Vol. XXXIV · 2003

Daniel Unowsky

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For almost three weeks the scenes repeated themselves: cannon fire, chiming church bells, massive crowds, peasant bands on horseback, school girls in white dresses laying flowers along the emperor's path, torchlight parades, mountaintop bonfires, city illuminations, serenades, court dinners, aristocratic balls, early morning prayers at cathedrals and synagogues. During Francis Joseph's 1880 inspection tour of Galicia, today divided between Poland and Ukraine, millions of Galicians either saw the emperor, talked with someone who did, read about his visit in the paper, or heard about it at a village reading hall or gathering, or from the local priest or rabbi. Francis Joseph, liberator of the peasants, protector of the Ruthenians, 3 patron of the Jews, granter of national rights to the Poles, drew the attention of Galicia's population to his presence.