Politics of Cultural Retreat
Subtitle: Imperial Bureaucracy in Austrian Galicia, 1772-1867
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2015
Language: eng
Number of pages: 328
ISBN-13: 9780300207279
Subjects: Bureaucracy; Poland, politics and government; Ukraine, politics and government; Austria, politics and government
Description: This study recounts how an international cohort of Austrian officials administered Galicia from the time of its annexation from Poland-Lithuania in 1772 up until the beginning of Polish autonomy in 1867. The author examines the interactions between these German-speaking bureaucrats and the local Galician population of Poles, Ukrainians, and Jews, and reveals how Enlightenment-inspired theories of modernity and supra-national uniformity essentially backfired, ultimately bringing about results that starkly contradicted the original intentions and ideals of the imperial governors.