BETWEEN LVIV, VIENNA AND KYIV: OLEKSANDR BARVINSKY AND THE GEOPOLITICAL CHOICES OF UKRAINE AT THE TURN OF THE 19th–20th CENTURIES

Abstract

The article examines the attempts of Ukrainian figures at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries using the example of stories from the biography of Oleksandr Barvinsky to create a project of the Ukrainian state based on the alliance with the Austro-Hungarian and German empires. It is noted that Oleksandr Barvinsky belonged to the most influential politicians and intellectuals who shaped the vision of Ukraine’s independent future. The pages of his biography related to activities in Kyiv and Vienna reflect the formation of all-Ukrainian unity and the search for foreign political allies are analyzed. It is noted that these processes involved profound transformations of Ukrainian society based on the «organic labor» program. It is argued that the new generation of Ukrainian politicians in Galicia, who assumed the leadership of the Ukrainian movement in the last decades of the 19th century, had, unlike their predecessors, sufficient qualifications to bring the «Ukrainian question» to the international level. It is shown that the prerequisites for this were created thanks to the political experience gained under the Constitution of Austria and the interest in Galicia on the part of the Ukrainian figures of the Naddniprianshchyna region (Transdniepr region), who did not have the opportunity to freely express their ideas in the Russian Empire. It is proved that еhe creation of a center of the Ukrainian movement in Galicia aroused the interest of the Austrian government. It is claimed that Vienna considered the possibility of attracting the Ukrainian population in the Russian Empire to its side in the event of a military conflict, the probability of which was increasing. However, at the stage of defining the strategy of the national movement, disagreements arose between politicians of different parts of Ukraine, and Vienna’s position was not consistent. It is shown that Ukrainian politicians search for allies among the Central countries caused resistance from Ukraine’s closest neighbors - the Poles and Russians, who saw them as a threat to their interests.It is concluded that the story of the rise and fall of Oleksandr Barvinsky political career shows both the dependence of man on geopolitical processes and his ability to influence them.The research was carried out in the vein of an intellectual biography, which included the analysis of the worldview, political, and professional motives of the politician’s actions, as well as his private circumstances. It was noted that Oleksandr Barvinsky activities between Lviv, Vienna and Kyiv reflected the ambitions of the Lviv political circles to influence geopolitics.