LVOV, NOT LEMBERG.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLV, Issue 3978, 10 July 1915, Page 7

LVOV, NOT LEMBERG.

A CHANGED CITY.

THE RUSSIAN ISING PROCESS.

RELEASE FROM AUSTRIAN , DOMINATION.

Lemberg (or Lvov has been re captured by the Austrians. In the following article the “Daily Chronicle’s’’ Special Correspon- ' dent, Harold Williams, gives a pen picture of how tho city benefited by the occupation of the Russians —an occupation which, alas, has been all to brief, judged from the Allies’ point of view.

From Warsaw I travelled to Lvov by the roundabout route and ,tho slow stages necessitated by the war. Tiler was a long wait of 11 hours at Brest Litovsk, then a spiritless and crowded train crept through the drizzling darkness and dropped me, late in tho morning, at Zdolbeinov, in Volhynia. Here' another wait in the station buffet, amidst officers and. Polish landowners and Jewish traders. The Ivieff-Lemberg express had passed some time before. There was nothing for it but to take a semi-military semi-passenger train that drifted m during the afternoon and dawdled hour after hour, while fast trains sped by north and south, east and west, with passengers, yawning amid all the comforts of civilisation.

At Radziwillov there was good news. The express was coming. It arrived late, and was crowded, but, with 'other passengers, 1 hastily mounted it, and in 10 minutes we were at the former Austrian frontier station of Brody. Here we changed into a train of box-bke Austrian carriages, and then sped away into Galicia.

To the west lay a flat, swampy plain, splotched with snow; to the east the plain gradually broke up into ranges of low, wooded hills. Villages were rare, and the only conspicuous features in the villages were the squat wooden, unpainted Uniat churches, with bulbous cupolas.. The hills grew higher, the villages larger, a sharp, artificial looking cone rose suddenly to the south. We were nearing Lemberg; wo circled round the hills, catching glimpses of tho city, and, finally, drew up under the glass roof of a splendid station, one of the finest in Europe. Passing through a bustling crowd ol officers and soldiers, I made rny way out into Lemberg. THE POLISH ELEMENT.

But it is not Lemberg now. We shall have, I suppose, to drop the German name. There is nothing German left in tlie city, except a few inscriptions on barracks, a few signs on Jewish shops, and a few books in the shop windows. It is Lvov now, pure and°siinplo, the town, of Prinve Lev, or Leo, who, in the days when the TV -tars were ravaging the steppes, retired under the shelter of tho Carpathians, and here, on the watershed between the basins of the Dniester and the Vistula, founded a walled town amid the hills. The Tartars destroying the power of Kieff, separated the western Russians from their northern kinsmen. The successors of Leo maintained an unequal with Poles, Tartars, and Hungarians, and their principality, finally, came under Polish rule. German colonists flocked in, and made Lvov to all intents anti purposes a German town. Then, with tho growth of Polish civilisation, the German elements were Polanised, and Lvov, standing, as it did, on one or the main routes between East and West, became one of the centres ot Polish trade and culture. Yet the Russians were not wholly absorbed. The peasants of Eastern Galicia clung to their language and their Greek Orthodox faith. In Lvov an Orthodox Religious Guild maintained a stubborn conflict with Catholicism, which, with tho coming of the Jesuits, became aggressive. A compromise between the two Churclios was attained in the Union of Brest, as a result of which the Orthodox Russians under Polish rule consented to recognise the authority of the Pope, while retaining the Eastern rite.

When" Poland fell, both Poles and Russians, or Rutheniums, as they are hero called, suffered many things under Austrian rule, until, in 1867, Galicia was granted autonomy, and Lvov became the provincial capital. Since then Lvov has been predominantly a Polish town, though of late years a Rutlienian minority has been very vigorously assorting its claims. The question of the conflicts between tho Poles and the two chief Rutlienian parties, the Ukrainians and the Russophils, is interesting, 1 but is too thorny and complex to be discussed here in passing. A BENEVOLENT ARMY.

