Galician Universities and the Habsburg Monarchy: nationalization of education and internationalization of science?

The article sketches the structural and ideological changes taking place in the late XIXth century Galicia. Using the example of universities in Cracow and Lviv it asks how the language changes taking place between 1848 and 1918 can be understood from the background of the Empire-nationalism nexus and Habsburg political changes. In the first part the article challenges the predominant narrative about Germanization of Galician universities in the 1850s. After the liberal direct post-1848 period, the universities’ autonomy was limited and the government imposed loyal Polish scholars as university functionaries: Studiendirektor (i.e. supervisor of the university) and deans. Basing this research on archival documents, including the demand of the Academic Senate to introduce German as language of instruction, I claim that the practical issues outweigh here national zeal. The “Germanization” of the university cannot thus be seen as an political anti-national act, but as a means to improve scholarship in the imperial situation – especially since scholars, who demanded German as language of instruction, were not condemned after the university regained autonomy. The period of autonomous universities with the gradual spread of Polish as language of instruction, did not lead paradoxically to the previously feared national exclusionism.While language remained an important value for a career – limiting not only interacademic exchange in the Monarchy but also inhibiting several careers of Galician scholars – scholars were increasingly interested in publishing in languages other than Polish and scholarly exchange with other universities was intensified. Concentration on language issues was especially problematic in Polish-Ruthenian Eastern Galicia. The faculty of Lviv University – with Polish as language of instruction – was trying to limit Ruthenian influence. Especially after Mykhailo Hrushevs’kyi was appointed professor of history, who in short time evolved to be a fierce critic of Polish domination, the conflict intensified, taking also violent form. Increasingly anti-Ruthenian stance of Polish professors and students, went hand in hand with Ruthenian demands, which included especially Ruthenian professorship of the nation-building disciplines (history, language and literature studies, anthropology, archeology). In comparison to the situation in 1853 in Cracow, it was the culture which the antagonists addressed, with scholarship regarded as an integral part of the national cultural development. In the last part the idea of “epistemic nationalism” is briefly explicated. With references to several disciplines, I show how pronounced interest in the nation can coincide with scholarly research, not only in human sciences but also in natural science and anthropology