Peasant Activists Reflect on World War I: War Poems by Ukrainian Peasant Soldiers from Habsburg Galicia

Abstract

This study examines poems sent by peasant soldiers of the Austrian army to the editorial board of Svoboda [Freedom], a Ukrainian Galician newspaper aimed at the common people, during World War I. It argues that soldiers’ poems can be seen as a continuation of the relationship established between peasant activists and popular newspapers. The article situates the poems in the traditions of peasant correspondence and “peasant literature” as they emerged in the nineteenth century.Soldiers used poetry to reflect on the unique and historically significant events in which they participated and to convey their personal experiences to the wider public and for posterity. The poems allow us to reconstruct the whole spectrum of soldiers’ concerns and expectations. Interestingly enough, not a single poem from this collection was published by the newspaper.The analysis of articulations of Ukrainian nationalism and imperial patriotism in soldiers’ poems shows that changes in the nationalist discourse, military developments, and the international situation influenced soldiers’ personal identity. At the same time this study argues that deeper existential motifs deriving from the war are also prominently present in these letters and subvert their patriotic and nationalist rhetoric.