The social and political activity of Kyrylo Tryliovskyi in Eastern Galicia (end of the 19th – first half of the 20th century)

Abstract

This article examines the public and political activities of the famous Ukrainian lawyer, journalist and organizer of the “Sich” movement – K. Tryliovskyi. The process of formation of his worldview and formation of socio-political views is traced. M. Drahomanov had a significant influence on the formation of political and legal views of K. Tryliovskyi, through whom K. Tryliovskyi’s social and political activities are strongly connected with the Ukrainian Radical Party (URP). Also, in the middle of 1890, K. Tryliovskyi favourably regarded the views of Y. Bachynskyi, which the latter expressed in the book “Ukraina irredenta”, which went beyond the political thought of M. Drahomanov.

The article states that K. Tryliovsky had high hopes for the Ukrainian peasantry and tried to activate its function. Overcoming the ignorance, inertness, and national unconsciousness of the Ukrainian peasantry, he directed his activities to its formation as a political factor.

It is shown that K. Tryliovskyi was also engaged in cultural and educational and social and organizational work. He was one of the founders of reading room “Prosvita” in the village of Karlovui in Sniatyn Region (1884), and in 1896 – of the library society “Nauka” in Sniatyn. In 1904, he founded the branch of the “People’s Union” cooperative in Pokuttia and Hutsul region. In Yabluniv, he founded a credit company, a branch of “Silskyi hospodar” and a company for the sale of livestock in Hvizdka, which was headed by Stefan Trachuk.

It is asserted that the most significant achievement of the activist was the creation of “Sich” organizations that quickly acquired paramilitary features. Convinced that the Ukrainian people must actively fight for their national liberation, K. Tryliovskyi realized that this struggle can have not only peaceful parliamentary forms. In view of this, according to him, it is necessary for the Ukrainian people to “militarily organize themselves”.