Before the Event
Establishing a Ukrainian university
in Lviv as well as the Galician Diet's electoral reform were the two principal
questions that shaped the attitudes of the politically active young people who
joined either the Polish or Ukrainian national movements (such as the Moloda Ukraina). The representation of
Poles and Ukrainians in the Diet was clearly unfavorable for the latter. Ukrainians
have been organizing student meetings and rallies since the late 19th
century. There was also an attempt at a withdrawal (the so-called secesssion) of Ukrainians from the
University in 1901-1902; about 440 students took part in it. Even the Greek
Catholic Metropolitain Andrey Sheptytskyi supported it, and a special
"secession fund" was created in order to enable the students to
continue their studies in other universities of the empire. All these actions,
however, did not bring the desired results.
The 1905 revolution in Russia had a
significant impact on the young; also many students from the Russian Empire
settled in Lviv, fleeing persecution at home. Assasination
of the Governor Andrzej Potocki by Myroslav Sichynskyi in 1908 fueled the
situation further, creating an atmosphere of imminent disaster.
In 1906 and 1907, the Ukrainian
students had already organized similar rallies at the university. Those escalated
into mass fights; there were wounded and arrested. In 1907, the students placed
a Ukrainian national flag on the university roof and built barricades, while Pavlo
Krat, an emigrant from "Russian Ukraine," put on the rector's mantle
and knived portraits of former rectors.
The Event Localization and Course
As reported by the Lviv press, on
July 1, 1910, at 8.30 am, the Ukrainian students organized a rally in the third
hall of the University.
It was attended by about 300 people. The reason behind it was that the Austrian
government had not started the procedure of separating the Ukrainian
departments of Lviv University into a separate institution again because of a
blockade by Polish parliamentarians.
The Polish students, who were in the
minority on that day but hoped to prevent the rally from spreading out into a
procession on the city streets, started building barricades. Some Ukrainians
decided to interfere. A fight broke out, sticks and furniture were used and
shooting began from both sides. Police arrived at the scene 15 minutes after
the shooting started. As a result, one was killed (21-year-old third-year law
student Adam Kotsko) and 28 were injured on both sides.
Police arrested 128 Ukrainian
students, they were sentenced later to short-term imprisonments (from two weeks
to seven months).
City officials allowed an arbitrary
location for the burial of the killed student but scheduled the funeral for
Monday, July 4. The organization was handled by a specially created committee
headed by Volodymyr Bachynskyi; the director of the Narodna Lichnytsia ("People's Hospital"), Yevhen
Ozarkevych, was to be responsible for medical care in case of an attack by
Poles on the funeral procession. The funeral, which took place at the Lychakivskyi
cemetery on July 4, 1910, turned into a real national demonstration. It lasted
for six hours; numerous clergy, Parliament and Galician Diet deputies as well
as intellectuals participated in it. The event culminated with a performance of
the anthem "Shche ne vmerla." In addition, a special fund was set up
to raise money in Galicia and America for the construction of a tombstone.
Interpretation of the Event
The majority of the Polish press supported
the version that Adam Kotsko could have been killed by a bullet fired from the
Ukrainian side. They considered his death a tragic accident.
On the contrary, the Ukrainian
newspapers and political circles perceived it in radically different ways.
In the opinion of radicals, the
students' violent struggle for a university was fully justified. The Hromadskyi Holos explained the fact of
the students' possesion of firearms by their need for self-defence. Radicals
saw Kotsko's death a death for truth, and those injured or detained by the
police — as the best of the generation.
The clergy reacted with less pathos.
According to them, it was the Polish press who warmed up the youth to defend
the "Polish holdings." The demands of the Ukrainian students were
fair, and Kost Levytskyi and Metropolitain Andrey Sheptytskyi took real steps
to solve the problem. But the young did not listen to the elders' advice and did
not refrain from holding manifestations. According to the clerical periodical Ruslan, Polish youth sought to protect
Polish interests and this led to the murder. After the shooting, police
arrested exclusively Ukrainian students as suspects (127 out of 299), while
Polish students testified merely as witnesses.
The Russophiles traditionally blamed the
Ukrainophiles for the 1910 university events. Ukrainian youth allegedly put too
much hope in the leaders of the Ukrainophile movement, so they were confident
of victory. According to the Russophile Halychanyn
periodical, the Ukrainian leaders used the university case to fight the
"Russians" and relied on the government support. At the same time,
Polish students were encouraged by support from the university professors.
Therefore, the Russophiles blamed the Polish professors and the Ukrainophile politicians
for the student clashes. The Russophiles also noted that among the participants
in the 1910 university events were many students of theology who studied at the
theological seminary. After an intervention of the vice-rector, they were
released (including a student from whom police had confiscated a gun).
The National Democrats were in a
kind of "splits," balancing between loyalty and legality, on the one
hand, and the increasingly radical sentiments of their supporters, on the
other. Moreover, following years of struggle for a Ukrainian university and the
party's support of the "secession," it was necessary to save face.
In the end, Adam Kotsko became for
Ukrainians a hero and martyr, tortured for the national cause.
