Russophilia as the manifestation of the Carpatho-Russian national movement among the Uniat clergy of Galicia in the first half of the 19th century

The article analyses the Russophile tendencies among the Greek Catholic in Galicia in the first half of the nineteenth century, with the focus on the causes of emergence, stages of development, and the influence of intellectuals on the evolvement of Russophilia. The author characterises three stages of the Galician Uniat Clergy’s movement to Orthodoxy on the basis of authentic sources, related to the first manifestations of the Carpatho-Russian national movement (1792-1830), the rise of pro-Orthodox proclivities and Russophile ideas among the Uniates of Galicia (from the 1830s to 1848-1849), the peak of the pro-Orthodox tendencies of the Galician Uniates based on the synthesis of the Carpatho-Rusin national movement and Russophile ideas in 1848-1867 (from the beginning of the “Spring of Nations” to the restoration of the policy of polonisation). The study of the Galician Uniates’ movement for the return to Orthodoxy in the first half of the 19th century is of particular relevance today, since the facts cited clarify the contradictory statements of Uniate historiography and show that Galicia was not a historical stronghold of the union. The union was granted to the Galicians a century later than in the central part of Ukraine, but even under the Austrian- Roman patronage, Galician West Ukrainian lands preserved and demponstrated the aspiration for Orthodoxy. Such tendencies were closely connected with Russophilism, with the struggle for the preservation and development of the Rusin language and folk traditions.

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