Article:2.5.2

Ethno-Linguistic Composition of Austrian Bukovina

     Ethno-Linguistic Composition of Austrian Bukovina

Paul Robert Magocsi

       Topics
       Jews and Their SurroundingLanguagesDemography and Statistics

       Period
       1772-1914

       Region
       Bukovina

       NLI Code
       997013604471405171

Related Entries

• Article:2.5.1
• Article:2.1.1

Map

• The Ethnolinguistic Boundary in Austrian Bukovina

Ethno-Linuistic Composition of Austrian Bukovina

Paul Robert Magocsi

In 1774, Habsburg-ruled Austria acquired a territory that came to be known as Bukovina (German: Bukowina; Romanian: Bucovina; Ukrainian: Bukovyna)—the Land of the Beech Tree (Romanian: buc; Ukrainian: buk). This largely forest-covered land, which comprised 10,400 sq. kilometers, did not change in geographic size from the time of its acquisition in 1774 until the demise of Austria-Hungary at the end of 1918.

Bukovina was a sparsely settled borderland region, which from the late thirteenth century was controlled at various times by Hungary, Poland, the Ottoman Empire, and the independent principality of Moldavia. In 1512, Moldavia became a vassal state of the Ottomans, under whose suzerainty it remained until 1774. In that year Habsburg Austria, taking advantage of the weakened position of the Ottoman Empire following another of its frequent wars against the Russian Empire, annexed the region.

Bukovina had no distinct administrative status until the onset of Habsburg rule. In 1786, it was joined to the Austrian crownland province of Galicia as one of its circuit districts. Then, in 1849, Bukovina became a separate crownland/province formally designated the Duchy of Bukovina (German: Herzogstum Bukowina), with its administrative capital in the city of Chernivtsi (German: Czernowitz; Romanian: Cernăuţi; Yiddish: Tshernevits/ Tshernovits; Polish: Czernowiec). Aside from a brief period in 1859-1861, Bukovina remained a separate Austrian province until the end of Habsburg rule in 1918.

Bukovina was administratively divided into districts (German: Bezirk; Romanian: judeţe; Ukrainian: povit). After the establishment of this administrative framework in 1855, the number of districts varied: from 15, down to 8 (1868), and eventually to 11 (1905).

At the time of Austria’s acquisition, the population of Bukovina numbered only 75,000 (1775), but it rose substantially to 378,000 (1851) and then more than doubled to 795,000 (1910). The demographic increases were the result of in-migration from other Austrian provinces, especially among the Romanian and Jewish population. The numerically largest ethnic groups were (according to the 1910 census):

Ethnic group	Population	Percentage of total population
Ruthenians/Ukrainians	305,000	38.3%
Romanians	273,000	34.3%
Jews	103,000	12.9%

The Ruthenians/Ukrainians 2.5.2-Ethno-Bukovina-2 inhabited the more or less northwestern “half” of the province and Romanians the southeastern “half,” as indicated by the approximate ethnolinguistic boundary indicated on the accompanying map. Most of Bukovina south of the towns of Vyzhnytsia and Storozhynets and west of Rădăuţi and Gura Humorulai was comprised of the foothills and higher ranges of the Carpathian Mountains. The mountainous area was home mostly to shepherds and lumberjacks of Ruthenian/Ukrainian background who were known by the local name, Hutsul. 2.5.2-Ethno-Bukovina-3 The rest of the province consisted of relatively flat lands inhabited by small-scale subsistence peasant farmers of Ruthenian-Ukrainian ethnicity in villages north of the provincial capital Chernivtsi and of Romanian ethnicity in villages to the south. The other ethnolinguistic groups in Bukovina were the Austro-Germans, Poles, Hungarians, and smaller numbers of Gypsies/Roma (2,000), Armenians (1,000), and Czechs (1,000). 2.5.2-Ethno-Bukovina-4 2.5.2-Ethno-Bukovina-5

The Austro-Germans (73,000 in 1910) began to arrive in Bukovina already in the 1780s as part of the Habsburg government’s efforts to settle its most recently acquired sparsely inhabited land. Colonists from Upper and Lower Austria settled in rural areas of southeastern Bukovina near the towns of Siret, Rădăuţi|, and Campulung while those from Bohemia went to lands near Gura Humorulai. Aside from these agricultural colonists government officials and civil servants arrived in the course of the 19^th century and made up the majority of the 12,700 Austro-Germans recorded in 1910 as inhabitants of Bukovina’s provincial capital, Chernivtsi. 2.5.2-Ethno-Bukovina-6 2.5.2-Ethno-Bukovina-7

The Poles (34,000 in 1910) had a long though limited presence going back to the 14^th and 15^th centuries, when the Kingdom of Poland began its efforts to rule Bukovina. A new wave of Polish in-migration, most especially from Galicia, took place after Habsburg Austria acquired Bukovina in 1774. Subsequently, Polish newcomers settled in rural southeastern Bukovina, where in some farming villages—Polana Micului (Polish: Mikuli), Pleşu (Plesz), Soleneţul Nou (Nowy Sołoniec)—they formed the vast majority of the inhabitants. Poles were particularly well represented in Bukovina’s capital, Chernivtsi, where by 1910 they comprised the second largest number (14,900—17.1%) of inhabitants. 2.5.2-Ethno-Bukovina-8

