«TALERHOF TRAGEDY» IN THE INTELLECTUAL THOUGHT OF RUSSOPHILES INTHE INTERWAR PERIOD

Abstract

One of the complex pages of the history of Galicia has been revealed – the Thalerhof tragedy, when a significant number of Ukrainians, mainly Russophiles and their sympathizers, were arrested by the Austrian authorities and sent to camps (Thalerhof, Terezin, etc.). It is shown that although among the prisoners there were Ukrainophiles and representatives of other folks such as Poles, Jews, Germans, etc., the Russophiles interpreted this tragedy exclusively as «theirs», developing the «Thalerhof» cult in the interwar period in order to restore and strengthen their political strength (it is no coincidence that the founding of the Thalerhof Committee in 1923, which had the task of collecting relevant documentary materials, and the «Russian People's Organization» coincided in time). The efforts of these figures to create a cult of the «Russian» people as a «martyr» for the «Russian» idea and the images of the enemies, the perpetrators of the tragedy - the Austrian government and Ukrainophiles, are highlighted, ignoring the fact that it was the activities of representatives of the Russophile movement on the eve of the First World War that caused the arrests of their fellow party members and party supporters. It is traced how Russophiles, whose intellectual activity usually covered various fields (history, journalism, literature, art, etc.), used their own experiences and memories of the war in their own works and how their political and ideological involvement of Russophiles did not allow them to fully focus on scientific and literary studios. It was established that thanks to the efforts of the Thalerhof committee, it was possible to accumulate documentary evidence of eyewitnesses and participants of this event (personal sources: memories, diaries, drawings, artifacts, government orders, etc.). For the first time, an analysis of the «Inquiry letters» collected by the committee was carried out, which made it possible to find out the reasons for arrests, national identification, conditions of camp life of internees. It was concluded that the peasantry never mastered the «Russian» language, which the leaders of the Russophiles hoped for, and that the prisoners of the camps were not only Galician-Ukrainians of a Russophile orientation. It has been proven that despite the indicated involvement in this issue, collected documents, artistic and journalistic works and museum exhibits are an important source for reading this page of Ukrainian history. Keywords: Russophilism, Thalerhof, The Great War, Russian People's Organization, Thalerhof committee.