Арешти греко-католицького духовенства в Австро-Угорщині на початку Першої світової війни (1914–1915 рр.)
Австро-Угорщина, Галицька митрополія ГКЦ, Перша світова
війна, арешти, етапування, русофільство.
In the presented article the author
had analyzed the mechanism of arrests by Austria-Hungary against clergymen of
the Halych Metropolis of the Greek Catholic Church, suspected of Russophilia at
the beginning of the First World War. The conditions of detention and
prosecution of suspects was presented. The main ways of convoying prisoners
from the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria and the Duchy of Bukovina to the
places of detention through Cisleithania and Transleithania have been
established in the article. The reaction of the supreme hierarchs of the Greek Catholic
Church to the events is demonstrated. The attention is focused on the influence
of the national identity on the intensity of the processes of arrests. At the
beginning of the First World War, the Greek Catholic clergy was divided into
the Ukrainian pro-national and the Russophile currents of the socio-political thought.
The government of Austria-Hungary, which had started a war against the Russian
Empire during 1914–1915 had organized the arrests of the «unreliable» citizens
suspected of pro-Russian views. Due to the imperfection of the detention mechanism,
this process grew into the mass repressions, which became a tragedy for the
Ukrainian society. The arrests of priests took places on the ground by the
police and the military structures on the basis of the prepared lists. The
reason for action was dominated by denunciations. The prisoners were sent to
the local administrative centers (the Bezirks). After the filtration in the
large prisons, the detainees were transferred by the railways to the places of
detention in Cisleithania. The clergy of the Greek Catholic Church had become a
victim of geopolitical circumstances. This is due to the fact, that the
Ukrainian national identity has not yet been able to cover the entire Ukrainian
population of Eastern Galicia and Northern Bukovina. The government of
Austria-Hungary arrested both representatives and supporters of the Russophilia
and Ukrainophilia. By its actions, the empire undermined both the activities of
the Russophiles and the loyalty of the Ukrainians. This was one of the reasons
for the stagnation and the subsequent collapse of Austria-Hungary.