In May 1907, Lviv celebrated 550th anniversary of the shoemakers’ guild. In fact, any anniversary "older" than the period of Galicia being under the rule of the Habsburgs is an example of the use of history in national politics, when some relic from the times of, for example, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was interpreted as valuable heritage of previous generations and as an example to follow. In things like this, Poland was allegedly ”revived” while the organizers remained apparently loyal citizens of the Habsburg empire. It should be remembered that during the period of autonomy, when "guilds" were mentioned, this concept was far from its original pre-modern meaning. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, guilds in Lviv were rather professional clubs, designed to express the interests of a certain group, a kind of patriotic societies that continued to use the name "guild".
At the turn of the 20th century, the economic relations of the time added additional patriotism to the guilds. The guilds always supported local entrepreneurs; the City Council, which largely consisted of these entrepreneurs, did the same. Thus, patriotism based on the idealization of the "ancient Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth" was successfully combined with pragmatic business patriotism.
The course of events
On Sunday, May 12, 1907, at 9 a.m., a procession left from the City Hall courtyard to the Latin Cathedral. The Harmonia choir was followed by the "shoemakers" themselves, representatives of other guilds and corporations, i.e. members of voluntary associations uniting representatives of various professions and businesses. Also, there were "delegates from the province", who arrived to take part in the tomorrow’s assembly. Archbishop Józef Bilczewski did not celebrate the divine service himself; however, he gave a speech before the consecration of the guild standard.
The consecration of the guild standard and the ritual of "hammering a nail" were the main attractions of the festivity (this ritual is still practiced in Poland today). The first nail was hammered into the staff by Archbishop Bilczewski, followed by the President of Lviv, Stanisław Ciuchciński, members of the City Council, representatives of the governor's office, patriotic societies, organizations, magazine editors, and others. In general, the press reported "many gold and silver nails hammered into the staff."
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- Юзеф Більчевський / Józef Bilczewski
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- Станіслав Цюхцінський / Stanisław Ciuchciński
The standard of the cobblers' guild looked like this: on one side was the image of the Częstochowa Mother of God, the other side featured St. Crispianus and St. Crispianinus, the Catholic patrons of shoemakers. Stripes "in the national Polish and Ruthenian colours" hung from the standard. After all, the shoemakers’ guild was an exception to the rules, as historically there was parity between the Poles and Ruthenians within this guild (usually craftsmen of the Roman Catholic faith were accepted into Lviv guilds). However, the icon of the Częstochowa Mother of God still clearly demonstrated who held the primacy there, as well as the fact that out of all the speakers during the celebration, only one used the Ukrainian language, although this was considered a confirmation of the shoemakers' guild’s tolerance in particular and of the "old order" in general.
From the Latin Cathedral, accompanied by music, the participants carried the standard to the City Hall to ceremoniously present it to the president of the city. As usual, President Ciuchciński talked about patriotism and the province’s interests (by the way, there was also a purely economic interest here, since it all had to do with competition and sales markets), the shoemakers thanked the City Council for organizing the festivity, the choir performed a special cantata (composing cantatas for various events had also become a tradition). In the evening, a banquet was held in the hall of the craftsmen association Gwiazda (Star).
On the following day, Monday, May 13, the assembly of shoemakers of the city of Lviv "and the province" took place. There were about a hundred participants who discussed issues of vocational education, insurance, pensions and supply of goods for the army. Since the assembly was held on the eve of the election, speeches of the candidates for State Council deputies were also listened to. The president of Lviv also spoke, congratulatory telegrams were read.
Interpretation and symbols
Compared to St. Anna's Day, which was a pure policy of memory, this anniversary also contained a more pragmatic content like celebration, discussion, pre-election campaigning. In addition to the statement about "550 years in the life of the Polish bourgeoisie", which was reproduced by the Polish patriotic press, the Polish democratic press and the Ukrainian newspaper Dilo (which preferred to "ignore" the anniversary and all the ideology associated with it) raised the issue of the position in which ordinary workers found themselves, trade union organization, government orders, training and so on.
One way or another, the main goal of the anniversary, i.e. connecting existing organizations with the structures of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, was achieved. When anniversaries of this kind were organized by the City Council, it was important to show that history had not started from Lviv's accession to Austria. In this regard, the shoemakers' guild illustrated the "glorious past of the Lviv bourgeoisie." Moreover, the assembly and meetings held on the occasion of the anniversary demonstrated the successes of local self-government here and now. That is, in this case, both "pre-Austrian" history and examples of the "vital force of the people" under foreign rule were used.
The example of the shoemaker's guild demonstrates how the term "guild" and the entire centuries-long history associated with it was used in politics in the early 20th century. Taking into account the absence of "guilds" in the original meaning of this word, the guilds of the period of autonomy were societies uniting representatives of a certain profession. The right to speak on behalf of this community was not legally defined, and belonging to this community, as in pre-modern times, was not mandatory.
Accordingly, symbols and ideology became important. The guilds traced their history back to the days of the independence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, so it was from there that they declared the "preservation" of all those virtues that had been characteristic of the "burghers of the royal city of Lviv", first of all loyalty to the Motherland, which, depending on the situation, could include Austria, Galicia, and Poland.
A set of symbols and rituals made the so-called guilds important subjects, that is, it allowed to speak more confidently on behalf of the "profession." However, it was not very different from the background of other societies in terms of interests, because the rituals were roughly the same for everyone. These rituals were consecration of flags, divine service, assemblies in the presence of the same local politicians, clergy, colleagues from other organizations, youth. The ideological content: Catholicism and patriotism, was also identical.
