Abstract

Between the 1870s and 1914, tens of thousands of peasants left Austria-Hungary’s easternmost provinces of Galicia and Bukovina, heading for the Americas. This article places this episode in the context of contemporary global labour migrations while also emphasizing the distinctive characteristics of this mass exodus. Unlike most migrants around the world, Galicians and Bukovinans emigrated overseas rather than internally; their destinations included the United States, Canada, Brazil and Argentina. By moving, the migrants transformed from objects of Austria’s ‘civilizing mission’ in its eastern borderlands into vehicles for multiple, competing imperial expansion and civilizing projects overseas. From an obstacle to Austria’s ambitions to modernize its eastern periphery, the peasant migrants turned into a disputed resource, simultaneously expanding and threatening Austria’s sovereignty. Paradoxically, because they were less economically developed and more peripheral than their counterparts elsewhere in the empire, Galicians and Bukovinans were more sensitive to shifts in global labour markets than to the policies imposed by their own state officials.

中文翻译：

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东欧大规模移民时代的文明前沿*

摘要

1870 年代至 1914 年间，数以万计的农民离开奥匈帝国最东部的加利西亚和布科维纳省，前往美洲。本文将这一事件置于当代全球劳动力迁移的背景下，同时也强调了这种大规模外流的独特特征。与世界各地的大多数移民不同，加利西亚人和布科维纳人移居海外而不是国内。他们的目的地包括美国、加拿大、巴西和阿根廷。通过移动，移民从奥地利东部边境地区的“文明使命”对象转变为多个竞争性帝国扩张和海外文明项目的工具。从阻碍奥地利实现其东部周边地区现代化的雄心壮志，农民移民变成了一种有争议的资源，同时扩大和威胁奥地利的主权。矛盾的是，与帝国其他地方的同行相比，加利西亚人和布科维纳人对全球劳动力市场的变化更敏感，而不是他们自己的国家官员实施的政策，因为他们的经济不发达，也更边缘化。