Galicia was primarily Polish and Rusyn|Ukrainian people. Overall, Poles were the majority (ca. 52%), but Ukrainians comprised the majority in the eastern Galician districts. Eastern Galicia is roughly the part of former Galicia that is now in Ukraine. Keely Stauter-Halsted in her book _Nation in a Village_ "explores the complex case of the *Polish* peasants of Austrian Galicia, from the 1848 emancipation of the serfs to the eve of the First World War." http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0801438446/102-3872675-3869706?v=glance&n=283155 http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3763/is_200112/ai_n9013986 ********** "Galicia was the poorest and most backward Austrian province. "Galician poverty" was a byword." http://letters.krakow.pl/books/austriackie.html *********** "Galician poverty became proverbial - it was the poorest region in Europe, and vast waves of immigrations - primarily to the United States - continued all the way until 1914. Life expectancy for a Galician peasant was dismally low. http://www.lviv-life.com/lviv/galicia ********** Galicia constituted the largest and simultaneously the poorest and the most retarded province of Austria. http://www.jewishgen.org/Galicia/html/Jews_of_Galicia.pdf ********** ________ Lavrentiy Krupniak . KarenHob@aol.com wrote: > > In a message dated 2/28/2006 7:14:58 AM Mountain Standard Time, > silvagen@gmail.com writes: > Out of curiosity, what makes people think the village is in Galicia? > The posting I copied to the GB list came from Catherine Havermeier on the PBS > list. > > She suggested that the book was about Austrian Poland. > > If the actual references are to Russian Poland then I suspect her assumption > was wrong. > > I would like to comment that a peasant's life could vary somewhat between > regions but there were still quite a few similarities as Ms. Havermeier noted > when she said that her ancestors from western (Prussian) Poland told of a life > very similar to the one described in the book. > > The Russians were probably the last to do away with serfdom and their > peasants probably had a somewhat harsher life than those ruled by the Prussians or > Austrians. There was an uprising and war against the Russians in 1830-1831 but > I don't know if that spilled over into Galicia. I suspect that it affected > the Austrian Kaiser's attitude toward the Poles of Galicia in some way. > > I remember reading a speech by a Polish peasant from Galicia who was elected > to the first Austrian parliament after the 1848 rebellion. He was furious > because they were considering paying some sort of "compensation" to the nobles > for the land they would now own instead of rent. He read a litany of > torturous punishments he had had to endure for virtually no reason and told how he > had to grovel whenever his "lord" was present. He said something like, > "And for THIS I should pay compensation!!!" > > I have not found any similar cases of such harsh landlords in Bohemia (after > about 1830) but that does not mean there were none. The Bishofteinetz > Heimatbuch tells of a nobleman who "punished" a teacher who was a freeman for > marrying the daughter of a serf by making him forfeit his free status. It was > not until after many years that the nobleman finally restored the teacher to > free status -- although by law teachers were supposed to be free. It seems > the nobility could interpret the law as they chose because they were also the > first in line in the justice system and this nobleman chose to ignore or deny > the teacher's many petitions. > > Everything I have heard about the Russians seems to indicate that their > system was perhaps one of the harshest. I believe they continued the 14-17 years > of military service for conscripts long after Austria hadn changed the law to > 3 years active and 9 years in the reserves (about `1868). > > My husband's grandfather was Lithuanian and the family were in an area then > ruled by Russia. His father raised horses. One day he sent the son to market > with a herd and told him that when he sold the horses to take the money and > just keep going to America. Five of his brothers eventually joined him. One > went back for some reason. He got caught and ended up in the Russsian army > for a number of years before he managed to get back to Pennsylvania.. > > Karen > > ==== GERMAN-BOHEMIAN Mailing List ==== > Forgotten how to UNSUBSCRIBE? > Visit http://www.rootsweb.com/~gbhs/mailinglist/mailinglist.html