Legal regulation of the labour migration of Rusins from Austria-Hungary to the Russian Empire

Abstract

Population migration constituted one of the principal interaction channels between the Russian and Habsburg empires. Until the mid-nineteenth century, this movement remained limited, but from the 1860s onward it expanded considerably and continued to grow until the outbreak of the First World War. The exchange was bidirectional, yet markedly asymmetrical: the eastward flow from Austria-Hungary to Russia substantially outweighed the westward flow. While these migrants represented a variety of nationalities from the Habsburg Monarchy, Slavs, including Rusins, Poles, Czechs, and Slovaks, formed the overwhelming majority. Among these, the most likely to relocate were Rusins from the borderlands of Austrian Galicia and Bukovina. Their primary destinations were the adjacent Russian provinces of Bessarabia, Volyn, and Podolia, as well as the Black Sea coast and the Kingdom of Poland. This movement was overwhelmingly socio-economic and almost exclusively labour-related. It took two main forms: temporary labour migration and permanent relocation for employment, with the latter ultimately amounting to emigration. The rapid expansion of this migratory flow was largely facilitated by the favourable legal environment that took shape in the 1860s and 1870s. This legal framework rested on three pillars: the provisions of Russo-Austrian bilateral treaties; the constitutional and statutory law of Austria-Hungary; and Russian immigration legislation, which grew markedly more liberal during the Great Reforms. Certain Russian legal acts directly regulated migration from Galicia and Bukovina, establishing a favourable regime specifically designed to attract agricultural labourers from these territories.