Polish Nobility in Austria
The character of the Polish nobles in Austria is of a different type from that of the Teutonic nobility. Not less unpractical, and often as reckless in the administration of their affairs, they resemble more nearly the old French noblesse of the Faubourg St. Germain. Like them, they have learned nothing by their misfortunes, and they have forgotten nothing. The world has moved on since the partition of their ancient kingdom, but they have remained ever since stranded, as it were, upon the shoals of the eighteenth century. For the Polish nobles,whether in Russia or in Austria, it often seems as if the most important affairs in life sink into insignificance in comparison with the loss of their country's independence. The feeling is not due to patriotism, however, in the real meaning of the word, for rarely will a Polish noble do anything of a practical character to raise the status of the Polish or Ruthenian peasantry upon his estate. It is one of personal humiliation alone at the loss of the power and privileges their forefathers enjoyed, and so grievously misused, in by-gone times.
By 1875 the 9,000 Poles living in the Bukowina, belonged, for the most part, to the Schlachta, or Polish nobility without property, who, by the liberum veto exercised by every member in the Diet, contributed so much to the downfall of Poland. The Schlachta formed the centre of PoIonisation, the expansive element, whether for territorial or for national conquest. Greedy of gain, these Schlachta (the collective name for the Schlachzizes) fell upon every newly acquired province, even beyond the Polish frontiers, took violent possession of the lands of the inhabitants, and tried toPolonise the non-Poles, and subject the Greek Catholics to the Pope. A number of Schlachzizes had found their way to the Bukowina as far back as when the Daco-Roman princes held fiefs under the Polish kings. Since the partition of Poland the Schlachzizes distinguished themselves as place-hunters ; the so-called German officials in Austria being mostly Poles and Czecks. The Poles were the zealous servants of absolutism, and even now in Hungary the former officials of the absolute government are called 'Galicians.'
When in 1846, at the instigation of the Jesuits, the Polish nobility revolted against Austria, the Masures (Polish peasants) immediately took up arms against their seigneurs, and killed between 1,600 and 1,700 of them, while the Ruthenians in East Galicia could only be restrained by the untiring exertions of the Austrian officials from exterminating all the nobles. In every Polish and Ruthenian village of Galicia and the Bnkowina there is a large black cross erected in remembrance of the emancipation of the serfs, which took place there sooner than in other parts of the empire, mainly through the efforts of Count Stadion,
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