Novoselitsa – “An Insignificant Barrier”

Abstract

This article focuses on Russian Novoselitsa, a small town on the Russian-Austro-Hungarian-Romanian border, which served as the sole border crossing between Russian Bessarabia and Austrian Bukovina. From 1893 it was also an important railway junction between the two empires. Based on diplomatic documents from the Austrian State Archives, the article discusses Austrian officials’ views of ethnoreligious communities in the region, including Bessarabian Romanians, Jews, Russian Old Believers, and Ukrainians. It also examines the activity of the Austro-Hungarian Consular Agency in Russian Novoselitsa (1869–1914). The authors analyze the attitude of the Austrian officials towards ethnoreligious groups, informal practices on the border, and revolutionary unrest. The Novoselitsa case epitomizes the fundamental difference between the supranational Habsburg Empire and the nationalizing Romanov Empire, but also highlights the similarities between the two regimes. It illustrates the notions of “shatterzone of empires” (Bartov and Weitz 2013) and “thick borders”: Novoselitsa, a periphery with regard to both Vienna and St. Petersburg, was a relatively autonomous space and had its own forms of agency, which expanded much beyond the border itself on both sides of the frontier. Cases of corruption and espionage are especially revealing in regard to the uncertainty and confusion specific to the borderlands, which reigned as much at the center as on the periphery. This case study also provides an interesting perspective on everyday life, emphasizing the peculiarities of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian monarchies, as well as the entanglements between the two entities.