Turning the pages back... December 18, 1817 (12/14/97)

Turning the pages back...

December 18, 1817

One hundred eighty years ago, Adolf Dobriansky was born in Rudlov, a town in the Presov region in Slovakia. A mining engineer by training, in 1840, Dobriansky accepted a government post in one of the Habsburg empire's administrative centers, Pest. An active defender of non-Magyar people's rights, in the great year of ferment and revolution, 1848, he participated in the Slavic Congress in Prague and in the Supreme Ruthenian Council (which he persuaded to adopt unity with Transcarpathia as part of its platform) - the first legal Ukrainian political organization in modern times.

He prepared a plan for a separate, self-governing region consisting of all Ukrainian territories within the Austrian empire, and in the following year he travelled to Vienna to present it personally to Emperor Franz Josef. It was approved, and on October 19, 1849, it was accepted as official policy, with Dobriansky appointed as vice-regent of the Ruthenian district in Hungary.Due to Dobriansky's Russophilism (still acceptable to Vienna at that point), he was also appointed civil commissioner with the Russian army, which arrived to help the Austrian imperial forces crush the Hungarian uprising.

Until 1860 he served as vice-regent in Uzhhorod, Kosice and Buda, in a period of heady cultural revival for Transcarpathia. Unfortunately for him, 1860 marked the ascendancy of Magyars in government, and they did not forget his actions "in defense of the realm." Although Dobriansky lost his position as vice-regent, he continued to defend the rights of Transcarpathia's Ukrainians and was elected to three terms in the Hungarian Diet. Because of his pursuit of cultural ties with Russia, his proposals were consistently turned down by the Magyar majority. He also served as president of St. John's Society in Presov (1862-1876) and the Society of St. Basil in Uzhhorod (1867-1871), and edited the Russophile newspaper Svet.

As his political influence declined, Dobriansky moved to an estate in the Presov region, but remained active. In 1881 he moved to Lviv, just as his daughter Olha (who married the lawyer Emmanuil Hrabar) was indicted in an anti-Russophile trial. They were both charged with treason. They were both acquitted, but went in separate directions. She emigrated to Russia, while Dobriansky moved to Warsaw and eventually settled in Innsbruck, Austria, where he died on March 13, 1901.

Sources: "Dobriansky, Adolf," "Hrabar, Olha," Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Vols. 1, 2 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984, 1988); Paul R. Magocsi, "A History of Ukraine" (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996).

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