Political and parliamentary activity of the Ukrainian advocates from the Stanislaviv region (end of the XIX – beginning of the XX century)

Abstract

The political arena of the national life on the Western-Ukrainian territory, which was a constituent part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, was marked by the appearance a new social-professional group, i.e. by Ukrainian (Rusky) advocates at the end of the XIX – the beginning of the XX centuries. They became the
forerunners of the Ukrainian political movement in the Eastern Galicia region, their role and influence on the development of social processes got the name of “advocates’ epoch” in the following scientific and memoirs literature of the Ukrainian national revival. Advocates appeared as leaders of the social thought, voices of national Ukrainian urges, organizers of different political and public institutions, and the latter ones allowed Ukrainians from the Galicia region to speed up the process of national-political identification within the range of existing Austrian laws.

The article dwells on the political activity of advocates of the Stanislaviv region (modern Ivano-Frankivsk region), their role in the development and building-up of political parties, running political electoral campaigns, preforming representative functions in the elected institutions of the Austrian state. At the break of the centuries there worked more than 30 Ukrainian advocates in the Stanislaviv region, the majority of them took active part in the social-political life of Galychyna, besides performing their professional duties. The following lawyers S.Danylovych, T.Okunevsky, K.Tryliovsky were among the cofounders of the RURP (Rusky and Ukrainian Radical Party), K.Levytsky, A.Mogylnytsky, T.Okunevsky, V.Okhrymovych started UNDP (Ukrainian National Democratic Party), radical activists L.Bachynsky, M.Lagodynsky, I.Makukh were the leaders of the Ukrainian Radical Party institutions. T.Okunevsky, who was the advocate from Gorodenka, became the first Ukrainian advocate to perform the role of a deputy of the regional assembly of Galicia and Lodomeria and the Austrian parliament. More than dozen of Stanislaviv lawyers got their deputy mandates at the beginning of the XX century. Lawyers became leaders of the  national political life, heads of the local parties almost in each amd every region.
K.Tryliovsky, an advocate from Kolomyia, was the founder of the sport-patriotic organization “Sich”, which became the organizational form of the spread of ideas of the radical party among Ukrainian peasants. Consequently it increased national and political conscience of the latters, it became the basis of the paramilitary movement of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen. It was the Sich riflemen movement which formed the basis of the future national army, which included lots of advocates and lawyers from the Stanislaviv region.