Bukovina’s Hungarians (10,400 in 1910) were actually Szeklers/Szekély, a people of Finno-Ugric origins who were related to, but distinct from, the Magyars. During the last decades of the 19^th century, Szeklers left their homeland in Hungarian-ruled Transylvania in search of better economic conditions in Austrian Bukovina. 2.5.2-Ethno-Bukovina-9

In contrast to Galicia, where the two numerically largest ethnolinguistic groups were of differing religions (Roman Catholic Poles and Greek Catholic Ruthenians/Ukrainians), in Bukovina the largest groups were both Orthodox, of whom 275,000 were Ruthenians/Ukrainians and 269,000 Romanians. Among other faiths were: Roman Catholics (96,000—mostly Austro-Germans and Poles); Greek Catholics (24,000—recent Ruthenian/Ukrainian in-migrants from Galicia); Protestants (20,000 Lutherans—all Austro-Germans); and adherents of the Armenian Catholic (657) and Apostolic Orthodox (341) churches.⁴ Finally, there was a substantial community of Lipovans (3,200). 2.5.2-Ethno-Bukovina-10 They were ethnic Russians, known as Old Believers (starovery; staroobriadtsy), who had refused to accept the 17^th century liturgical reforms of the Russian Orthodox Church. As a result, they were banished to peripheral areas within or just beyond the Russian Empire. Already in the 1780s Austria’s authorities welcomed them to settle in Bukovina, where they were concentrated in the small village of Bila Krynytsia located just west of Siret. Bila Krynytsia (Romanian: Fântâna Albă) became the ecclesiastical seat (metropolinate) for all Old Believers not only in Austria-Hungary but for the entire Russian Empire.

At the outset of Austrian rule, the Jewish population of Bukovina was small and its growth was very slow, from 2,900 in 1776 to only 14,600 over half a century later in 1850. Then came remarkable changes. Aside from Austria’s removal of discriminatory restrictions against Jews, Bukovina experienced increased economic prosperity during the second half of the 19^th century. Those factors, combined with a substantial increase in the birth rate, in-migration from Galicia, and an influx of immigrants fleeing from pogroms in the neighboring Russian Empire, led to the growth of Bukovina’s Jewish population from 67,000 in 1880 to 103,000 in 1910.

The greatest concentration of Jews was in Chernivtsi (23,600), where they were numerically the largest of all ethnic groups, accounting for 27.8% of the city’s inhabitants. Even higher were the percentages of Jews in the province’s smaller towns, in particular Vyzhnytsia (Yiddish: Vizhnits—92%) and the present-day northern suburb of Chernivtsi—Sadhora (Sadagora—80%). Other Bukovinian towns, in each of which the percentage of Jews ranged from 25% to 49%, were, from north to south: Rohizna (Rohozna), Nyzhni Stanivtsi (Unter-Stanistie), Storozhynets (Storozhinets), Siret, Rădăuţi| (Radautz), Suceava (Shots), and Gura Humorulai (Gurahumora). 2.1.1-Demography-9

Select Bibliography

Kvitkovs’kyi, Denys, Teofil Bryndzana, and Arkadii Zhukovs’kyi, eds. Bukovyna: ïï mynule i suchasne. Paris, Philadelphia, and Detroit: Vyd-vo “Zelena Bukovyna,” 1956.

Dobrzhans’kyi, Oleksandr. Natsional’nyi rukh ukraïntsiv Bukovyny druhoï polovyny XIX-pochatku XX st. Chernivtsi: Zoloti Antavry, 1999.

Frunchak, Svetlana. Studying the Land, Contesting the Land: A Select Historiographic Guide to Modern Bukovina, 2 vols. The Carl Beck Papers in Russian and East European Studies, No. 2108. Pittsburgh, Pa.: Center for Russian and East European Studies, University of Pittsburgh, 2011.

Gold, Hugo. Geschichte der Juden in der Bukowina, 2 vols. Tel Aviv: Olamenu, 1958-1962.

Himka, John-Paul. Galicia and Bukovina: A Research Handbook About Western Ukraine, Late 19^th-20^th Centuries (Historic Sites Service, Occasional Paper, No. 20). Edmonton: Alberta Culture and Multiculturalism Historical Resources Division, 1990.

Iorga, Nicolae. Neamul românesc în Bucovina. Bucharest: Minerva , 1905.

Kaindl, Raimund Friedrich. Die Deutschen in Galizien und in der Bukowina. Frankfurt am Main: Heinrich Keller, 1916.

Kaindl, Raimund Friedrich. Geschichte der Bukowina, 3 vols. Chernivtsi: Czopp, 1888-98.

Nistor, Ion. Românii şi rutenii in Bukovina. Bucharest: Domino R., 1915.