TO THE PROBLEM OF FUNCTIONING OF THE UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE IN THE EASTERN GALICIA COURTS (ON THE MATERIALS OF THE MEETINGS OF THE DIET OF GALICIA AND LODOMERIA)

Abstract

After the partition of Poland in 1772, Galicia was annexed to Austria as a separate administrative and territorial unit, not as an integral part of former Poland. It seemed that the Eastern Galicians would forever get rid of the problems they faced while in Poland. Galicians had grounds to hope to enjoy the same rights and freedoms as other nationalities of the monarchy, that is, to be able to develop their nationality and cherish their mother tongue. However, the political situation regarding the Eastern Galicians on their native land hardly changed. The Poles could not accept the loss of Ukrainian territory and tried every way to restore Poland's borders from sea to sea. The biggest obstacle to achieving their goal was the existence of the Ukrainian language, which they did not recognize as an independent language, but called the Polish language. The Poles tried to eliminate the usage of the Ukrainian language in all spheres of life in Eastern Galicia. The courts were no exception. The language issues in the courts in the Eastern Galicia were repeatedly raised at the meetings of the Diet of Galicia and Lodomeria. In 1861 a decree was passed according to which German language was removed from the courts, and the court proceedings could be conducted in Polish or Ukrainian. However, due to the request of the local Polish authorities in 1869, the Polish language was introduced as a government language in the Eastern Galicia by the Emperor's order. This decision of the Emperor provoked the opposition of the Ukrainians. Therefore, Ukrainian ambassadors tried to defend the rights of the Ukrainian language in the courts at meetings of the Diet of Galicia and Lodomeria. They addressed the Diet with a proposal to recognize the two regional languages, Polish and Ukrainian, as government during court hearings. The Polish ambassadors did not support the Ukrainians, calling the Ukrainian language either Polish or under-developed. Thus, they did not want to introduce Ukrainian into the court system. Keywords Ukrainian language, Polish language, German language, government language, local language, language of court hearings.