Now, what strikes the visitor first and foremost is that Lvov is n conquered city, and it is very difficult to get at tlie real Lvov, because of the transformation now in progress. The main importance ol the city, for - too moment, is( as a military centre for the great operations that are being carried out to the south and west. Everything is subordinated to the purposes of war. The hotels aud cafes are full of officers, the streets and shops crowded with officers and soldiers. And, with all that, Lvov wears an aspect of cheerfulnes. The soldiers perpetually sing as they march along. The officers wear a look, of strength, courage, and determination. There is no noise, no shouting, no coarseness, no violence. I have been struck by tho general benevolence and goodhumor, and by the total absence ot swagger that prevails among the Russians here. They are strong, they are firm, but they arc neither supercilious nor self-assertive. They are very willing to live and let live, so long as their work is not interfered with. Then, when one penetrates below this military upper stratum, what does one find? What kind of town i» Lvov now r ? It is suffering, of course, suffering, perhaps, more keenly than most, because of the sudden change in habits and points of view, because of the sudden break with old associations. Many of ..the inhabitants fled when the Russians approached. The inajority of the Ukrainian!leaders, who had actively identified themselves with the Austrian cause, made their escape at the critical moment.. ' Monsignor Szepticld, the Uniat Metropolitan, and on© of the chief promoters of the Ukrainian movement, remained, and up to the fast urged his followers to support the Hapsburgs. After the entry of the Russians he was banished to Kursk.. A number of well-to-do Poles

fled, ~und''iiearhy all tluv wealthy Jews.. The Russophil. Rutheniums stayed, to. welcome the conquerors, and. the poorer classes remained perforce. The Mayor,. ML Rutowsdd, and his assistants,. stood! at. their post, and have done 1 great service in mitigating tho .sufferings off the transition period.

THE. RUSSIANUSING PROCESS. There has been no violence. Not a shell’ has burst in the city, not a building has been destroyed, not a child injured by aeroplane bombs. Even the water supply has not failed for a day. Prices have naturally risen, owing to the difficulties of communication, but trade with Russia is rapidly growing, and Russian shops are springing up on every hand. But there is keen moral suffering, the sulfering of long-protracted silspense, of unending: anxiety for. tlie husbands, sons, and brothers- who have gone to the war, and from.whom no nows ever comes across the impenetrable barrier. There is not the slightest doubt as to where the sympathies of these, picturesque' and primitive Rutlienian peasants lie. They call themselves Russians, their language is the soft melodious spec.}) of the peasants ol Southern Russia, and they feel themselves kinsmen of tlie Russian, soldiers. In appearance they are not modern Russians, and 1 1 should say that, they represent a pure Slavonic, type. ANCIENT TRADITIONS REVIVED. The presence of these peasants m the city side by side with the conquering Russian troops makes a curious impression. It is as if the old Russian Lvov, with its half-legendary princes, its churches under the hill and its Monastery of the Gross, where the first Russian printer, Ivan Fedorov, printed the gospels, and when tlie Lvov Guild fought the Jesuits, had suddenly come to life again, as though the new Russia were reclaiming a long-lost and ancient national tradition. I. wonder what is to become oi the modern superstructure of Lvov, ol those innumerable suggestions of Vienna, and of the marks of Polish dominance that everywhere meet tho eye, for the prevailing language is Polish, the streets are named' after Polish kings and heroes, after famous dates in Polish history, like the Third of May, the date of the Liberal Polish Constitution, that came too late, just on the eve of the final partition.

My impression is that, on the whole the Roll's here are as sympathetic to tin. Russians as the Jews are hostile. Naturally during this transition pciiod the Poles are living in a turmoil of mixed feelings. But, in any case, Austin lias failed them, and tlioir regrets for past privileges are modified by the new hope which Russia holds out of a. reunited Poland. Many ol the Poles are adapting themselves to the new situation. They are learning Russian as fast as they can, and the windows of the bookshops are fun of Russian grammars and phrase books. Lvov will become once more a Russian town. Bill- it will be one of the most curious of the after-war problems to see how the transition is effected.