54 NAROD
were modelled on them. The writings of the exiled Professor of History from
Kiev, Mykhailo Drahomaniv (1841—95) encouraged a positivist, conciliatory
brand of nationalism. In Galicia, in contrast, the Ruthenian population was
largely Uniate by religion, and political activism was fuelled, among other
things, by the prospect of forcible conversion to the Orthodoxy in the event of
a Tsarist takeover. The tolerant stance of the Austrian authorities permitted
extensive cultural developments. However, the prevalence of a numerous Polish
community, even in eastern Galicia, led to bitter rivalry, and as in the case of the
Lithuanians, to baffling contradictions. It was nothing exceptional that the most
distinguished patron of the Ukrainian National Movement in Galicia, Count
Andrei Sheptytsky (1865-1944), from 1900 Uniate Archbishop of Lemberg, was
the loving elder brother of an active Polish nationalist, General Stanislaw
Szeptycki (1867-1946). Although most Ukrainians in Galicia had-close connec-
tions with Polish culture, it was clear by the beginning of the twentieth century,
that the interests of the Ukrainian National Movement diverged sharply from
those of its Polish counterpart. Two fraternal Slavonic nations, thirty and t
wenty million strong at this time, might in concert have exerted a powerful
influence on European affairs. Instead, locked in fraternal combat, they can-
celled out each other's efforts quite nicely.^55
Elsewhere in the Austrian Empire, the Poles came into collision with the
Czechs. Again, it might have been supposed that these two most developed of
the Slav peoples, both predominantly Catholic and both possessed of long his-
tories and rich cultures, would have worked together with gusto. Yet quite the
opposite occurred. In the realm of Viennese politics, the outlook of the dissident
bourgeois leaders of the Czech National Movement stood at marked variance
with that of the loyalist, aristocratic Galician Poles. Their alignment with the
Ukrainians and the South Slavs antagonized the traditional Polish alignment
with the Magyars. The Czechs looked to Russia for support thereby both amaz-
ing and of fending Poles. It is a sad fact, but Poles and Czechs have rarely prac-
tised the virtues of good neighbourliness.^56
In the age of imperialism, when the world was full of Empires, it was natural
that demands for national territories should have been discussed in imperialist
terms. In revolutionary circles, the conduct of the partitioning powers in Eastern
Europe had long since given Imperialism the bad name which Lenin later
clothed with Marxist theory. That Russia, Germany, and Austria were guilty of
'Imperialism' in its most pejorative sense had been accepted doctrine for Polish
radicals long since. But here was a game that more than one could play.
Russians, Germans, and Austrians, smarting from Polish jibes against their holy
empires, found that they could respond in kind. Demands for the restoration of
a Polish national state, once supported by most European liberals, were now
deliciously denounced as 'Polish Imperialism'. Socialists of all countries,
opposed to the advent of Nationalism in principle, adopted the fashionable epi-
thets with special glee. Hence the curious situation where British Socialists for
example have consistently defended the integrity of the vast multi-national