culture.

It was emphasized that Western Ukrainian lands, in spite of the assimilation measures of Austria and Austria-Hungary, remained an integral part of the ethnic territory of the Ukrainian people. During the Austrian and Austro-Hungarian period, the Western Ukrainian population maintained its language, customs, dignity, and a sense of unity with the entire Ukrainian nation. Halychyna as the center of the West Ukrainian lands has always been the «Ukrainian Pyomon», where the old traditions of its own statehood and political independence were actively developing. It was in Galicia that the historical right of the Ukrainian people to independent existence and cultural and political development was consistently grounded. During the historical development in Galicia, we also experience a developed sense of the roots of ethnonational life, belonging to the Ukrainian tradition.