Zapiska A.YU. Gerovskogo po voprosam "ukrainskomu" agrarnomu i religioznomu v Chervonnoy Rusi [A report by A.YU. Gerovskiy on the "ukrainian", agricultural and religious issues in Red Rus]

The report was sent to the Vatican-Slavic Department of the Foreign Ministry of Russia, where it was registered on August 4, 1916, with No. 432. Aleksey Yulianovich Gerovskiy (1883-1972) was a well-known public and political figure in Carpathian Rus, a grandson of Adolf Dobriansky. Analyzing the state of the "Ukrainian" question in Red Rus (which, according to the author, included Hungarian Rus, Bukovina and Galicia - the Austria-Hungary regions populated by Rusins), Gerovskiy mentions that the issue existed only in Bukovina and Galicia. The latter was the center of Ukrainian separatism. A. Gerovskiy offered not only to fight against separatism by restrictive measures, but also to carry out "cultural work" that would simultaneously solve the agrarian, religious and other issues. He believed that the fight against Ukrainian separatism mainly concerned education and the press. In his opinion, after the Russian army occupied Galicia, Ukrainian periodicals could cease to exist naturally because of the lack of funds that the Austrian or German governments, or the Galician (Polish) authorities had previously given. The publication of Ukrainian newspapers could be allowed if they proved they were financed from local sources. Speaking about schools, Gerovskiy noted that most of the population did not demand education in their mother tongue; importantly, the school was to teach and be of practical use. At the same time, the author wrote that the Ukrainian dialect was not at all identical with the local Russian dialect. After the war, when the population would not fear the Austro-Hungarian repression, Gerovskiy recommended by decisions of local village meetings to establish public schools with the Russian literary language as the language of instruction. He proposed to solve the agrarian question by the elimination of a major Polish land tenure in Galicia and Bukovina. Most landowners had big debts before the war, and went completely broke during it. The religious question had its features. The majority of Rusins lived in Galicia and were Uniates. As the Union had not yet taken root, it was suggested to softly work on the reunification with the Orthodox Church. The document is stored in the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire.

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