Authors

Discussion

The Hutsul Region as an ethnographic space was part of a tri-state borderland in the interwar period, located in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania. This specific location triggered the particular attention of the ‘nationalizing states’ to securitize the region and transform Hutsuls – which throughout World War I have acted as representatives of Ukrainian military and state-building projects – into loyal citizens. To counteract the attempts of these ‘nationalizing states’ and ‘defend’ the Ukrainian belonging of Hutsuls, Ukrainian scholars and activists launched several museal, ethnographic and photographic projects. These were transregionally connecting the Western Ukrainian lands, local activists in the Hutsul region, as well as the Ukrainian diaspora. They attempted to preserve the image of the Hutsul region as an ethnically connected space, and Hutsuls as ‘tribe’ of the Ukrainian nation, which was supposed to be particularly ‘original’, culturally fascinating and biologically ‘ancient’.

This talk examines the transregional connections of the Ukrainian movement and common approaches across the administrative borders to establish and defend a distinct vision of the Hutsul region. As I will argue based on this example, Ukrainian scholars and activists co-produced their understanding of the Western Ukrainian borderlands and a distinct Western Ukrainian knowledge culture. Thereby, I will also shed light on the specific challenges of the nationalizing Czechoslovakia, Poland and Romania as 'small Empires', which were challenged with the Habsburg heritage in the realm of nationality politics and ethnographic discourse.