The Idea of Galicia: History and Fantasy in Habsburg Political Culture (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780804783125)

Galicia was created at the first partition of Poland in 1772 and disappeared in 1918. Yet, in slightly over a century, the idea of Galicia came to have meaning for both the peoples who lived there and the Habsburg government that ruled it. Indeed, its memory continues to exercise a powerful fascination for those who live in its former territories and for the descendants of those who emigrated out of Galicia. The idea of Galicia was largely produced by the cultures of two cities, Lviv and Cracow. Making use of travelers' accounts, newspaper reports, and literary works, Wolff engages such figures as Emperor Joseph II, Metternich, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Ivan Franko, Stanislaw Wyspiański, Tadeusz "Boy" Żeleński, Isaac Babel, Martin Buber, and Bruno Schulz. He shows the exceptional importance of provincial space as a site for the evolution of cultural meanings and identities, and analyzes the province as the framework for non-national and multi-national understandings of empire in European history.

Author: Larry Wolff
ISBN-10: 0804783128
ISBN-13: 9780804783125
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Language: English
Published: 01/09/2012
Pages: 504
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.50lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 1.30d